Pitches wanted (politics, sports, science) | $600+ per article

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT

We love collaborating with reporters, academics, analysts, visual journalists, computational journalists and other contributors from outside of our newsroom — they make up a vital part of FiveThirtyEight’s journalism.

FiveThirtyEight’s mission is to produce empirical journalism, by everyone and for everyone, that advances our understanding of the world. What’s “empirical journalism”? It just means journalism that cites evidence. Importantly, that doesn’t mean only data. Evidence can include data, sure, but also reporting, first-hand experience, academic studies, history and more. That means you don’t need fancy data skills in order to pitch us. Rather, we’re looking to make sure that the argument you’re making or the story you’re telling is bolstered by more than just anecdote.

We pay our contributors on a sliding scale based on the piece’s scope — you and your editor will agree on a fee before we greenlight the pitch. Generally, though, we pay $600 for a 1,000-word feature that requires some reporting or analysis, but is mostly a conceptual argument. Rates can go up from there if pieces are more complex — more reporting, more analysis, more research, etc. (We also sometimes pay a smaller fee for lighter-lift work — contributing to one of our chats, for example.) Our goal is to ensure pay equity across our freelancer corps.

Read our full submission guidelines here.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

• Submissions: Via the webform
• Website: https://fivethirtyeight.com/

TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:

• Learn more about the publication: FiveThirtyEight maintains the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of the original site Nate Silver founded in 2008, while extending its coverage to diverse areas such as sports, politics, economics, science and life. More information here.
• Read through its selection of recent articles/stories, categorized into: Politics, Sports, Science
• Review the submission guidelines here.
• Check out our collection of pitch excerpts on this page and find more sample pitches at The Open Notebook Database and at SuccessfulPitches.com.
• Do not forget to end your pitch with (1) a short introduction about yourself; (2) a paragraph highlighting your writing experience, relevant credentials and publication credits; and (3) links to your strongest work or portfolio, and online profile.

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