Pitchin’ and Sippin’ with #1 Ranked Food Journalist of 2022 Aly Walansky

Episode 84: Pitchin’ and Sippin’ with #1 Ranked Food Journalist of 2022 Aly Walansky

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Aly Walansky is an award-winning travel and food journalist with over 20 years of experience in the field writing for outlets such as Food & Wine, Food Network, Forbes, TODAY Show, Southern Living, AllRecipes, The Kitchn, and many more. Muck Rack rated her the #1 Food Journalist of 2022, and her Substack, which she sends out six days a week to thousands of subscribers, was recently rated a Substack Bestseller.

In today’s show, we dive into the worlds of Food, Travel & Lifestyle Journalism. We talk about press dinners, lead times, and the editorial process, and review Aly’s personal pitching preferences. She also breaks down the difference between a journalist freelance pitch and a PR pitch, subject line winners and don’ts, and more.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to pitch as a freelance writer to an editor and the difference between a journalist freelance pitch and a PR pitch
• Standard lead times for the industry at large
• How to get Media to attend press dinners (and are press dinners still even a thing?)
• How Aly got into the world of food and travel journalism
• How Aly uses Substack and manages to keep all of her ongoing projects organized
• Hear Aly Walansky’s pitching preferences
• The importance of formatting a pitch like the journalistic “inverted pyramid”
• How to craft a winning subject line, and what to avoid when pitching
• Hear what she’s working on currently for different publications
• And More!