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Whether you’re hoping to publish a thought leadership piece or getting ready to announce news, knowing what healthcare publications are appropriate to pitch is really half the battle. Even if you don’t have any news to work with today, it’s still important you know these reporters and influencers and how they might fit into a broader marketing and PR strategy.
The good news is that the recon is relatively straightforward - read and read often. Even more good news? There are some excellent, highly curated newsletters you can receive weekly, daily or several times a day, in some cases, meaning you don’t even need to go looking for it.
There is certainly no shortage of healthcare outlets - including IT, tech, business and finance - that could be excellent homes for your news or opinion piece. Some, however, are more appropriate for your message, and because of that, your chances of securing coverage increases simply based on pitching the right publication. And if it’s not your job to know what those are - for instance, if your job is to lead your company - it can feel a bit unwieldy.
So while this list offers just a glimpse of the excellent health and health tech journalism today, it should give you a good sense of who to follow. The more you read their articles or engage with their post on Twitter, the better understanding you will have for the types of stories they want to pursue, or - in the case of op-ed editors - the kinds of contributed pieces they want to take a risk on (especially if you’re a newer author).
Many of you likely know and already read Modern Healthcare, Healthcare Dive and Medtech Dive, FierceHealthcare (FierceBiotech and FiercePharma), MobiHealthNews, Becker’s Hospital Review (and Becker’s Health IT & CIO Report), Healthcare IT News and Healthcare Business News. Those are excellent outlets and continue to read them, but here are a few others you may not be as familiar with to consider.
STAT
STAT is my go-to first-read pretty much every day for all things healthcare and technology. Spun out of the Boston Globe in 2015, STAT has quickly reached rockstar status among life sciences, biotech, artificial intelligence (AI), research and the overall healthcare and scientific community, with more than 6.5M unique readers a month.
If anyone in the healthcare industry hadn’t heard of STAT that changed this March when the New York Times profiled the publication, calling them “The Medical News Site that Saw the Coronavirus Coming Months Ago.”
According to the article, readership was up to 30 million in 2020, and again, that was written back in March. As someone who spent a better part of a decade as a news reporter and editor, I love STAT because they have intelligent, intuitive reporters and editors who commit to honest, straightforward and inquisitive reporting. And they’ve cultivated quite the following in the process.
A few folks to follow over at STAT include:
- Casey Ross, a national healthtech writer, focusing on the science and ethics of AI and digital health: @caseymross
- Helen Braswell, infectious diseases senior writer (highlighted in the NYT piece): @HelenBranswell
- Matthew Herper, senior writer, medicine, who as he puts it, covers “medical innovation — both its promise and its perils…”: @matthewherper
Other content you can subscribe to include the STAT Morning Rounds and the STAT Health Tech newsletters.
POLITICO
I love POLITICO. I have since it first launched a decade or so ago, led by some former Washington Post politicos. But a couple of years ago when I was pitching novel scientific research for a top academic medical center, it wasn’t on the top of my list. Now, it is. And if you’re in health tech - particularly if you’re concerned with data and interoperability - it’s a must-read for you as well.
Health reporters Darius Tahir and Mohana Ravindranath just refreshed their morning eHealth newsletter with “Future Pulse,” and I don’t start my day without reading it. Add healthcare alum David Lim (who was most recently at Healthcare Dive) to lead their FDA and COVID-testing coverage, and you’ve got a thorough understanding of current health news, with a dose of the latest out of D.C. as POLITICO does so well.
Find them on Twitter: @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @davidalim and @ddiamond.
Here are a few other healthcare and health tech journalist doing incredible work these days:
- Christina Farr, CNBC, has an incredible following among health tech CEOs. They all want to talk to her. Follow @chrissyfarr.
- Natasha Singer, NYT. The New York Times’ science, health and tech bench is deep and full of talent and even a conversation with any of these folks should be considered a huge win. Natasha’s a must-follow because she writes at the intersection of these topics - plus privacy. Follow @natashanyt.
- Emily Mullin is a science writer at OneZero, Medium’s publication on tech and science. She’s also a science writing professor at Johns Hopkins. Follow @emilylmullin.
- Dr. Eric Topol isn’t a journalist, though he is the editor in chief of Medscape. He’s a leading physician, scientist, researcher and author and considered the top influencer/expert in AI in healthcare. If Dr. Topol is tweeting about your solution, congratulations - you’ve arrived. Follow @EricTopol.
Of course, knowing, following, and reading these folks is just the beginning of any media strategy. Want to learn more about how to kick-start your media relations? Drop us a line.
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