Welcome!

Hello!

Welcome to the all-new Study Hall Sampler, a once-a-week sampling of Study Hall’s tools and resources for media workers.

As a former freelance journalist who struggled to find consistent work, I always dreamed of something that would help me find the best pitch calls, editor contacts, resources, and advice to take my writing to the next level.

And now it finally exists.

Study Hall’s Alert feature allows users to fill out exactly what they are looking for (in my case it would have been something like “Music or comedy writing gigs over $100 a pop”) and then have our team of opportunity hunters go out and look for those specialized gigs. Once a gig with the criteria is found and uploaded to Opps Finder, an alert with all necessary info (how to contact editor, rate, deadline, and type of pitch) goes out to users via email or text.

That’s just one of many new features that I am excited about. Now with a new Plug Your Work feature on our member site, we are celebrating our community’s incredible work. With the revamped version of Plug Your Work, users can share their recent writing with the Study Hall community via our blog and Digest, and more broadly, our followers on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn. Our community members have recently written for outlets like Dazed Digital, Rolling Stone, and Business Insider — to name just a few.

Please enjoy this sample collection of opportunities and reporting Study Hall produces for members.

If you want to try out the new Study Hall, grab 50% off your first 3 months here. 

Warmly,
Matt

Opportunity Sampler 

-Maisonneuve Magazine is looking for pitches of Canada-focused stories “that balance a sense of storytelling with thoughtful analysis.” They are not looking for: Writing about American politics. Essays that set two subjects against one another without making explicit connections. Humour. Personal essays without analysis or research. Profiles or Q&As. Academic writing. The rate is $0.15 CAD (about $0.11 USD) per word. See our Opps Finder listing for more info by Friday, August 23. (Aug 13)

-DAME Magazine reshared that it's always looking for pitches of stories on politics, policy, culture, media criticism, climate and more. “We’re not interested in breaking news. Instead, our stories transparently and thoroughly explain the context of what’s going on, what’s currently at stake, and who’s most affected.” The rates range from $350-$750 for reported stories. See our Opps Finder listing for more info.

-The New York Times is hiring a designer and copy editor, to “design a high volume of International Weekly pages” as well as “edit and trim New York Times stories for a global audience.” Please note: this is a “temporary position and will last approximately through April 2025.” Candidates should have at least three years of experience as an editor/designer. The rate ranges from $19-$24 per hour. See our Opps Finder listing for more info. 

-National Geographic editor Sarah Gibbens reshared that she's always looking for pitches of “surprising, personally relevant, or just-plain-cool new science" or "smart takes on news moments." Best format: a one-paragraph summary, a sentence on why this story matters/why readers should care, and an eye-catching headline. She previously shared that she's keeping an eye out for interesting takes on summer heat.” According to the information Gibbens gave to Study Hall, while the rate is $1 per word, they “set a flat fee based on word count, so a story assigned at 1,000 words would be a $1,000 flat fee.” See our Opps Finder listing for more info.

-Cosmopolitan's associate Sex & Relationships editor Kayla Kibbe reshared that she is always looking for pitches of “Confessays,” which are “erotic personal essays detailing real-life sexperiences — ideally of a particularly hot, surprising, out-there, or otherwise memorable nature." The rate is $250 per essay. See our Opps Finder listing for more info.

Dear Accidentally Qualified: A Tale Of Two Email Inboxes

"Accidentally Qualified" is an advice column from Study Hall written by Sonia Weiser, a freelance journalist and the founder of the journalism opportunities newsletter, "Opportunities of the Week." Questions can be submitted through our anonymous form for consideration: https://forms.gle/pwUbNgwTBaGKATyu5. 

Dear Accidentally Qualified: 

Is there any point to using mail tracking software when pitching editors via email? Because they ignore your pitches just as much anyway...I often see that my emails haven't even been opened. And then the callout is closed because "they found a writer." What the actual fuckety fuck? I feel like giving up on pitching entirely, to be honest. 

-Editor, Can You Hear Me?

Dear Editor, Can You Hear Me?

I have so many thoughts on this so I’m glad you asked. Just recently, I went back to using Streak to track pitches after years of thinking there were no point. And you’re right, if an editor is going to ignore your pitch, tracking it won’t do anything. However, knowing whether an editor viewed your pitch is useful when it comes to the follow-up. I’ve found that if an editor didn’t open my pitch the first time, following up on a separate email thread rather than as a reply to the original email results in more opens than re-upping an email they disregarded already. Maybe it ended up in spam or got auto-filtered into a folder. I don’t know what it is. But it works. Sometimes. 

Something I learned from making a public call out for sources is that you can never prepare yourself for how many responses you’ll get. And depending on what the ask is, sometimes it’s easiest to go with someone who’s good enough than it is to read through every email to find someone who’s truly great. Even the kindest editors with the best intentions get overwhelmed. I’m sure you’ve solicited source requests and found yourself buried under dozens of emails, so much so that you can’t get yourself to go through more than the first five. 

