How do I pitch journalists directly, and is there an Indian version of HARO?
The short answer
HARO itself went through a messy shutdown-and-relaunch as Connectively, and quality has dropped with AI-generated pitches flooding it, so treat it as one tool among several, not the plan. There's no true India-only HARO equivalent, the real move for Indian founders is building a personal shortlist of beat reporters at YourStory, Inc42, ET and Moneycontrol, following their recent work, and sending a two-line pitch with a real number or story hook, not a press-release attachment. Keep it under 150 words, lead with why it matters to their readers, and follow up once after a week.
A quick summary to orient you. The real value is below: the resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it, not us.
Here are the resources
Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time. India-specific ones carry a badge.
Why we picked it
HARO's shutdown-then-relaunch as Connectively left it flooded with AI-generated pitches, so this roundup of working alternatives (Source of Sources, Qwoted, JustReachOut and more) is the actual current map of "get quoted by journalists" tools.
Why we picked it
A practical set of pitch-email templates and structure rules, cite credible data, double-check names, keep it short, that turns "cold email a journalist" from a blank-page fear into a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.
Why we picked it
Written by a VC who's watched hundreds of portfolio founders try and fail at PR, this is the most no-nonsense explainer of why "we launched" isn't a story and what actually is.
Why we picked it
A free, no-signup-hassle press release template that gets your basic facts and formatting right so you're not reinventing the format the first time a journalist asks for one.
