The Journalist Promise

The promises

1. 1

   1. No blasts.

   Every pitch is written to one person, about one angle, and refers to something you actually wrote. Our system refuses to send more than 25 near-identical bodies. It is not a setting; it is a wall.

2. 2

   2. Verified contacts.

   We check that your address is live before every send and show our people the date it was last confirmed. We never guess an email address, and we never reconstruct one from a pattern.

3. 3

   3. One pitch and one follow-up. Then we stop.

   One pitch per story. One follow-up, no sooner than three days later, only if it adds something (a data point, an asset, an answer). No third. No "just bumping this".

4. 4

   4. A seven-day cooldown, across every client.

   You will not hear from us about anyone more than once in seven days, whichever of our clients the pitch is for, and never twice in fourteen days about the same thing.

5. 5

   5. One click and you are off.

   Every email carries a one-click opt-out. It takes effect instantly, not in ten business days. We keep your opt-out as a hash so no client of ours can reach you through us again; we honour it for a minimum of twelve months and in practice for good, unless you come back and tell us otherwise.1

6. 6

   6. AI assistance is disclosed.

   Every pitch says it was drafted with the help of AI agents and approved by the person who signed it. You get to weigh that however you like.

7. 7

   7. A named human, every time.

   Every pitch is approved by a named person before it sends, comes from that person's own mailbox and is signed with her name and role. Reply, and she replies. No bot answers you, ever, on anything that is not the literal approved statement in a crisis.

The small rules behind the big ones

• Under 120 words. Subject line under 50 characters.
• Sent between 07:00 and 18:00 your local time, on weekdays, unless it is breaking news and flagged as such.
• No fake urgency. No "[Name] can speak to…" bullet blocks. No "it's not X, it's Y". If it reads like a bot wrote it, it did not pass.
• Embargoes only with your written yes, logged. Exclusives are locked to one outlet with an expiry; the system cannot double-book one.
• If you say "not my beat", "stop" or "unsubscribe" in a reply, a classifier flags it and a person confirms it, and you are suppressed the same day.
• We hold professional fields only: your name, outlet, beat, work contact and public work. Nothing personal, nothing inferred, nothing scraped from behind a login.

Set the terms, no account needed

The link in every email opens a page where you can tell us, once, how you want to be pitched, or that you do not. It applies to every client we have and every one we get.

What you can set:

• Topics you cover, and topics you never want to hear about
• Your preferred channel, or none
• "Do not pitch me"
• "No embargoes" (we will never ask)
• "Only on these days"
• "Delete my record" (we keep only the hash that stops us re-adding you)

Where we got your details, and what you can do about it

The law (Article 14 of the GDPR, if you want to look it up)2 says that when we compile a record about you from public sources we must tell you, at the latest the first time we write to you. So:

• What we hold: your name, outlet, beat, work email or public contact, and links to your public work. Professional fields only.
• Where it came from: your bylines, your outlet's pages, your professional social profiles, and anything you told us yourself.
• Why we may: legitimate interest.3 You publish work for people to read and respond to; we help our clients respond with relevant, limited, personal pitches; we have weighed that against your interest in not being bothered and set the limits above so it stays that way.
• Profiling: we tag beats and topics so we pitch you less, not more. You can object to that and we will stop.
• Who sees it: our staff and our clients' approved users, under contract, never exported wholesale.
• How long: we review your record every 12 months and delete it 24 months after the last time we confirmed it was current. If you opt out, we keep only a hash so we cannot re-add you.
• Your rights: see it, correct it, delete it, restrict it, take a copy, and object, absolutely, to being contacted.4 Write to privacy@mainlore.com or use the preference centre. You can complain to the ICO5 or your national data authority.

Read the full notice →

If we break this promise

Tell us at promise@mainlore.com. A person replies within two business days with what happened, which rule failed and what we changed. If a client of ours asked us to break it, we will tell you they did, and they will not be a client for long.