So much of this is a number’s game and the brutal reality of a crowded playing field. Don’t take it personally (or do. It’s your call). But if you feel passionate about a story, don’t self-reject. Keep throwing it out there and see what happens. 

Dear Accidentally Qualified, 

This scenario perplexes me! Freelance writers often complain about being ghosted or not getting any response to pitches YET they do the same thing! I get it that some PR blasts are garbage and fall into the 'press release' category BUT if someone is pitching something directly to a freelancer with a potential story hook...95% don't respond. A simple 'not for me' or 'not my beat' or 'thanks but no thanks' goes a long way to better tailor pitches to them in the future.

A bit of a longer-tail on this: I freelance BUT I also run an independent publishing company. I have personally experienced writers who have ignored pitches about books (or worse, been shitty about even receiving a pitch) come back a few years later to pitch ME their book! (Yes, I'm the acquiring person who also does the marketing and PR and everything...this is common among even the largest of independent publishers...on the whole, we're small shops.) 

My dude, I--and every other publisher in all of creation--remember who the stinkers are! So many people have multiple hustles and fulfill multiple roles who might be the connection you need/want in the future. Why jerk your way out of easy networking?

A PS to this is: You're a freelancer writer, why make it difficult to contact you? 

-Did You Get My Message? 'Cause I Looked in Vain

Dear Did You Get My Message? Cause I Looked in Vain,

Multi-part questions deserve multi-part answers. So:

1.I think many journalists eschew stories that are based on press releases either because their editors have told them to, because they feel like it’s cheating, or it’s not their style to jump on a story that doesn’t feel authentically their own. Whatever the reason is, they might ignore PR emails, in hopes that you’ll get the message through their silence. Unhelpful, I know. 

I wish I had advice for how to solve this problem. But the greater issue is that this industry is latent with rejection at every level. Freelancers’ pitches are rejected or ignored so they in turn reject or ignore PR emails. Maybe out of spite, maybe out of dejection. Maybe because they just have too many fucking emails to get through so they delete everything that seems even remotely impersonal, even if yours are tailored to them. 

2. The hidden email address perplexes me as well. As a freelance writer, finding editors’ or potential sources’ email addresses is often a lesson in futility and it drives me nuts. And if you look on Twitter, you’ll find countless other people who feel exactly the same way. Not to use the word “irritating” in another advice column, but it’s irritating and makes this industry feel all the more insular. Contact info shouldn’t be a IYKYK situation, at least if you work in the media. If I can find the email address of someone who lives in a tent on a compound in New Hampshire and teaches parkour at a local park, then I should be able to find yours, dear media person. 

Journalists: If you’re worried about your safety or privacy, you can have a contact form on your website. That’ll keep your personal info private while allowing people to get in touch.

If reading the submissions to this advice column has taught me anything, it’s that people are burnt out, angry, and generally speaking, over all of this. It’s getting harder and harder to land stories—publications are closing up shop or they are catering to the lowest common denominator to garner the most attention. In terms of the book beat, I don’t have personal experience trying to sell stories, but I spoke with my editor (he says hi) and he said as a journalist reporting on the publishing world, he’s finding it more difficult to place things these days. 

I can’t offer much by way of advice, so all I can say is that your frustration is valid. Maybe, on a rainy day in the future, writers, editors, and PR people can all gather in New Jersey and pay homage to the screaming into the void scene from Garden State.

-Sonia

Plug Your Work

Please check out the “Plug Your Work” feature on our member site. We are giving boosts to members’ work on our blog, social media channels, and Digest newsletter. 

Brenna Ehrlich Investigated a Double Murder on a Tropical Island

For Rolling Stone, Brenna Ehrlich spent the last six months delving into the tragic murders of Daniel Langlois, a VFX pioneer, and his partner Dominique Marchand on the Caribbean island of Dominica — and if they were really killed over real estate.

Ehrlich’s writing has appeared in CNN, HuffPost, and CrimeReads. She’s the author of Killing Time. 

Matt King Wrote About the SaaS-y Grifters of Silicon Valley

For The Baffler, Matt King wrote about enterprise software and the “SaaS-y” grifters of Silicon Valley, who “tout innovation while repeating the old-school tactics of land-grabbing and value extraction.” He writes, “Whether it’s SaaS, superapps, blockchains, or whatever format comes next, the trajectory of recent Silicon Valley “innovation” remains the same: a hint of genuine productivity and a heavy dose of old-school land-grabbing and value extraction.”

Matt King’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Review, and The New Republic.

Kish Lal reported on The Rising Anti-Sunscreen Movement

For Dazed Digital, Kish Lal reported on the rise of the anti-sunscreen movement and myths against sunscreen. Lal says, “I stumbled upon people using coconut oil, beef tallow, and other ingredients in place of store-bought sunscreen and had to find out more.”

In her piece, drawing from research, Lal debunks online myths about sunscreen such as whether there are harmful ingredients in chemical sunscreen and if sunscreen has an impact on hormones. Additionally, she addresses whether you can use “natural oils to make sunscreen.” 

Lal’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, GQ, Parade, and Fashionista.