Journalist search

This article goes through the basics and mechanics of how the new journalist search works. I recommend reading it all to ensure you are getting the most out of the search, because it doesn't work like most other searches.

But here is a TL;DR:

Journalist search is where you can search for journalists by:

1) Name: see here for help with this.

2) Pills: topic, entity, job role, outlet type, and coverage location + filters: e.g. scope, impact, outlet...

Every journalist in our database has been assigned multiple, what we're calling, 'pills'.

There are pills for:

The pills are all custom generated to ensure they perfectly describe the journalist and the area's they actively cover. We don't using generic topics and rigid taxonomies like 'Relationships' and 'Lifestyle', which are too broad to be helpful, they are specific and easily queried.

Pills are custom-generated attributes that fully describe a journalist. They’re assigned to journalists during our enrichment process.

Filters use official information from a journalist’s profile, like a journalist’s official job title, location, or the official scope of the outlet they work for.

With our search - you can use both.

Journalist search lets you find reporters in our database based on the pills assigned to them (e.g. by topics or entities they cover) and then narrow the search down further through filters.

For example, you could search for journalists covering 'Dating Trends', filtered to journalists based in the 'United Kingdom'.

Dating trends is a topic pill here, while United Kingdom is a location filter. Here are the results.

You can see the pill matched in the 'matched' column, and the location is limited to locations in the United Kingdom.

See here to understand more about the difference between the location pill and the location filter, or the job role topic and the job role filter.

Another example. You could search for 'beauty editors' (job role pill), who write about 'chanel' (entity pill), and 'fragrances & perfume' (topic pill).

You can search for ANY combination of pills and filters - and you will be returned a list of the most relevant journalists.

You can also just use the filters - you don't need to include pills.

The search is an intent based search, or meaning based search.

It is NOT a keyword search.

The search doesn't just take the exact topic phrase you have searched and look for it in the journalists bio, or in articles they've written - this type of search can often return unrelated journalists and miss related ones, especially when you are searching by topic.

Vector search understands the meaning and context of your search, and returns the best match based on that.

Lets look at an example.

I searched for 'puff daddy' (actually, I made a typo and searched 'puffy daddy', but that doesn't matter!) - and you can see I get returned results for people who talk about 'Diddy' and 'Sean Coombs' too. The search has understood my intent.

With a standard keyword search you'd only get returned matches for 'puff daddy'.

Another example. I searched for 'cryptocurrency', and I am also returned journalists who have specific coins assigned to them as entities.

More examples (because I love examples):

Note:

Adding many terms with similar meanings can sometimes narrow your results undesirably (because the search doesn't work in the same way as a keyword search).

For example, searching for "cooking blog" "food blog" "dessert blog" at the same time may over-constrain the search, requiring results to match all three concepts.

When a search for simply 'cooking blog' is enough to capture all the relevant results.

If you are trying to search for AI - you need to search with it in capitals, or using the full phrase 'artificial intelligence'.

The vector search does not recognise 'ai' in lowercase as meaning 'artificial intelligence'.

Note that searching for "AI" versus "artificial intelligence" may produce slightly different result rankings, but both queries will capture journalists using either term.

As you search you will see a + and a ⌕ symbol on each pill.

These can be helpful when you're exploring a new area and want to discover new relevant topics to your search.

Or when you want to narrow down your search as you go to find journalist covering a very specific intersection of topics or with a particular job pill. For example, you can start with 'skincare', then later add the 'editor' pill using the +.

We have location filters and location pills.

The location filter is the official location of the journalists outlet if they work for a regional or local publication (e.g. the Houston Chronicle).

If they write for a national or international publication, the location is based on their coverage areas. For example, MaryAnn works for the Daily Mail and has location as her official filter location, because she is the Texas Bureau Chief.

The location pill is based on a journalists coverage area, regardless of the outlet the work for. Someone who works for a Utah based publication, but writes about Salt Lake City will have Utah as their official location and Salt Lake city as a location pill.

The location filtering is based off geographic coordinates, not preset locations or keyword matching - which means you can filter to any location you want.

You could filter to 'Texas', and get results from ALL the cities within that state, not just people who are tagged with the location of 'Texas' (and miss everyone who is tagged with 'Dallas').

