PR Pitching Tips for the Wall Street Journal with Editor Matt Murray

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I recorded this exclusive interview with Matthew Murray of the Wall Street Journal about how he uses technology to do his job and how he prefers to work with public relations firms. 

Matthew J. Murray is deputy national news editor at The Wall Street Journal and a former Chicago Tribune journalist. 

Murray received a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University.

Wall Street Journal PR Pitching Tips

3:55 – Murray talks about the personality of The Wall Street Journal versus its competitors.

5:45 – Murray on snagging lifestyle coverage in the Weekend Journal.

8:11 – Murray talks about how many online subscribers the Journal has and links the online edition with the print edition.

9:07 – Murray discusses the relationship between Dow Jones newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

9:57 – Murray on the technology he uses every day to do his job.

12:14 – Murray talks about online sources they watch for story ideas.

13:33 – Murray on his confidence in the analyst community. 

14:31 – Murray on how the web has impacted the way he finds, researches, and qualifies news: “It has speeded it up immensely and made the competitiveness factor much…tougher for us by a wide margin because there are so many smart people and bloggers and others out there competing on the web with the news all the time…”

16:28 – Murray shares his perspective on where the mainstream media is heading in the age of new media technology: “There’s going to be a lot of pain, but there’s going to be some survivors too…”

17:58 – Murray on how many PR email pitches he receives daily and whether the quality of the pitches is better or worse than five years ago.

19:16 – Murray talks about developing a good relationship with a PR agency practitioner and the factors contributing to a successful relationship between a reporter and a PR consultant.

21:21 – Murray reveals how startups get press coverage.

22:31 – Murray on the online media outlets he reads. 

23:43 – Murray on whether The Journal has a conservative bias.

25:51 – Murray talks about The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times covering the friction between the public good and corporate interests.

26:21 – Murray talks about bias in the news: “I would never claim that any newspaper, ours or any others, doesn’t have examples of certain bias in the way that we choose to cover stories…but our goal and what we strive to do on each story is to give a complete view of all sides and we push our reporters and really try to get that.”

28:08 – End.