pr
Ex-TechCrunch: How she sends pitches now
Rita Liao explains how she uses Medialyst and Simular's Sai to research journalists faster while keeping judgment, writing, and relationship-building human.
Rita Liao spent six years in the TechCrunch newsroom as its first China-focused writer. Now she advises startups on media strategy.
She's seen pitches from both sides: the journalist drowning in irrelevant spam, and the founder desperate to get noticed.
Rita's new favorite PR intern
Rita recently shared how she now approaches journalist outreach using Medialyst and Simular's Sai agent. The short version:
- Research (Medialyst): Generate a targeted journalist list with summaries of their recent work.
- Judgment (Human): Study every single journalist, read their tweets, scan their recent bylines, find the details that matter, and fit a personal, useful message into 240 characters on LinkedIn.
- Execution (Simular's Sai): Let the agent handle the LinkedIn legwork by opening profiles and drafting connection requests for approval.
The key is simple: AI handles aggregation and clicks. The human handles reading, judgment, and the actual relationship.
She documented the full workflow here: LinkedIn post
Q&A with Rita
We asked Rita about the thinking behind the workflow, and what she learned watching thousands of pitches land, or die, in her inbox.
Q: You spent 6 years in the TechCrunch newsroom. What actually makes a pitch feel like spam vs. feeling like someone did their homework?
A: Pitching is like selling. Think of all the targeted ads you get. You buy something if the thing touted is actually useful, and offering something useful requires research and context.
Most PR agencies simply spam and do not do the minimum of matching their pitch to a journalist's beat. And if it is indeed their beat, is this something they have already covered, or do you have something new to offer, or is it a lead on an underreported story? Did they pin "don't pitch me XXX" on their social profiles and you did not spend one minute browsing their tweets?
It is obvious when someone has spent no time, ten minutes, or months following a journalist's work.
Q: You're advising AI startups and using AI tools yourself. How has AI changed the way you work, and where do you still insist on doing things yourself?
A: I use AI mostly to aggregate news articles and discussions on social media in order to understand a publication or journalist's recent interests. This used to take extensive Googling, clicking, and queuing up 20 tabs to read.
Now I have AI summarize them in one place for me in minutes, with all the links for further reading. I never use AI to write the actual pitches. That part still requires the hard work of reading a journalist's mind and judging what they want.
Q: Some journalists worry AI tools will make the spam problem worse. As someone who has been in the newsroom, how do you see AI changing the dynamic between PR people and journalists? What would "getting it right" look like?
A: In the pessimistic scenario, AI-written PR pitches will further flood and ruin journalists' inboxes. It puts the burden on journalists to filter junk and unearth genuinely good cold pitches. If your name does not ring a bell, or if your subject line does not catch attention in a split second, it is going straight to trash.
In the optimistic future, AI will make pitches much more personalized, no more "PITCH: XXX awarded most innovative company at XXX conference", and journalists will start appreciating PR tips.
Q: You work with a lot of founders on media strategy. What patterns do you see in how they approach press, and where do they usually go wrong?
A: Many people are fixated on getting positive coverage and turn away from the media once anything remotely critical gets published. They think any press that is not flattering is a deliberate attack on them. They overlook the media's core value: its credibility stems from its neutrality. By turning away, they lose the opportunity to start a public debate, amplify brand awareness, and build long-term relationships with journalists.
Too many founders also offload PR to outside agencies and treat them like a marketing vendor. The better approach is to use your PR people as close strategists: help me identify the right journalists, help me craft the right pitch, but I am going to send the message myself.
Few people do that, and worse, they treat PR like marketing and expect predictable ROI from spending xx dollars for xx months. Media relationships do not happen overnight, and the long-term credibility gained from a national media mention cannot be reduced to the cost of a monthly retainer.
Try it yourself
- Medialyst for journalist research and summaries
- Simular for the LinkedIn legwork
- Your brain for the actual pitch
Rita Liao spent six years at TechCrunch as its first China-focused writer. She now advises startups on PR and storytelling. You can find her on LinkedIn.