Or you can search for 'Los Angeles County' and get results from everywhere within that geographic region - this would be impossible with traditional location tagging.

Or you can navigate to our map, and zoom in on the geographic area you want to target and search that way (below I am searching in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas for real estate reporters).

You can then navigate back to the table to see the results in list form.

If you wanted to build a regional list for Salt Lake City:

1) Filter to the Salt Lake City location to capture everyone who writes for Salt Lake Cit specific outlets.
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2) Search without a location filter, but using the Salt Lake City topic pill to ensure you are also capturing people who write for state wide publications, but focus on Salt Lake City.

TCB (more detail coming soon) - please reach out if you have any questions.

Using intent-based search means you can easily combine different pill types (topics, entities, job roles +++) to find the most relevant journalists.

When you use multiple pills, the search looks for journalists whose overall coverage best matches all the pills you’ve selected - not just one of them.

For example, searching 'mental health' 'gen Z' (as two pills) will surfaces journalists who have covered both areas - for example by writing about how gen z handle stress or popular gen z wellness routines.

Here you can see the power of combined semantic searches - we searched for mental health and gen z, and get returned Lilly, who writes about wellness and gez Z.

No exact matches here, but extremely relevant.

If you tried combining these two topics in a keyword based search, you would only see journalists who have mentioned both or one of those words somewhere in their articles or bio, which means not very many people. And a lot of people who only match one of these topics, but not the other.

Another example, I can search for 'coffee' and 'product reviews':

And get returned a list of everyone who has covered coffee (or any related terms) as a topic, entity, or outlet type, while also writing product reviews - i.e. an instant media list of people who are likely to want to check out my new coffee product.

This just wouldn't be possible with traditional keyword searches.

You can search using separate pills or a single combined phrase (e.g. "gen z workplace" vs "gen z" "workplace", depending on how specific you want to be and what you are aiming to achieve with your search.

In general:

Example: Gen Z + workplace

Using two separate pills surfaces journalists who cover both topics, whether in the same article or separately.

You’ll typically see those who cover both topics together first, but you’ll also come across journalists who have reported on the topics individually. For example, they might have written about:

Using a combined pill would narrow the results to journalists who write specifically about Gen Z in the workplace.

Which way is best to search depends on your desired outcomes.

You can click on any journalist to open up their profile. The profile opens up as a side panel where you can instantly see all the information about the journalist.

You can see other pills that have assigned to them, contact details, and any articles they have written related to your search.
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The related articles will change as you edit and change your search. If you add another pill, the articles will change to show the most relevant to your new search.

This means you and quickly and easily at a glance verify the journalist covers your topic - there is no need to manually scroll through all the other unrelated articles they've written.

Here each of the pill types are explained in more detail. Pills are assigned per job.

Grey pills:

Grey pills appear when you have typed in a search yourself - they have no specific type.

Blue pills:

Blue pills are 'topics' that have been assigned to the journalist. A topic is: a theme or subject of the content.

If a journalist consistently writes articles along the theme of mental health, they will be assigned a mental health pill. Topics are custom generated for each journalist and journalists can be assigned several.

Purple pills:

Purple pills are 'entities' that have been assigned to the journalist. An entity is: a specific, real-world thing mentioned in the content.

If a journalists consistently covers Elon Musk, or Microsoft, or a spcific football team - these will be assigned as entities. Entities are custom generated for each journalist.

Yellow pills:

Yellow pills are 'job roles' that have been assigned to the journalist. The pills are custom generated and based off the journalists current job roles. ?????

You can also filter by job role - here are the differences in the search types:

The filter is a strict filter and you will only see journalist with the specific job title(s) you have selected.

Searching with a 'job role' means you can take advantage of the semantic search and will also surface closely related job roles.

For example if you added the 'beauty editor' job role pill, you will also see 'beauty and fashion editors'. If you search for 'culture reporters' you will also see 'arts reporters'.

Light blue pills:

Light blue pills are 'outlet type' pills that have been assigned to the journalist. The pills are custom generates based on ???/

As with the 'job role' pills, outlet type is also a filter. The differences in searching with the pill vs filtering are similar to described above.

Using outlet pills also allow you to combine scope and outlet type. For examples you can type 'local newspaper' as the 'outlet type'.

