Get Featured in Erie Times-News

Most small newsrooms cannot answer every email, let alone report every story offered to them. A cold pitch to Erie Times-News competes with everything else happening in the community that week, and many of those pitches never get a reply. A guaranteed placement removes that uncertainty: the piece is arranged with the publication in advance, you approve the draft, and it publishes on goerie.com inside a written window, usually one to two weeks. It is a real article on the site that you can put in a proposal, a deck or a profile.

What Erie Times-News covers

Local news is the layer of journalism closest to where people live, and Erie Times-News works at that level for readers in Pennsylvania. A publication of this kind typically follows town or city decisions, neighborhood changes, new businesses, schools, local sports, community events and the people behind them. National outlets rarely get to these stories, which is exactly why local publications exist.

Because the audience is nearby, usefulness counts. Coverage that tells readers something they can act on, such as a service now available, an event to attend, a cause to support or a business to try, fits local news well. So do stories of local people: owners, practitioners, organizers, authors and artists whose work has a clear tie to the community and a reason to be told now.

Who reads Erie Times-News

People read a local publication because it is about their own streets, schools and businesses. The audience for Erie Times-News is that kind of reader in Pennsylvania: homeowners and renters, parents, shop and restaurant owners, professionals, civic and nonprofit leaders. These are the same people who choose a local doctor, lawyer, agent, contractor or place to eat.

For a local business or practice, that makes an Erie Times-News feature a way to be seen by the people most likely to become customers, clients or patients. It is also a credential you can show: local news coverage tells prospects, partners, lenders and landlords that your work is known in the community you serve.

What local coverage in Pennsylvania does for you

Local trust is built close to home. When Erie Times-News covers a company, readers in Pennsylvania see it in a setting they know, alongside news about their own communities. That context helps with customers who prefer to buy nearby, with partners who want to work with established local names, and with anyone in Pennsylvania who checks your background before reaching out.

Demand comes mostly from businesses with a physical presence in Pennsylvania: shops, clinics, firms, studios and venues that want more people nearby to know them. It also comes from entrepreneurs raising their profile ahead of a local launch, and from companies headquartered elsewhere that are hiring or opening in Pennsylvania.

Stories in a community publication work best when they sound like news about a neighbor. That means a clear subject, a location, a timeline and a human being readers can picture. Owners and professionals who can say what changed, when, and who benefits locally are already most of the way to a strong feature.

The angles below are where we begin. One clear angle, backed by real details about your work in the community, makes a better local story than a list of everything you offer.

What weakens a pitch

• A national message with a town name added. Local readers can tell when a story was not written with their community in mind.
• Jargon. Industry terms that work in a trade magazine lose a general local audience, so plain language serves the story better.
• Overstated community ties. If the connection to the area is thin, say what is true and build the story on something else.
• Everything at once. A feature that tries to cover history, services, awards and future plans together leaves readers without a clear takeaway.