What's Your Story?

About Help a Reporter Out™!

Each day, you'll receive up to three emails, each with anywhere from 15-30 queries per email. They'll all be labeled with [shankman.com] in the subject line, for easy filtering. If you see a query you can answer, go for it! HelpAReporter.com really is that simple.

I built this list because a lot of my friends are reporters, and they call me all the time for sources. Rather than go through my contact lists each time, I figured I could push the requests out to people who actually have something to say.

These requests only come from reporters directly to me. I never take queries from that other service, I never SPAM, and I'm not going to do anything with your email other than send you these reporter requests when they arrive in my in-box.

So a few things about this list: First off, yes, it's free. It takes me a few minutes each day to do this, and the good Karma is immeasurable. So I'm not charging. If you really feel like sending me a donation or something, why not just send a few bucks to an animal hospital or animal rescue society somewhere. Some good places are Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, or The National Search Dog Foundation. That'll keep the good Karma flowing.

Next: This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you'll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn't send the response.

In the end, we could probably all stand to do this a bit more, huh?

That's it. No other rules. Sometimes the journalists will request anonymity, in which case, you'll email me directly, and I'll forward. Otherwise, I'll include journalist contact info at the bottom of the list.

Hey, if you're a JOURNALIST looking for sources, use this form to send me your query, and I'll post it to the list. If you want to learn a little bit more about the guy behind all this, feel free to check me out at my own website, Peter Shankman. That's it! Thanks for being here, and thanks for using Help a Reporter out! Blue skies!

- Peter Shankman