As an associate producer of “Fox & Friends,” Jess Todtfeld has heard it all from people who have no clue how to pitch.
Particularly annoying are authors who call and want to spend the entire time asking him about topics that the show covers.
“Then they follow that with a book title pitch,” he says. “They figure the book title should be the segment. It’s like saying, ‘here’s my book, now you tell me how it works for your show.’ People need to call up and KNOW how they’d work for the show.”
There’s only one way to do that. Watch the show. It’s that simple.
In fact, watch two or three weeks worth of shows. If you’re not at home when the show’s on, then tape it.
If you watched regularly, you’d know that “Fox & Friends” takes a somewhat irreverant view of the top stories of the day. You’d also know that many of those stories are matched with an expert for the “guest segments” and that other stories are discussed in an informal “around the water cooler” fashion, much like you’d see on “The View.”
Topics on health, fitness, business and self-help rarely make it on the show. If you do have a pitch that falls into that category, Jess says, figure out how to match it to stories in the news.