Pitch Us

The New School Free Press welcomes and encourages students to submit their work for publication — including, but not limited to, written articles, photographs, art pieces, videos, and podcasts — We actively seek outside contributions, suggestions, and tips to keep our coverage relevant, interesting, and diverse. Students do not have to be registered members of the Free Press staff to contribute.

Your pitch should be at least 2 paragraphs long. The first paragraph should introduce who you are and your writing/journalism experience. The next one (or more) paragraphs should detail what the piece would be about. Tell us what you’re pitching, why it interests you, what section (news, arts & culture, features, opinions, etc.) you envision the story fitting in, and how you would go about reporting it. If possible, give us a timeline of how long it would take you to finish the story. Please try to do reporting and contact sources for the story prior to pitching


Please follow the sample format below:

Subject Line: NEWS PITCH – [HEADLINE]

Hi. My name is [JANE DOE]. I am a [YEAR] student studying [MAJOR]. I have never written for a newspaper but have experience writing in my classes. [ETC.]

I am looking to write a news story about the part-time faculty going on strike last week. I am interested in reporting on this story because I noticed many students around me being impacted. This story would fit best in the news section. I have already talked to two students at Lang. I plan to talk to part-time faculty, more students, and administrators about the progression of the strike. I will aim to send you my first draft by [DATE].

Please reach out with any other questions. Thank you!


We intend to respond to every pitch, but if you do not hear back from us within two weeks, please feel free to send us a follow-up email. Pitching, reporting, and writing for the Free Press is entirely collaborative. Expect edits and revisions to your story throughout the writing process. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about our editorial methods or any other aspect of the story and your reporting please feel free to reach out. We’d love to hear what you have to say. All pitches, submissions and further questions should be emailed to nsfreepress@gmail.com.

*Please note: Before you begin contributing to The Free Press, we ask that you sign this contract.

We are currently open to pitches for:

ARTS & CULTURE:

Hear of an interesting art gallery or a new museum exhibition? Fashion events? Anything that inspires creativity or brings artists into the spotlight would fall under this category. A New School angle is preferred, but not necessary.

OPINION:

Passionate about a cause or an issue? Let your voice be heard. The Free Press has accepted opinion pieces on topics from social media use and advertisements to New School policies and student life.

NEWS:

The Free Press accepts news stories about everything, whether it be New York City-specific or a global event. Many stories have a New School perspective, but this is not required. Almost anything can be newsworthy if it is pitched correctly, the story just needs to have an angle and a purpose.

FEATURE:

Our feature section is made up of a variety of different types of stories. These stories are character-driven and tell of a large-picture idea in terms of relevance. Features are often longer, ranging from around 1,000–2,000 words. Some examples of our feature pieces include interviews with the founder of Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton, about his return to his hometown of Newark, New Jersey, as well as a story about Gnarls.

PHOTOS:

While we have photographers on The Free Press staff, we love having freelance photographers work with us as well. If you’d like to try out photojournalism or just get your photos published, please connect with us!

ILLUSTRATIONS:

We are currently working on evolving the illustrations published in the Free Press, if you would like to contribute, please let us know! We also recently began working on a comic section, and we’d love to feature some original and unique art and storytelling.


If you are interested in what the process of writing a story for The Free Press would look like, please refer to this document.

4 comments

  1. Please invest about MoMA Design Store’s product. I found the kid’s product presents stereotypical Asian characteristic(chinky eyes character). So I complained about it to MoMA, they don’t care.

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