What do you call it when someone tries to convince someone to write about something?
I call it a “pitch.” In the news environments I’ve worked in, we call explaining to a news outlet, media organization, whatever, why they might be interested in covering something “pitching.” It doesn’t matter if someone from a news organization contacts us first to inquire whether anything of note is happening. Any time we try to sell a story idea, it’s a pitch. I pitch things to the editorial staff of our newspaper occasionally. I don’t think of it as a term with negative or positive connotations. It’s just a verb describing the action. I talked to a journalist about the term and he agreed with my usage of it.
Some of my readers took issue with me refering to the Wikipedian asking me to write about Wikipedia’s fundraiser on my blog as a “pitch,” claiming it’s a negative term and put the fundraising effort in a negative light. One reader asked me to delete the post. I rewrote the first line of that post, as some of you who may have seen my feed might have noticed, to eliminate the word “pitch.”
Now I’m horribly curious about the use of the word “pitch” because I don’t understand why these readers found it so offensive. When I asked for an explanation, they could only offer that it’s a negative word but did not offer any evidence convincing me that most of this blog’s readers would interpret it in the same negative way they did.
What do you think about the term “pitch?” Have I been using it incorrectly? If I am wrong, I would sincerely like to know. Please comment or flame me below or on your own blog.
It was certainly not my intention to put Wikipedia’s fundraising efforts in a bad light or offend anyone with that post.
September 24th, 2004 at 5:39 pm
To me pitch means sort of what you said. I think the way people might be taking it negatively is that it’s often used in a sort of “let me sell this to you” way. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but some people think that sullying an exchange of information by bringing commerce into it is somehow wrong.
September 24th, 2004 at 6:46 pm
The definition from yourdictionary.com says: “To attempt to promote or sell, often in a high-pressure manner.” I think some people see it as a “pushy salesperson” type of way. But I use it just as you said, like as in trying to sell an idea.
Honestly, when I read the post I didn’t even think twice about the Wikipedia fundraising, I just though it was awesome that a community raised money to keep the school librarian.
September 25th, 2004 at 5:32 pm
Had to through in my two cents on this one. In public relations, the word pitch is used frequently, just as you describe. I don’t think it is a negative term at all and is certainly appropriate for you to use as you did.
September 30th, 2004 at 2:42 am
I used to be in IR and our media execs used the term pitch often. It’s also used quite a bit in Hollywood. :>
However, the term may well have a more negative connotation among the general public — an aggressive, cynical appeal in order to benefit the seller/pitcher, not the buyer/listener.
Now for a theory completely out of left field: there are still a lot of people who are drawn to the Internet for its less commercial/non-commercial possibilities (like in the good old days of Usenet … *sob*!). Wikis, which are community-based and bypasses traditional (i.e. commercial) gatekeepers to share and organize information, would have great appeal to such people. But using a term with the ‘taint’ of commercialism might strike some of the same people as denigrating the very thing that they love about Wikis.
Just a thought. I used to work in non-NPR public radio. People get really passionate about their stations/forums/etc.