A media list is the set of journalists you intend to pitch. Most templates you will find online are contact directories — name, outlet, email, beat — and that is why most media lists fail. The column that determines whether the list works is the one almost nobody includes: the date of the last relevant thing that person published. A list without it is a list of people who used to cover your category.
The template
| Column | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Name | First name for the greeting, spelled correctly |
| Outlet | — |
| Verified, not guessed | |
| Beat, in their words | How they describe themselves, not how a database categorises them |
| Last relevant article — title | Proof they still cover this |
| Last relevant article — date | The most important column on the list |
| Link to that article | So the pitch can reference it specifically |
| Angle for this person | One line. What you would pitch them, not the generic version |
| Prior contact | Have we approached them before, when, what happened |
| Status | Not yet pitched / pitched / replied / declined / covered |
| Notes | Preferences, deadlines, anything they have told you |
Eleven columns. A spreadsheet is entirely sufficient — most PR software does this worse than a well-kept sheet.
The 90-day rule
If someone has not written about your category in the last 90 days, they come off the list. Not "keep them in case", not "move to tier 3". Off.
"Before anything goes out I check whether the reporter has written about the category in the last 90 days. If they haven't, they come off the list. That one rule kills more pitches than any editing pass."
Lindsey Ranger, Account Lead, Salient PR
This feels wasteful the first time you do it. A 200-name list becomes 40. That is the point — the 160 you removed were the ones producing no replies and gradually training recipients to ignore your sender address.
"Most of what people call a PR failure is a targeting failure. The pitch went to someone who stopped covering that beat 18 months ago. That's not bad luck, that's nobody checking."
Justin Mauldin, Founder, Salient PR
How to actually build one
Start from articles, not from a database. Search for the five best pieces written about your category in the last three months. Note who wrote them. That is your first ten names, and they are better than anything a category filter produces.
Follow the citations. Those articles quote people and reference other coverage. Follow both. This finds the reporters a database will not surface because their formal beat is labelled something else.
Use a database as a lookup, not a source. Databases are good for finding a verified email once you know who you want. They are poor at telling you who to want.
Verify the email. A guessed address does not just fail — bounces damage your sending reputation and make future mail less likely to arrive at all. Between December 2025 and August 2026 we recorded a 1.0% bounce rate, which is a list-hygiene number more than a tooling one.
Cap it at forty. More than that and the personalisation degrades, which is the only thing making the list work.
What size list you actually need
Forty verified, genuinely relevant names beats four hundred plausible ones, and it is not close.
"Volume doesn't fix a bad list. Sending 200 pitches to people who don't cover you gets you the same result as sending 20, except now you're on more block lists."
Kayla Haines, Media Relations, Salient PR
On a well-built list, expect roughly 7–11% to reply. Of our graded replies, 63% are a yes. Forty names should produce three or four real conversations. That is a good outcome, and expecting thirty is what makes people build bad lists.
Maintenance
Media lists decay faster than almost any other business asset. People change outlets, change beats, go freelance, leave the industry.
"We keep 1,750 reporters in the database and the maintenance never stops. People move outlets, change beats, leave the industry. A list that hasn't been touched in six months is mostly wrong."
Kristin Kaplan, Operations, Salient PR
Re-verify before every campaign. Not quarterly — before you send. It takes an hour for forty names.
Record every outcome. Including the failures. A list that only records wins cannot tell you what to stop doing.
What to leave out
Tiering by outlet prestige. Tempting and usually counterproductive. A trade publication your buyers actually read outperforms a national title they do not.
Phone numbers, unless you have a genuine reason. Cold-calling journalists is a reliable way to be remembered badly.
Social handles, unless you intend to use them. They pad the sheet and imply a channel you probably should not open.
Anyone whose email you are guessing.
The short version
- The column that matters is the date of their last relevant article. Most templates omit it.
- 90-day rule: no recent coverage of your category means they come off the list.
- Build from articles, not from a database filter.
- Cap at forty. Verify every address. Expect 7–11% to reply.
- Re-verify before every send, not on a schedule.
- Record failures as well as wins, or the list cannot improve.
Salient PR runs earned media programmes for technology companies. All figures come from our own outreach database covering December 2025 to August 2026 and are updated quarterly.
Sources
- Salient PR outreach database, Dec 2025 – Aug 2026
If you want the list built and kept current — Salient PR is a technology PR agency working with technology companies. See how we work or start a conversation.
Related reading
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How to build a media list that produces replies, which columns matter, and the verification rule that kills more bad pitches than any editing pass.
