On this page15
- Why is silence so hard to read?
- Where do crypto pitches die? The five-stage autopsy
- Stages 1 and 2: why wasn't the pitch opened or read?
- Stage 1: the inbox
- Stage 2: the first two lines
- Stage 3: why was it the wrong person?
- Stage 4: why wasn't it news?
- Stage 5: why did interest go nowhere?
- How do you run the autopsy on your own pitches?
- When silence isn't about your pitch
- FAQ
- How long should I wait before deciding a pitch was ignored?
- Does pitching more reporters fix the problem?
- Will reporters tell me why they passed?
- Can a good pitch still fail because of my project's reputation?
Journalists usually ignore a pitch for one of five reasons: they never opened it, they opened it but the first lines didn't say anything, it wasn't on their beat, it wasn't news to their readers, or it was news but they couldn't use it in time. Silence rarely means a reporter disliked you. It means your pitch died at one of those stages, and each stage has its own fix. Work out where yours are dying before you rewrite anything.
Why is silence so hard to read?
Because reporters don't send rejection notes. They can't; the volume is too high. So you're left guessing, and most founders guess wrong. They assume the reporter is biased, or that crypto media only covers paying clients, or that they need a bigger agency.
I do this for a living and I still feel the weight of it.
for those who think PR is easy, it's so hard to get journalist's attention fml Shilika Jain on X, 7 Jan 2025
The way out is to stop treating "ignored" as one problem. A pitch passes through a sequence of small decisions in the reporter's head, and it can die at any of them. I call the method below a pitch autopsy: you work backwards through those decisions and find the one that killed it.
Where do crypto pitches die? The five-stage autopsy
| Stage | What the reporter decides | Symptom on your side | Most likely cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Inbox | "Do I open this?" | No reply, no engagement at all | Vague subject line, unknown sender, wrong time, landed in spam |
| 2. First lines | "Is there something here?" | Opened (if you can tell), no reply | News buried under company background or adjectives |
| 3. Beat | "Is this mine?" | Silence, or "not for me" | Wrong reporter, wrong desk, wrong outlet |
| 4. News value | "Would my editor and readers care?" | Silence from several right-beat reporters | Promotional update with no impact outside your company |
| 5. Usability | "Can I actually write this?" | Interest, then nothing | No data, no access, no exclusivity, bad timing, missing assets |
Use it honestly. If ten right-beat reporters all ignored the same pitch, the problem is almost never stage one. It's stage four.
Stages 1 and 2: why wasn't the pitch opened or read?
Stage 1: the inbox
The subject line and the sender name do all the work here. A reporter scanning an inbox sees maybe eight words and a name.
Causes and fixes:
- Subject line is a slogan. "Revolutionising cross-chain liquidity" tells them nothing. Put the news and a concrete detail in the subject: who, what, a number if you have one. My crypto pitch subject line formula has the structure.
- Sender is unknown and unexplained. A generic marketing address or an agency they've never heard of gets skimmed past. Send from a named person, and make sure your name appears with a role.
- Mass-send signals. Merge tags that broke ("Hi {First Name}"), BCC lists, tracking-pixel-heavy newsletters disguised as pitches. Each one says "you're on a list."
- Timing. A pitch sent during a market crash or a major hack is fighting for attention it won't get. Wait a day unless your news is about the event.
Stage 2: the first two lines
If the reporter opens your email and the first two lines are about your mission, your team's background or "we're excited to share," they're gone. The news has to sit at the very top.
This is where crypto pitches suffer most, because so many products are genuinely hard to explain.
Most crypto companies don't have a product problem, but they have an explanation problem. Shilika Jain on X, 19 Jun 2026
A reporter can't cover what they can't summarise in one sentence for their editor. So write that sentence for them. Test it on a smart friend outside crypto: if they can't repeat back what happened and who it affects after your first two lines, rewrite.
Fixes that work:
- Lead with the fact, not the framing. "X processed Y for Z users" before any adjectives.
- Cut every word of jargon you can. Keep the technical term only where the reporter's beat uses it daily.
- Put the "why it matters" in line two, framed around the market or users, not your roadmap.
Stage 3: why was it the wrong person?
A perfectly written pitch to the wrong reporter is still a dead pitch. Crypto desks split beats finely: markets, policy, DeFi, infrastructure, NFTs and gaming, AI crossovers, regional coverage. A gaming launch sent to a policy reporter tells them you didn't read their work.
