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Journoscout Launch, New Event Heads-Up, And More
Check out the special tenth edition!
MA Family
April 11, 2024
Issue #10, March & April 2024
Hey there, PR pros! Welcome back to Comms Rundown, MA Family’s newsletter on PR and communications.
We're super excited to bring you our Tenth Edition! Thanks a ton for sticking with us.
We've got something really special lined up just for you in this edition, so let’s make it one to remember!
Introducing Journoscout 🚀
We're thrilled to announce the launch of our latest project, Journoscout 🎉
Journoscout is your go-to destination for tracking reporters' career shifts across various media outlets. Stay ahead of the game with rapid updates on media professionals' moves — and don't miss out on the latest industry buzz 📰
Follow Journoscout for daily updates and DM us your scoops to be retweeted!
⚡️Launched this account to provide PR comms with a single source with updates on journalists moving between publications!
If you feel this is something for you, follow🎯
— JournoScout (@journoscout)
9:40 AM • Apr 10, 2024
Heads-up 🔜
Awesome news: we're hosting a special lecture by Alexei Grinbaum, a senior research scientist at CEA-Saclay, where he'll dive into the fascinating world of conversational machines and their impact on human interaction.
It's going to be a captivating session filled with insights and discussions you won't want to miss. Mark your calendars and join us for this exclusive event!
Blitz 🎯
Bloomberg Crypto expanded to also cover payments, fintech & digital commerce. DM Emily Nicolle if you have something to share!
The Block announced its premier conference for the digital assets industry — join it in Prague from December 5-6.
The Financial Times has released its first generative AI feature for subscribers. The tool, available in beta, allows users to ask any question and receive a curated response using FT content. What would you ask? 🙃
Axios launched Axios Communicators Pro, a new premium membership community for PR and communications professionals.
Blockworks launched a new daily newsletter — subscribe to get your early morning crypto news.
Phil Rosen quit his job at Business Insider to team up with Pomp and launch Opening Bell Daily, an independent news and research outlet committed to demystifying Wall Street, markets, and investing — at no cost to readers. More and more of such projects 🤔
Milk Road newsletter presented its first official podcast Milk Road Radio.
As we assumed in the previous Comms Rundown edition, Paddy Cosgrave returns as CEO of Web Summit. No one's surprised, but we'll see.
Robinhood has officially launched its new media arm Sherwood: its popular Snacks newsletter is getting a rebrand, and the company has hired roughly three dozen people — nearly two dozen journalists.
Fortune Media has named Anastasia Nyrkovskaya as the new Chief Executive Officer, becoming the first woman to lead the storied media brand. Go women!
Yahoo is buying Artifact, the AI news app from the Instagram co-founders. Surprising news for all those who thought they were shutting down!
Who's where? 👀
Here is the monthly recap — follow Journoscout for real-time updates!
Helene Brain now co-hosts CoinDesk’s Markets Daily podcast every Wednesday and Thursday.
Elizabeth Napolitano joined TheBlock, planning to focus on DeFi and U.S. regulations coverage.
Eli Tan will join The New York Times tech desk in June.
Brandon Gomez became a new host of CNBC’s ‘Crypto World’.
Financial Times is expanding its San Fran bureau to deepen coverage of the intersection of money and tech — Cristina Criddle moves to San Francisco this summer to cover AI.
After 2 years reporting on AI at VentureBeat, Sharon Goldman joined Fortune to continue covering AI.
Yueqi Yang left Bloomberg to join The Information as their crypto reporter. Her start date is April 15.
Jacquelyn Melinek left TechCrunch to start Token Relations, a project that helps connect blockchains with their communities, developers, token holders, and projects building on-chain. No crypto contact at TechCrunch then.
Dana Wollman joins Bloomberg Technology later this month.
Ryan S. Gladwin started a full-time Staff Reporter role at Decrypt. He will be covering all things crypto, tech, and gaming for Decrypt, GG, and its other verticals.
Anita Ramaswamy left her position at Reuters to start a new role as a financial analysis columnist at The Information.
André Beganski rejoined Decrypt as a Staff Reporter, covering all things crypto but focusing on markets and legal news.
Michael Bodley, previously Managing Editor at Blockworks, will be working with Unchained podcast for the next few weeks, where he’s pumped to edit great stories and break big news.
Rebecca Bellan is back working the transportation desk at
TechCrunch as a Senior Reporter.
