Get Featured in The Florida Times-Union

Local reporters have to choose from a long list of community stories every week, and a business announcement rarely tops that list. Getting The Florida Times-Union to cover your opening, milestone or project on your own usually means repeated pitching and a lot of waiting. A guaranteed placement removes that uncertainty: the piece is arranged with the publication in advance, you approve the draft, and it publishes on jacksonville.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 The Florida Times-Union covers

Local news is the layer of journalism closest to where people live, and The Florida Times-Union works at that level for readers in Florida. 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 The Florida Times-Union

People read a local publication because it is about their own streets, schools and businesses. The audience for The Florida Times-Union is that kind of reader in Florida: 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 a Florida Times-Union 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.

Why coverage in Florida matters

Local trust is built close to home. When The Florida Times-Union covers a company, readers in Florida 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 Florida who checks your background before reaching out.

Demand comes mostly from businesses with a physical presence in Florida: 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 Florida.

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

• Nothing new. A local story needs a reason to run now, such as a date, a change, an event or a recent result.
• Missing details. Without a location, a description of what you do and a clear timeline, a feature reads as generic and local readers move on.
• Claims that cannot be supported. Local readers know the area and will notice exaggeration, and we only write what is accurate.
• A story with no people in it. Community news is about neighbors, so a feature needs an owner, a team or a client perspective.