The fix is boring and effective: read the last few months of each reporter's bylines before you add them to a list. If they haven't written about anything like your news in that period, they're not your reporter for this story, however senior they are.
Outlet fit matters as much as reporter fit. The way I'd map Decrypt's desks, for example, is different from how I'd approach The Block or Cointelegraph, and my Decrypt beat map shows how granular that gets.
Stage 4: why wasn't it news?
This is the stage that kills the most crypto pitches, and it's the one founders least want to hear about.
Most crypto founders confuse press releases with PR. That's why they get ignored. Shilika Jain on X, 6 May 2026
A press release announces something your company decided. A pitch offers a reporter a story their readers need. Those are different documents, and the gap between them is where silence comes from. Partnerships without substance, version upgrades, "milestones" that only matter internally and generic AI-integration news all fall into this gap.
Run the news test before you pitch. A pitch passes stage four if at least one of these is true:
- It's a first. Something hasn't been done before on-chain, in a market or in a category, and you can defend the claim.
- It has numbers that mean something. Real usage, real money, real growth, verifiable.
- It connects to a story already running. A regulatory change, a market event, an outage, a trend reporters are covering this week.
- It's surprising data. An original report with a finding that cuts against assumptions. One client example I can point to: Tangem's self-custody survey gave reporters a headline stat, and that stat travelled across English, Korean and Japanese outlets.
- It involves someone readers already care about. A major exchange, a large ecosystem, a known institution, with a real role in the news.
If none are true, the news belongs on your blog and your X account, not in a reporter's inbox. Pitching it anyway is how you train reporters to ignore your name. If you've been relying on wire services instead of pitching, this stage is probably where your problem sits.
Stage 5: why did interest go nowhere?
Sometimes a reporter is interested and still doesn't write. That's a usability failure, and it's the most fixable of the five.
Common causes:
- No access. The founder isn't available for a call this week, or answers questions with marketing lines.
- No proof. Claims without data, links or on-chain evidence. Reporters need to verify, especially in crypto.
- No exclusivity when they needed it. Some outlets prefer exclusives for certain stories. If your news is going everywhere at once, a bigger outlet may pass.
- Bad timing. Pitched too late for their week, or after the story already broke elsewhere.
- Missing assets. No logo pack, no headshot, no fact sheet. Small, but it slows them down when they're filing against a deadline.
And sometimes the reporter is simply swamped. That's where a single, well-timed follow-up earns its place. How many and how spaced is its own question, covered in how many times to follow up with a journalist.
How do you run the autopsy on your own pitches?
Take your last ten to twenty pitches and score each one, stage by stage, as pass or fail. Be strict.
- Inbox: The subject line makes sense with no context.
- First lines: The first two lines state what happened and who it affects.
- Beat: This reporter has covered something similar recently.
- News value: It passes at least one of the five news tests.
- Usability: Access, proof and assets were ready on the day you pitched.
Look for the stage where most pitches fail first. That's your fix. If your pitches mostly fail at news value, a better subject line won't save them. If they fail at beat, rewriting your story won't help. Fix the earliest failing stage, then run it again on the next batch.
When silence isn't about your pitch
Not every ignored pitch has a cause you can fix. Reporters go on leave, change beats, leave outlets or get pulled onto a breaking story for a week. Newsrooms shrink. A great pitch can land on a bad day.
So don't over-diagnose a single silence. The autopsy works on patterns across many pitches, not on one. And it has a cost: running it properly means admitting that some of your announcements weren't news, which is uncomfortable when a launch has absorbed months of your team's work.
If you'd rather have someone else hold the scalpel, this is the kind of review I do at the start of Web3 PR campaigns, before a single pitch goes out.
FAQ
How long should I wait before deciding a pitch was ignored?
For news pitches, give it three to four working days. For features or trend angles, a week or more is reasonable. After that, one follow-up, then move on.
Does pitching more reporters fix the problem?
Usually it makes it worse. Sending a pitch that fails at stage four to more reporters just spreads the damage. Fix the pitch first, then widen the list carefully.
Will reporters tell me why they passed?
Occasionally, especially if you've built a relationship and ask politely after the fact. Don't demand feedback, and take any reply as a gift. Their answer is often more useful than a dozen rewrites.
Can a good pitch still fail because of my project's reputation?
Yes. If your project has a history of hype, broken promises or aggressive outreach, reporters will be cautious. The fix is slower: consistent, accurate pitches over months, and on-record answers when things go wrong.
Pitches going into a void and you can't tell which stage is killing them? Book a 30-minute teardown and send me your last three.