Jules Roscoe is joining 404 Media for the summer to cover labor, automation, unions, etc.
Katyanna Quach started as a tech reporter at Semafor — she’ll be working on Semafor's tech newsletter, and still be writing about AI.
Tips 📰
I accepted the embargoed news that offered …
- compelling narrative
- revenue figures
- exclusive accessAlso, two came through investors I have personal relationships with.
— Melia Russell (@meliarobin)
1:55 AM • Mar 1, 2024
It's taken me 3 months and 3 weeks to land this.
Just because your pitch doesn't land the first time at the first place you pitch it, doesn't mean it's a bad story.
— Ryan S. Gladwin (@Ryan_S_Gladwin)
1:38 PM • Mar 1, 2024
gmail should create a plug-in that blocks people from following up 4+ times when I didn't reply the first (or second or third) time
— Jacquelyn Melinek (@jacqmelinek)
6:18 PM • Mar 13, 2024
I wish I could distill the audacity of some PR pitches into fuel to propel me through my day.
"With Reid Hoffman and Michael Moritz pulling back from venture capital, the industry is in transition. This Senior Vice President of Product Development Is available to talk about it!"
— Alex Konrad (@alexrkonrad)
3:14 PM • Mar 19, 2024
It amazes me how often I get press releases with no link to company website of the featured startup. Given how many companies have similar or identical names, it's annoying.
— Cate Lawrence 🇦🇺🇩🇪 💻🐈 (@Cate_Lawrence)
1:02 PM • Apr 9, 2024
A PR person just sent me the 6th(!) follow-up to a pitch in less than a week. Please don't do this. #PRrequest
— Joni Sweet (@JoniSweet)
3:29 PM • Mar 28, 2024
If you're hiring a PR agency so they can get you in the WSJ, it prob won't work.
It's not impossible, but "get me in a specific publication" is a short-sighted goal, and it's also not in the PR person's control.
PR ppl can maximize your success. We're not miracle workers.
— Joe Zappa (@joe_zappa)
5:09 PM • Apr 10, 2024
Workbook 📝
Ten totally reasonable perspectives on PR.
I love that we’re all debating the value of PR. I spent the first chapter of my career in comms, and now I get to think about awareness building through the investor lens.
But as with most things in life, I don’t believe an ideological… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Ashley Mayer (@ashleymayer)
3:01 PM • Apr 10, 2024
Case study in founders going direct:
Ryan Petersen and the Baltimore bridge collapse.To recap…
1) Bridge is hit early morning Tuesday.
2) By midday, Ryan posts a detailed X thread analyzing the failure. He barely mentions Flexport, but doesn’t need to — showing the CEO’s… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey)
9:19 PM • Mar 29, 2024
PR Is Dead, Once Again 👻
Trust in the media is falling, and some of that is deserved. Trust in PR has always been shaky, at least from the periphery, and much of that is deserved as well. Over the years, the trendlines of falling trust, media layoffs, data showing the imbalance… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— John OBrien (@JOBrienSF)
10:09 PM • Apr 8, 2024
There’s a lot of antagonism between the media and tech. But most of it is produced by a small minority of people with outsized voices, so it doesn’t exactly reflect reality.
Balaji started a discussion on Twitter that finally pushed me to put down my thoughts on the matter.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Yury Molodtsov ⚡️ (@y_molodtsov)
6:50 PM • Apr 5, 2024
Emilie Gerber (@eagerber) is the founder and CEO of @sixeastern, a top PR agency that’s helped 100+ tech companies craft and execute their comms strategy, from stealth startups to publicly traded companies, including companies like @perplexity_ai@tryramp and @nubank. Before… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan)
2:46 PM • Mar 21, 2024
How the media uses identical facts to tell different stories:
By changing the framing, a given set of facts can be presented in totally different ways.
Look at the contrast between these descriptions of the SpaceX flight.
(As a rule, you can tell what someone really wants you… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey)
6:16 PM • Mar 14, 2024
Techno-Optimistic Media is explicitly biased and unabashedly pro-tech.
We believe that technological progress is good, actually.
@pronounced_kyle & I teamed up to explain why it's happening and how founders can tell their stories.
— Packy McCormick (@packyM)
12:53 PM • Mar 19, 2024
Thank you for joining us for the tenth edition of our newsletter on communication and PR!
If you don't feel like this is something relevant for you, you can always unsubscribe below — otherwise, see you in May 🙌
Aleksandra from MA Family
