Every pitch is asking a reporter for a few minutes of their day. Most pitches don’t get them.
MINUTES is Notably’s framework for what makes a story newsworthy. It names the seven reasons people stop and pay attention to one thing over another: Momentum, Identity, Novelty, Urgency, Tension, Exclusivity and Surprise. We named it MINUTES because… that’s exactly what you’re competing for.
Look, “newsworthy” gets thrown around like it’s a vibe. It isn’t. After years of watching which stories land and which ones vanish into an inbox, the winners almost always trigger one of these seven reactions.
The seven triggers
- Momentum: “Everyone is suddenly talking about this.” The story rides something already moving -- a trend, a news cycle, a moment people are watching.
- Identity: “That’s about people like me.” It names a group the reader belongs to: parents, nurses, first-time founders, people who work in the trades.
- Novelty: “I’ve never heard that before.” A first, a new category, a new way of doing something familiar.
- Urgency: “This could affect me.” A cost, a risk, a deadline, a consequence nobody saw coming.
- Tension: “Wait, how can both of those be true?!” Two facts that shouldn’t sit together, but do.
- Exclusivity: “I want to know this before everyone else.” A first look, data no one has seen, access nobody else can offer.
- Surprise: “That’s not what I expected.” A finding that flips an assumption.
When a client sends us news, the very first thing we ask is which of these it triggers. If the answer is none? It’s not a story yet. And no amount of pitching will fix that.
So I tested it on my own pitches
I went back through 1,225 pitches I’ve sent to reporters and tagged each one by the trigger its subject line leads with. Then we counted how often a reporter replied with real interest -- asking for more, asking a question, or saying they’d cover it.
Here’s what came back:
- Pitches written for one reporter got an interested reply 19.6% of the time
- The same kind of pitch blasted to eight or more reporters? 3.9%
- Reporters who’d replied to me before answered with interest 34.9% of the time, versus 7% cold
And the triggers themselves:
- Identity was the strongest with cold reporters, at 10.2%. People read about people.
- Surprise came dead last, at 3.8%.
That last one surprised me (yes, I see it). Until I looked at the pitches. A lot of them led with a stat that was surprising… to the client. Not to anyone else. A finding only surprises a reporter when it flips something their readers already believe.
One caveat, because I’d want someone to point it out to me: this is my own inbox, not a controlled experiment. Who you send to and whether they know you moves the numbers way more than the trigger does. I use the trigger data as a hint, never a rule.
How to use MINUTES on your next announcement
- Write the headline a reporter would put on your news. Not your press release headline -- theirs.
- Ask which of the seven triggers it hits.
- If it hits one clearly, lead with it in your subject line.
- If it hits two, pick the stronger one. Pitches built on one trigger did slightly better than pitches trying to juggle two (8.5% versus 6.8%).
- If it hits none, don’t send it. Go find the group it affects, the thing it changes, or the assumption it breaks.
That’s where the story is. It almost always is.
Want a second set of eyes on your next announcement? Book a call with us. We’ll tell you exactly what we’d dig for.
FAQ
What is the MINUTES framework?
MINUTES is Notably’s framework for what makes a story newsworthy. It names seven reasons people pay attention: Momentum, Identity, Novelty, Urgency, Tension, Exclusivity and Surprise. A pitch that clearly triggers at least one of them is far more likely to get a reporter’s attention.
What makes a story newsworthy to a journalist?
A story is newsworthy when it gives a reporter’s readers a reason to care right now. In Notably’s MINUTES framework, that reason is one of seven triggers: it rides a moment people are watching, it’s about a specific group of people, it’s new, it affects the reader, it holds a contradiction, it’s exclusive, or it flips an assumption.
Which pitch trigger gets the most replies?
In Notably’s review of 1,225 of its own pitches, identity-led pitches got the most interested replies from cold reporters (10.2%) and surprise-led pitches got the fewest (3.8%). Send size and an existing relationship mattered more than any trigger: one-to-one pitches got interested replies 19.6% of the time, versus 3.9% for pitches sent to eight or more reporters.
Should a pitch use more than one trigger?
Usually no. Pitches that led with one clear trigger got interested replies 8.5% of the time, versus 6.8% for pitches that led with two. Pick the strongest one and put it in the subject line.