Green pills

Green pills are 'coverage location' pills that have been assigned to the journalist.

Not all journalists will have them, when someone does it means that the majority of their coverage focuses on this area.

In the example below, Shara writes for a Utah based outlet, but her coverage mainly focuses on Salt Lake City, so she has been assigned this as a topic pill.

Searching with grey pills

When you search with a grey pill, you search all of the different pill types.

For example, here I have searched for 'coffee', and I get returned journalists with related coffee topics, coffee 'entities', and coffee 'outlet types'.

Searching with coloured pills

When you search with a coloured pill - the search will only search for relevant matches within that pill type.

For example, here I have searched using the coffee entity pill, and I only see other entity matches.

This is why you will see a difference in the search results searching with a grey pill vs a coloured pill, even if the phrase is exactly the same.

How it works when combining pills of different types

When you search with a combination of pill types, each pill will follow the above rules.

If you have a grey pill and a blue pill, the search will look for matches to the grey pill within any pill type, and matches to the blue pill within only the topic pill type.

Name: Type the name of a journalist to see their profile - remove any filters / pills you have selected first.

Outlet: If you are interested in journalists from a particular outlet, you can filter here. You are able to select multiple outlets.

Job title: Filter by exact job titles and roles.

You can use an astrik (*) to make a wildcard search, for example if you want all journalists with the word 'trending' in their job title, you can search 'trending*'.

Location: More on the location filter here (it's important, so has its own section!)

For national and international publications, the location filter is based off the journalists coverage area. A journalist who writes for the New York Times, but covers Mexico will have Mexico as their official filter location. They will also have a location pill for their coverage area.

For regional and local publications, the location is based off the outlets coverage area. Someone who writes for the Los Angeles Times, will have Los Angeles as their location.

Journalists who have a particular coverage area within their regions will have this assigned as a location pill.

Someone who writes for the Utah Times, but specifically covers Salt Lake City will with Utah as their official location filter, and Salt Lake city as a location pill.

Language: Language allows you to filter to journalists who write in a particular language. By default all languages are included unless you specify.

Impact: The impact score is a measure of impactful coverage from that journalist would be. Journalists writing for publications such as the New York Times will have a higher impact score than journalists who write for community or niche outlets with smaller readerships.

It's based off a combinations of things include trust rating pf the publication and estimated traffic.

Journalists writing for high impact publication

Scope: Scope defines the coverage area of the outlet the journalist writes for e.g. national vs local outlets.

Type: Type refers to the media type of the outlet the journalist write for e.g. newspaper or a broadcast outlet.

Story type: Story type allows you to filter on the types of articles the journalist writes. For example if they write a lot of product focused articles, they will be tagged with the product story type. Note a journalist needs to consistently write a particular type of article to be tagged with it.

Exclude: You can exclude media lists from the search you have already created, to ensure you're not double adding people.

Here are some more example searches to show you what's possible.

Search: 'beauty devices' ' skincare'

Filters: story type = product

Result: Journalists who have covered skincare and beauty devices, and write product reviews or guides.

Search: 'dating trends'

Filters: location = United Kingdom

Result: Journalists in the UK covering dating trends

Search: 'investigative'

Filters: location = Texas

Result: Investigative reporters in Texas

Search: 'editors' 'money saving tips'

Filters: -

Result: Editors covering budgeting

Search: 'Chat GPT'

Filters: language = german

Result: Journalists who write about Chat GPT in German

To search for a journalist by name, select the name pill and start typing the name in there. Do not type the name in the big search bar at the top - this wont work!

If you don't see the journalist you are looking for - try removing any filters you have set.

If you have no filters set and you still can't see the journalist, please reach out using the live chat at let us know - we are happy to help.

Some journalists have more than one job, and each job has its own set of filters assigned.

If you're seeing United States as the location, the other job on the journalist's profile will have a location of Texas (which is why it's appearing in the search).

Same logic for languages, outlet type etc.

Not all journalists work in writing roles, or roles where they write very often. For example, some editors may not have any articles assigned to them - but this doesn't meant they're not good people to pitch.

We have still assigned pills to journalists without articles based on other factors such as role, outlet, and bio.