Even if you use Vocus or MediaSource, you can speed up the process of finding and identifying the best journalist for a particular story pitch by using keyword searches.

Here’s how this can work.

Presuming you have identified the “best” media outlet for your story idea, use the search feature on the outlet’s home page and enter in the words or terms best aligned with your pitch.

For example, if you work for (or represent) a company that’s launching a new Web-based personal finance application, you could search for the terms “Web-based,” “software” and/or “personal finance” on the media outlet itself.

The most recently published stories should then be reviewed to see which ones, if any, were actually produced by journalists on staff and not by a wire service reporter.

If you find that several stories on the same subject(s) were written by the same reporter, chances are you’ve found the journalist you should pitch.

{NOTE: If there is no search function on a specific Website, you can use Google instead, and enter in the same words/terms (along with the name of the media outlet) in a Google search. This is a bit more cumbersome, but it should work just as well.}