Free Media List Service Now Has More Than 170 Active Requests

April 23, 2010 - PRLog -- SALUDA, NC, April 14, 2010 — More and more media professionals are discovering PitchRate.com as their free online source to connect with experts on the stories they cover.

The free media list service PitchRate.com (http://www.PitchRate.com) has more than 170 active requests from journalists seeking experts across a wide range of topics.

“There is now a request at PitchRate for almost anyone to pitch,” says Shannon Nicholson, vice-president of sales for Blue Kangaroo, Inc., the Web products company that created PitchRate.com.

PitchRate.com is a free online service connecting experts with journalists from magazines, newspapers, radio, TV and online sources. Since it went online in February 2009, PitchRate.com has sent out distributions to tens of thousands of experts in an amazingly diverse array of topics.

Reporters use PitchRate.com to find experts on subjects such as publishing, marketing, parenting, finance, healthcare, interior design and product reviews. But PitchRate.com also includes requests for “everyday” experts — such as current queries for men and women to share their stories on how they’ve given back to their communities and what not to do when writing a business plan.

PitchRate.com’s media requests range from light-hearted (no fuss cocktail and holiday parties) to hard news (sweat lodge deaths) to consumer news (relief from your toxic mortgage loan). The media professionals seeking interviews and story sources on PitchRate.com include local to national magazine, newspaper, TV and radio reporters and an array of online journalists.

In addition to connecting journalists and experts, PitchRate.com also provides free PR training resources, articles, and PR tips videos through its resources page at http://www.PitchRate.com.

Drew Gerber, CEO of Wasabi Publicity and PublicityResults.com, created PitchRate.com because he realized journalists on deadline need a platform to contact credible experts quickly and efficiently. PitchRate.com is the only service that rates the expertise of sources based on reporters’ reviews from previous interviews and other criteria. Here’s how it works:

When preparing for a story, print and online reporters and broadcast producers use PitchRate to make a request for experts or firsthand sources to interview. PitchRate.com sends out these queries each day in emails to its list of experts who can then pitch the journalists on their area of interest. It costs nothing to sign up as an expert or as a journalist.

PitchRate.com is unique among news query services because it assigns a ranking to pitches so media professionals can find the best interviews quickly. Journalists can choose to cloak their requests so sources can’t contact them directly and even use PitchRate’s concierge service to make the request for them. Reporters can either have pitches emailed directly to them, or easily organize them on the site. Media professionals can also easily turn off requests so they don’t get bombarded with pitches after they have found what they need.

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L. Drew Gerber is CEO of www.PublicityResults.com and creator of www.PitchRate.com, a free media tool that connects journalists and the highest rated experts. Gerber's business practices and staffing innovations have been revered by PR Week, Good Morning America and the Christian Science Monitor. His companies handle international PR campaigns and his staff develops online press kits for authors, speakers and companies with Online PressKit 24/7, a technology he developed (www.PressKit247.com). Contact L. Drew Gerber at: AskDrew@PublicityResults.com or call him at 828-749-3548.