Health Journalism 2023: PitchFest

Important date

Feb. 8 at noon CT/1 p.m. EST
Sign up for PitchFest reserve up to three appointments.

Editors

Meet the editors and learn more about their pitching guidelines here.

Betsy Agnvall AARP

Katti Gray Juvenile Justice Info Exchange

Joyce Frieden MedPage Today

Rob Waters Mindsite News

Brady Huggett Spectrum Features Editor

Sara Talpos Undark

Nathan Payne KHN

Tod Jones Costco

Josh Fischman Scientific American

Shraddha Chakradhar Science

Maiken Scott The Pulse

Rachel Warren MedPage

Aurora Aguilar Medscape and MDedge

Jennifer Abbasi JAMA Medical News

Joshua Conrad WebMD

Michael Fitzgerald Harvard Health Magazine

Elizabeth Devita-Raeburn Everyday Health

Dianne Hartley US Healthcare Journals

Jordan Davidson Health.com

Anisa Arsenault Verywell Health

PitchFest sign-up

(Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect the new time and date for PitchFest signups.)

Beginning at noon CT/1 p.m. EST on Feb. 8, please visit the Sign up for PitchFest page to reserve your THREE appointments.

PitchFest will be in-person only, no virtual option available

Attention independent journalists!

Editors from some of the top magazines and newspapers are coming to the conference to meet you! Bring your best ideas to the AHCJ Freelance PitchFest. This session has been created to give you an opportunity to sit down and discuss your ideas one-on-one with editors from selected publications.

To participate, you will sign up for time with the editors and come prepared to sell your work. That means you need to arrive with specific pitches for the editors, as well as clips, resume, business cards, etc. Do not show up with just a business card to hand out. Do your homework on each editor.

AHCJ webcast

Get strategies to succeed:

We strongly recommend watching "Packaging the perfect pitch," a webcast with two top editors and an experienced freelancer that will help you prepare for the PitchFest.

In addition, check out AHCJ’s market guides for the pitching needs of more than 35 editors, many of whom are coming to PitchFest. And some PitchFest editors have submitted guides that can be found here in the conference Whova app.

Important:

You must be a current AHCJ member and be registered for the conference to sign up for PitchFest appointments. AHCJ reserves the right to cancel appointments of anyone who is not qualified.
Each appointment is for ten minutes.
You may sign up for THREE appointments.
You may sign up for only one appointment for each editor and your selections are not final until you receive a confirmation from AHCJ in the days leading up to the conference.
When you sign up, you will have the opportunity to share the URL of your website, LinkedIn profile or another page, as well as a brief bio. That information will be available to the editors.

Five Rules for PitchFest:

Show up. If you fail to show up for any of your appointments, you will not be allowed to sign up in advance for next year’s PitchFest. Additionally, be aware that the booked editor will have your name, potentially harming your reputation with that publication for years to come.
Prepare carefully. We'll post blurbs from editors describing what they want, so read those to customize your pitch to what each editor wants. For example, news editors won't want to hear a pitch for a feature. Study the publication to make certain your pitch is a good fit.
Arrive in plenty of time. We will run on time and we will run like clockwork. If you are late, you forfeit your pitch.
Respect the time limit. When you hear the one-minute warning, start to wrap up. When you hear time called, please get up, thank the editor and tell him or her that you will follow up with an email.
Understand the limits. Please recognize that attending PitchFest does not guarantee you a sale. It does guarantee you an opportunity to pitch face-to-face to editors who are extremely difficult to access, even by email.

_{PitchFest will be in-person only, no virtual option available}