Hey there,

Welcome to the revamped Synapse newsletter, The Loop – the new home for the latest journo requests on Synapse, media relations advice from the experts, upcoming story hooks, and the stuff everyone’s reading (or about to be).

And remember, if you’re too busy reading this to get your pitch up, send it to us at pitches@synapse.media instead and we’ll automatically put it into our marketplace for you. 

🔥 MUST READ

…advice we’ve spotted from the experts

“Taking on an exclusive isn’t just another thing on a journalist’s to-do list if you’re a freelancer – it’s our livelihood.” Journalist Rosie Taylor explains the benefits of pitching to freelancers, and shares some top advice.

👉 Read her LinkedIn post here

🔎 JOURNO REQUESTS

here’s what journalists are currently looking for on Synapse:

Or head to the marketplace now to take a look for yourself. 

🗞️ PR-Y STUFF

Here’s what we’ve read this week so that you don’t have to:

  • Tortoise relaunches The Observer – with a promise to lean into traditions of liberalism and editorial independence. read more
  • Reach announces journalism award winners– so if you’re speaking to any of these people this week, remember to say congrats! read more
  • UK authors to get paid – a new collective licence announced that covers AI training use. read more
  • Newsquest titles dominate user engagement with news sites – the latest March figures show Manchester Evening News also boasted a rise in engagement. read more

📆 NEXT MONTH’S HOOKS

…just because we don’t want you missing out on stuff.

  • 6 May: Met Gala – A PR goldmine for fashion, culture, and chaos. In 2024, Vogue saw 74 million views on their Met content.
  • 8 May: Bank of England interest rate decision 
  • 8 May: Halifax House Price Index – Monthly barometer on the UK housing market.
  • 13 May: Cannes Film Festival opens  
  • 17 May: FA Cup Final (Men’s) – Over 8M people watched last year’s final, meaning media will be trying to produce A LOT of content 
  • 17 May: Eurovision Song Contest
  • 18 May: FA Cup Final (Women’s) – BBC One reached a peak of 1.4 million viewers in 2024
  • 21 May: Chelsea Flower Show – A press favourite for lifestyle, gardening, and royals.
  • 25 May: French Open begins – The MailOnline wrote 257 articles on tennis in Q2 2024 alone.
  • 25 May: Monaco Grand Prix -2022 race has reached over 2.2M viewers on SkySports.

✨ BEFORE YOU GO

Got a story, expert, or press release but short on time?
Send it over to us at pitches@synapse.media and we’ll get it in our marketplace for you. 

Have you ever thought about what would make your pitching game even better? What are journalists really looking for? Here at Synapse, we’ve got the insider scoop. The team, including Jon Birchall, Jess Battison, Lucy Devine, Poppy Bilderbeck, and Rhiannon Ingle at LADbible, shared what catches their attention.

What Kind of Pitches Are You and the Team Looking For?

“Anything reflective of our current sites, but particularly human interest stories that aren’t already out there. We aren’t typically interested in stories that have been picked up by other media outlets before us.”

For PRs Wondering When to Pitch, Are There Any Timings, Deadlines, or Meetings They Should Be Aware Of?

“We have our Forward Planning meetings every other Thursday, so anything with a longer lead time should be sent on Wednesday PM/Thursday AM. Everything else can be picked up throughout the week.”

What Should PRs Include in Their 140-Character Headline to Grab Your Attention?

“A headline and a suggested Facebook sell, as per our current page style.”

Well, let’s break it down.

Pitch original, untold stories, not what’s already out there. Also, consider LADbible’s Forward Planning meetings when sending pitches and include a Facebook sell for maximum impact.

For the LADbible team, originality and exclusivity are everything. They’re not interested in stories that have already been picked up by other media outlets, so if you have something fresh and compelling, Synapse can help you get it in front of the right people.

Make your pitches stand out by providing engaging stories and tailoring your content to journalists’ needs.

