Media Request summary in email alert subject line

Every journalist that sends a journalist enquiry has their own style and technique. For public relations professionals the ongoing task of identifying the best media opportunities from hundreds of individual journalist request emails every week can be hard work. It is certainly time-consuming.

For PRs: At-a-glance journalist request headlines

To tackle this issue we’ve made an update to the Dot Star Media journalist request service. We now show short summaries that capture the essence of the full journalist request body-text in the email alert subject line.

This provides an ‘at-a-glance’ summary making it super-easy for public relations professionals to scan through the journalist request alert emails selecting the best opportunities.

In a Gmail web-browser inbox, the new email subject lines summaries look like this:

And in Microsoft Outlook’s desktop email client, the new email subject lines look like this

For Journalists: a simple, quick, journalist request submit form

We’ve streamlined the process of submitting a media request in a couple of ways:

  • Journalists submitting requests don’t need to spend time considering and selecting topics. There is no need for the journalist to devote mental energy in thinking about how their enquiry fits into our subject areas. Categorisation is handled by us.
  • Journalists are no longer asked to summarise their request at the point of submission. This is done automatically.

The shortened journalist enquiry form looks like this:

Journalist can submit their media requests – free of charge – here: dotstar.media/submit

AI streamlines Journalist Request Service, saving precious newsroom time

We’ve deployed an AI assistant to streamline how journalists submit their journalist requests, saving busy newsrooms time each week.

When submitting a journalist request an artificial intelligence assistant categorises the enquiry into subject areas to match our PR subscribers’ preferences. This simplifies the process for journalists by eliminating the need to make manual topic selections.

Benefits:

  1. Time-saving innovation: Journalists can submit requests without navigating category systems, streamlining the media request submission process.
  2. Needs matching: Artificial intelligence assistants analyse journalist request content to assign relevant topics, ensuring accurate and rapid distribution of the journalists’ requests that match public relations professionals’ individual needs.
  3. Newsroom efficiency: By simplifying the enquiry submission process, journalists can focus more on story development and less on administrative tasks.

This update is about empowering journalists to focus on what truly matters – crafting compelling stories. By removing the tedious task of categorising when submitting journalist enquiries we’re giving valuable minutes back to every request and making journalism more efficient without compromising on quality or human insight.

As newsrooms continue to adapt to digital transformation, tools like the Dot Star Media journalist request service demonstrate the potential for AI to support and enhance journalistic practices without replacing the essential human element of reporting.

Journalist can submit their media requests – free of charge – here: dotstar.media/submit

Filter your media enquiries with keywords

Social media is a great source for media requests but with the noise – spam, spoofs and suspicious characters alongside other irrelevant posts – it can quickly become overwhelming. On average there are ~1500 posts a day to #journorequest alone; of these around only 10-15% are genuine media requests from established journalists.

#journorequest signal to noise graph

The first thing Dot Star Media has done is reduce the noise. Simply by signing up to the service you can receive the quality 15% directly to your inbox, Slack or MS Teams, identified by the relevant topic.

Some companies have provided feedback saying that whilst these per-topic requests are great, there are still a lot of requests to sort through for relevance to their clients.

This weekend we’ve taken that feedback and implemented keyword filters within your subscribed topics, meaning you can streamline your requests even further by only emailing ones which contain keywords you’re looking for. This feature is available to our ‘gold’ level subscribers and those on a trial.

How could this work in practice? If your interest is specifically around gym equipment rather than general team sports, you can subscribe to ‘Sport & Leisure’ then add some relevant keywords – e.g. ‘gym’, ‘spin class’, ‘squat rack’ – and your inbox will only go ding when there’s a sports & leisure request mentioning those keywords.

You can start using the keyword filters right away, by clicking the link from your profile page.

keyword filters

Please let us know what you think of this new feature by sending us an email.

If you’re not currently a subscriber, register now to start receiving quality enquiries right away. If you’ve previous had a trial and would like to try out this new feature, send as an email and we’ll get you up and running again.