Monocle: a pitching guide
Monocle.com features original, independent and optimistic journalism from a range of correspondents and staff writers. We’re also looking for fresh voices and new perspectives from freelancers with great connections and polished prose to add to the line-up.
Monocle Radio has its own booking and commissioning process. For more information, please contact Tom Webb at tdw@monocle.com.
To pitch to Monocle Magazine, please find our editors’ contact details here.
About us
Monocle offers a global take on international affairs, urbanism, entrepreneurship, culture, design, fashion and hospitality. The best way to get a read on how we do it is by picking up a copy of the magazine, exploring the website or listening to Monocle Radio.
While many publications revel in negative news and catastrophes, we try to be constructive. Our tone is considered, level-headed and solution-oriented: we’re interested in benchmarks, best practices and stories that resonate beyond the place they’re reported. We value writing that has a point of view and pragmatism but isn’t afraid to raise a smile too.
Monocle’s readers and listeners are worldly, well-travelled and discerning. They’re interested in opportunities, insights and ideas that they can’t find elsewhere and are as clued up on diplomacy and design as they are drinking and dining.
We strongly believe that getting out in the world, being curious, talking to people and offering our readers genuine insights and fresh ideas is what will keep Monocle – and more broadly journalism – relevant and trustworthy.
We want to work with skilled, seasoned and well-connected journalists to gain access, argue the toss, risk a joke, use an amusing adjective and bring stories to life.
To pitch digital stories, here’s our quick guide
What’s the story?
A good pitch is a quick, specific and compelling summary of what you’d write and who you’d speak to in no more than a few short sentences and without lots of links. Please suggest a narrative, take an angle, tell a story. Pictures help, particularly if it’s visually compelling. Give the editor a reason to say yes.
Access and research
Always offer a reporting plan in your pitch. Tell us who you will speak to and whether they are available to meet. Describe the colour and texture of the place that features in your story.
Please check whether Monocle has interviewed your source before or whether another publication has just covered this story.
Urgency
Why now? Monocle doesn’t tend to cover anniversaries or people just because they’re on a media circuit. So, there should be some sense of timelines around the story and how it engages specifically with something happening in the world today.
Word-length and format
If your pitch is accepted, you and your editor will discuss length and format options that best fit the story. As a rule of thumb these are some of our favoured online formats:
• Opinion: We value punchy pieces that make a clear argument and challenge conventional wisdom. We believe that local stories can have global relevance but we need your help to tell us why. So, keep your writing pithy and specific.
• Features: Our features bring readers to places near and far, and tell human stories rooted in place. We look for writing that is timely, newsworthy and takes an optimistic and solutions-oriented angle.
• Explainers: These features illustrate why someone or something is important, with background that provides context and insight into why the topic matters now. Rather than glorified Wikipedia entries, we want insights that are succinct, conversational and have a clear angle on the subject.
• Q&As: We like to feature industry innovators, design thinkers, political movers, urban planners and business leaders who can speak to their areas of expertise, pull back the curtain on a project or shed light on how they grew their business. The interviews must be lively and provide punchy takeaways for readers.
Writing on spec
We rarely publish stories supplied on spec, please still submit a pitch using the guidelines above to make sure that it’s tailored to our take and audience.
AI Policy
We do not, under any circumstance, allow copy generated or edited by AI. However, we do allow the use of AI in research. Please see our full AI policy here.
Payment
We pay £0.50 per commissioned word for digital stories and invoices are paid monthly.
Where to pitch
Please send your digital pitches to digital-pitches@monocle.com.
Getting back to you
We do our best to respond to as many pitches as we can, though it’s not always possible. Please bear in mind that we’re a small team.
If you have sent the same idea numerous times, it might be time to try another approach. The best pitches are personal, human and humble – if it’s the right story, we’ll do what we can to make it work.
A selection of stories that we enjoyed publishing
Affairs – Our take on the world of geopolitics, diplomacy and defence
Urbanism – Neighbourhoods to know, mayors to meet and people shaping the built environment for the better
Business – Entrepreneurship, fresh ideas and B2B insights plus Q&As with top CEOs
Culture – News from the worlds of art, media, advertising and publishing