Want to make sure your stories are seen by LADbible’s team? Join Synapse and start pitching smarter.

Finding relevant journalists to pitch to is no easy task. And knowing how to find the right journalists can be the difference between landing coverage (or not!)

Media relations is hard, but we have your back. Here are some of our top tips to help you connect with relevant journalists and turn that story into a headline.


Research Recent Work

Before doing anything else, you might want to research the journalist’s work and everything they have covered in the few months. This is helpful in figuring our their interests and beats.

However, if last week they wrote a story that’s very similar to the one you’re pitching, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be interested in your piece. In fact, chances are that if they literally just wrote a story on it, they probably aren’t looking to write another.

Instead focus on the broad areas they are covering, see what sorts of angles they focus on, do they always include statistics or case studies.

Engage on Social Media

Journalists are people too. And often their people with opinions that they’re sharing on social. Take a look at what their engaging in, what work of their own they’re sharing and see if they’re directly asking for specific story types.

While scrolling through all of this can take time, platforms like LinkedIn, Bluesky and X are still a great way to see what journalists are looking for here and now.

Try a media database

There are lots of media databases out there and most will have some sort of research functionality and list building tool within them. They can be a really easy way to give yourself a headstart in finding targets.

However, these databases can become out of date quite quickly with journalists changing jobs, beats and entire team structres altering. They also often define a journalist sector based on historic data and can be quite broad meaning that ‘lifestyle’ journalist you might be contacting for your garden story, has actually only been writing about food for two years.

Use Synapse

Synapse brings journalists into the research process in two ways. Firstly, journalists themselves maintain their profile information meaning it’s much more up-to-date. Secondly, the platform tracks activity. Often PRs are expected to know what a journalist wants that week, without any real method of finding this out.

Synapse looks at what journalists are searching for within the platform, the pitches they’re accepting, pitches their rejecting and more. All of this then feeds the ‘matching score’ PRs get given when getting ready to pitch via Synapse. We look at your story, look at what journalists are currently browsing for and searching and then show you matches.

Ultimately a small number of really well researched pieces of outreach are far more likely to generate coverage than blasting out an email to 200 (likely irrelevant) journalist. Next time you’re building your media list, consider using a combination of these methods so that you can give yourself the best shot. And rememeber even if you don’t land coverage, pitching a relevant, personalised and engaging story to a journalist is often the best way to start building a relationship with them.

Register to try out Synapse today.

This Q&A was originally shared by Freelancing for Journalists as part of our ongoing partnership, and we’re thrilled to publish it here too. You can check out their brilliant work over on their Substack or their website.

Everyone has a viewpoint on how, when and if AI should be used in the newsroom.

So we recently caught up with Lloyd Embley, former group editor-in-chief at Reach plc and now a non-executive director at Synapse, to speak to him about AI, the importance of accuracy and trust, and how freelancers can benefit from these new technologies.

With years of experience in the media, Lloyd’s insights carry a lot of weight, especially when it comes to how AI is changing the industry, so read on to see what he had to say.

Q: AI is a hot topic in journalism right now, so what are the key elements of Synapse’s AI tool?

Lloyd: Yes, everyone’s talking about AI, but it’s not a new concept. It’s already impacting workflows, helping journalists work faster, whether through transcription tools, research assistants, or automated summaries, and assisting in newsrooms. The range of AI tools available is already huge and there will be a different tool to assist, no matter the pain point.

That’s not to say that AI shouldn’t be approached with an element of caution. A tool which may appear to make life easier is of zero value if journalists cannot trust it. Worse than that, it could destroy the essential bond of trust between journalist and reader.

The greatest fear is AI ”“hallucination”—the generation of inaccurate content and/or pulling from unreliable sources.

Synapse has two core AI elements within the platform. Firstly, AI-assisted press release summaries and generative tools, and secondly, AI-powered matching, which will ultimately mean that journalists receive more relevant PR pitches just by using Synapse regularly. Crucially, our generative tools are “hallucination” proof.

