Something is wrong. Mass media and social media are increasingly polarized, and the problem of fake news is becoming worse. Our elections were disrupted in 2016 by a foreign adversary using social media misinformation tools and today the facts of a debate are different depending on who you talk to, what media they listen to, and what party they’re in. We need to change our media paradigm.

Or at least, the Republicans are going to call you one.

Some Democrats spend all their time trying to stop this smear, to stop the GOP from defining them by saying no, that’s not us. I want x, not y. Those Democrats usually lose. Instead, they need to focus on their message, not the GOPs, and quit letting them define the terms of the election.

People getting into the communication profession say that it's increasingly hard to pitch stories with editors and reporters overwhelmed with email, tweets, and more. With that in mind, I've written up this brief example of a successful pitch and provided some takeaways for successful pitches.