A PR’s Guide: What actually is regional coverage?

Local and regional media coverage is a goldmine. These outlets are highly trusted by their communities and incredibly well-read.

Reach PLC, owner of 120 news brands including MyLondon, BelfastLive and the Manchester Evening News, pulls in an audience of 36.6 million, just in May, which is the highest audience among commercial news publishers. Plus, nine of the ten fastest-growing news sites year-on-year are regional titles owned by Reach (Press Gazette, 2024). This trust and reach make regional press hits a powerful part of your PR strategy, as long as you’re pitching the right local angle.

But what is one of the top complaints we hear from regional journalists? Getting sent stories that have zero local relevance. This leaves many PRs wondering how to get regional coverage and why they’ve had stories published before that weren’t specific to one region.

How Do Regional News Teams Work?

Let’s talk about what a regional news team actually looks like.

When a story shows up in the Leicester Mercury, Manchester Evening News, and Yorkshire Post, it looks like a regional hit. But here’s the catch; the story may not have been picked up by actual local journalists and was instead syndicated by a national or centralised team.

Many large publishers now use central “hub” teams to create general-interest stories, and we mean surveys, trending news and celebrity stories. These pieces are then distributed across regional titles, often with minimal localisation. Local titles then pair these wider interest style pieces with local stories. These local stories are written by journalists specifically working in one, maybe two, regions.

Who to Pitch & When

Let’s say you send out a national story and it appears on a dozen regional sites. Why wouldn’t you then add journalists from those regional titles to your media list, right? Maybe not.

That piece likely came from a central content desk or newswire, not a regional journalist. Now we’re not saying that you shouldn’t pitch these journalists, far from it, but when building your target list (or categorising a pitch on Synapse), it’s important to understand the difference between a national journalist writing for regionals and a regional only journalist.  

Why it matters

Pitching irrelevant content can do more than clog a journalist’s inbox. It can affect your credibility. Regional reporters especially are often overworked and stretched thin. They have to prioritise what’s most relevant to their audience, and pitches that aren’t localised stories, only slow them down.

In fact, one of Muck Rack’s surveys show that 71% of journalists say the biggest reason they reject pitches is because they’re not relevant to their audience. And local journalists feel this: their content must be rooted in their region. If you can’t show how your story connects to their community, they won’t cover it. So when you pitch a story that’s not rooted in a place, without local names, local data, or community impact to a region, you risk annoying journalists. Over time, this can damage trust and reduce future coverage.

Bad Pitch vs. Good Pitch

Bad Pitch: “New survey reveals UK work-from-home trends.” 

If this is sent to every regional outlet with no local stats, quotes, or examples, then this is pretty bad. Nothing says why readers in Newcastle, Bristol or Glasgow should care. Most journalists ignore it, or worse, block you. Instead pitch the centralised hub team and look for syndications.

Good Pitch: “Newcastle sees highest WFH satisfaction rate in the UK, new survey finds.”

This one includes local case study and a quote from a Newcastle-based company. Suddenly, it’s a Newcastle story, and one that’s relevant, engaging, and easy to cover.

Worse, repeated off-topic pitches can put you on the spam list, no matter how good your future stories might be. Not the most helpful thing, is it?

The bottom line: How to know when to pitch region-specific journalists?

Here’s a quick checklist to keep you honest:

• Why here? If you can’t explain why this story matters to this specific place, it’s probably not regional.
• Who’s involved locally? Is there a person, business, or event based in the region?
• What’s the local impact? Will it affect the community directly?
• Have you included local data, quotes, or case studies?
• Can it run without being rewritten for the local audience? If yes, great. If no, rethink your angle.

Regional media matters, but only if you approach it with relevance and respect. Think local before you hit send. That’s how you get coverage that lands and lasts.

Got a story with local angle? Great. Just make sure you’re pitching it to the right journalist and for the right reason.