Q: As you say, trust is key, and AI tools in journalism have raised concerns about accuracy and security. How does Synapse address this?

Lloyd: The concerns are completely understandable. If trust goes, it’s game over.

The key thing about Synapse’s AI is that it is not able to generate facts or pull in information from unknown or outside sources. It is a closed box approach, meaning our press release summarisation tool and our generative AI tool work only with the material you give it, meaning it won’t introduce errors or “hallucinate” facts.

We also don’t allow our users to query our model, which means that our AI can’t learn inaccuracies.

This closed approach is crucially important. The model has been carefully designed to ensure it can only learn about the kind of stories and topics each individual journalist is interested in and their unique writing style.

Q: How does this benefit freelance journalists in particular?

Lloyd: Freelancers have to do everything themselves  – from finding stories to chasing invoices—so time is their most valuable resource.

Maintaining a steady pipeline of work is challenging, so anything that speeds up admin, research, or case study sourcing can make a real difference.

AI tools can take some of that workload off your plate by making it faster to scan press releases and spot relevant stories. And because PRs on Synapse are using AI-powered matching to be more selective with their outreach, freelancers will see fewer scattergun pitches and more tailored, useful leads. AI can’t take everything off your to-do list, but it can be an incredibly useful tool in freeing up a portion of your time to focus on what matters most.

Q: What’s next for AI in journalism?

Lloyd: AI developments are going to continue to move at an incredible pace. I think there will be extensive leveraging of powerful LLMs (large language models) and an increasing number of ways in which AI, particularly agentic AI, will be able to solve more and more complex, multi-step problems.

For journalists, this will mean more powerful and intelligent tools for research, data crunching, case studies, graphics and images, design, sourcing, networking and much more.

I’ve said this already but it cannot be stressed enough, at Synapse, our absolute focus is on making AI work in a way that journalists can trust: cutting down clutter, improving the quality of PR outreach, and ensuring journalists have the tools to work more efficiently – without sacrificing accuracy or independence.

Q: Aside from helping to free up freelancers’ time, what problem is Synapse solving?

Lloyd: The sheer volume of emails landing in journalists’ inboxes every day is overwhelming. The challenge isn’t just sorting through them—it’s spotting the genuinely useful ones before they get lost in the noise. I think most journalists would be shocked at the number of databases and media lists their personal details are saved in without them even knowing.

This outdated, scattergun approach is grossly inefficient – in terms of time and results.

That’s why we created Synapse. Instead of mass pitching, PRs upload their stories to our platform, so journalists can browse or search for what’s relevant to them. Synapse has a range of filtering tools available to journalists, making this process so much faster and more effective than current practices.

For freelancers, this could help you create a setup where you use your email account for editorial pitching, invoicing, client management, and other admin, but use Synapse for story sourcing.

There’s also a request marketplace, so if you need additional expert commentary, case studies or insights to strengthen a story before you pitch it, you can call out to relevant PRs. As soon as you’re done with the request, you can archive it, meaning PRs can no longer message you. This tool is already proving to be immensely popular and useful.

Q: Finally, where can journalists try out these AI tools? And can we be selfish and ask you what your top pitching tip for freelance journalists would be?

Lloyd: Journalists can sign up for free on Synapse and start using our AI-powered press release summaries right away. The platform also makes it easy to browse relevant stories without the usual email overload and source case studies & expert voices.

I’m afraid there is no magic rule (sorry!). It sounds obvious, but pitching the right content to the right editor will deliver more consistent results and help you to develop your network. Case studies and supporting sidebars and breakouts, where applicable, will always go down well.

Remember, time pressures are enormous and getting worse, so the more lifting you can do the better. You’re providing a service, so make it as complete as possible.

Looking to change the way you work with PRs, speed up your workflow, and find more relevant stories? Then it might be time to try Synapse. Register here.