Why Most Small Businesses Get Ignored by Local News — and How to Fix It
By Mike Miller, founder of Local Lift - Media & Marketing
Here's a secret from inside the newsroom: local TV stations and newspapers want to cover local businesses. Community stories rate well, they're cheap to produce, and they make viewers feel good about where they live. The problem isn't willingness. It's that the pitches businesses send are almost never coverable.
After nine years of deleting those pitches — and now writing them for clients at Local Lift - Media & Marketing — here's where they go wrong and how to fix it.
Mistake 1: Confusing advertising with news
'We have great prices and friendly staff' is an ad. Newsrooms don't run ads for free — that's literally their business model. What they will run: the restaurant that quietly feeds the football team after every away game, the plumber who organized a free water-heater drive after the freeze. The business is still the hero — just through what it does, not what it claims.
Mistake 2: Pitching the wrong person at the wrong time
Newsrooms run on a daily cycle. Mornings are for assignments, mid-afternoon is chaos, and by evening the show is locked. A pitch that lands at 7 a.m. Tuesday with a weekend event has a chance. The same pitch at 3 p.m. Friday is invisible. And send it to the assignment desk or a specific reporter whose beat fits — not a generic inbox that nobody owns.
Mistake 3: No visuals, no story
If a TV reporter can't describe what the camera will see, your story is dead. 'Grand opening' is a balloon and a bored reporter. 'Watch a 90-year-old barber cut his last customer's hair after 60 years in the same shop' is television. Always answer: what will we see, who will we meet, when exactly?
Mistake 4: Giving up after one email
Newsrooms are triage. A non-response usually means 'not today,' not 'never.' A polite follow-up two days later — ideally with a new angle or better timing — gets results more often than you'd think. Just never be the person who sends five. Two is persistence. Five is a block.
The fix, in one sentence
Stop asking 'how do I get covered?' and start asking 'what is my business doing that's genuinely worth a stranger's attention?' — then package that answer so a busy reporter can say yes in thirty seconds.
Finding and pitching that story is my favorite part of the job. If you want help, reach out for a free strategy call.
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