Video and PR: What journalists actually want (and what gets your pitch binned)

Lessons from our last YS Does Brunch with Andy Wasley

Earlier this month, we held our latest ‘YS does brunch’ – the topic of the morning: the importance of video in PR. We were privileged to have Andy Wasley as our guest speaker. Andy is a travel writer and videographer who’s worked for Nat Geo Traveller, Adventure.com, Trail and The Great Outdoors, and who also happens to be video news editor at a news agency. He shared a whole raft of insights on why video is essential for PR in 2026, what good video looks like, and what every brand needs to know. So read on to find out.

Only got a few minutes? Skip to our three top tips for your next pitch.

Video isn’t optional anymore. Sorry.

If you still needed convincing, here are the numbers Andy opened with:

• Three-quarters of people now consume news with video online (Reuters Institute, Oxford)
• More than half of UK adults get their news from social media, according to Ofcom – and Andy reckons that’s an underestimate (so do we)
• 7 in 10 travel decisions are influenced by video (Expedia, across seven markets)

Every major UK news brand has been investing in video, including introducing watch tabs on their sites, dedicated social teams and even budgets for production of their own videos. 

The upshot? Your campaign without video will still work. It just won’t work as well as it could. 

The two approaches you can take with media

Broadly speaking, according to Andy, there are two ways to properly integrate video into your media engagement and PR campaigns: 

• Option A: Invite the media in. As mentioned, most outlets have their video production teams, and these budgets and teams are growing. This route involves creating a story with strong visuals in mind, and then inviting the media in to shoot their own footage. 
• Option B: Create the content yourself and send the content over. Andy shared a great example of this: Premier Inn in Wales got a Nessa (from Gavin and Stavey) impersonator in and filmed a lot of funny content tying the brand into the character. They shared this with the media, and it went wild gaining huge reach across social – even James Corden shared it.

What “good footage” actually means

If you want to go down the route of option B, it’s important that what you are producing is actually going to tick the boxes for the media. Good video includes:

• Establishing shots to set the scene 
• Close-ups of the product story elements, hands and faces 
• People. In Andy’s words: “You don’t get a story across if it doesn’t have a person in it”
• Interviews that are properly lit with properly recorded audio. 

But, before you package this up perfectly with a bow and send it over. What you don’t want to do is hand over your finished campaign video with graphics burnt in and your logo plastered across the bottom corner. Media want to add their own branding, and this may well mean your content gets rejected. 

Plan B (roll) 

See what we did there? If you are sharing footage as opposed to inviting the media in, B roll is often invaluable. This helps the media to edit the footage into the perfect segment. 

Andy shared some guidance here:

• Five minutes maximum. More than that, and you’re sharing too much and will be taking up too much editing time 
• Shots should be around 10 seconds long, so there’s room to cut
• Name your files or send a doc that explains which clip is which and who’s speaking
• Use WeTransfer. Not Box (“horrible, takes ages”). Not Dropbox (same problem).
• Lead the email with “video available” or “shoot opportunity.” Make it clear you’re solving a problem, not creating one.

Use embargos

This was one of the strongest points shared by Andy. In his words:

“I still daily, in my horrific inbox, receive PR emails for immediate release. You have to be very hopeful that’s going to land because you’re competing with everything else happening on that news day.”

The classic embargo is Sunday for a week Monday morning. This works well as you give the team two weekends which tend to be quieter, but staff are still on, so you’ve got a better chance of cutting through. 

It’s ok to trust the desks with embargoes. They deal with embargoed government and Premier League content every single day.

Shoot vertical footage

Andy described himself as an “old school” videographer who still instinctively shoots wide. But if you’re trying to reach anyone under 35, they’re probably consuming video content with their phone held vertically. 

Even if your audience is a little older, this probably still applies. The Reuters Institute shared insight that their vertical views doubled on The Economist‘s socials last year. And Economist readers are not millennials. So it’s not just a Gen Z thing.

Cropping wide video to vertical doesn’t look great, so this isn’t a great idea.

It’s worth remembering that wide (horizontal) is still right for TV and big screens, but vertical hugely extends your reach on the platforms where most of the scrolling actually happens. So consider shooting both.

Journalists and editors are time poor 

This is not new news (no pun intended), but Andy stressed this point. A story which has all the right ingredients AND is easy to edit will often win over other stories. If you’re making the editor’s job easier, you’re more likely to get your campaign to cut through. 

In practice, this means:

• Put the asset link at the top of the email
• A 5-minute rough cut, not 40 unnamed clips
• Clean video without logos burnt in 
• File names that are clear and self-explanatory
• A one-sentence top line on why your story matters 

DON’T use AI to generate your video 

Andy shared that he is “completely wary” of generative AI for actual content. As a rule, manipulated content can’t be used by news agencies. 

Anything AI-generated needs to be flagged, because the BBC, Guardian and others now label it explicitly.

AI does have a place in making PR’s and editors’ lives easier, but video creation is not one of them. 

Three things to do for your next pitch

Pitch access, not just a press release

Think about how you could offer something that adds a genuinely interesting visual element to your story. And invite the media along to film it

Give time

Don’t share your video story for immediate publication. Leverage embargos. 

Make the link easy

Use WeTransfer with the link at the top of the email, label your files, keep your footage clean and be clear about what you’re offering 

The campaigns that get picked up on PA’s wire and onto Sky and ITV aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets; they’re often the ones that have all the right ingredients for a good video story and make the editors’ lives easier. 

YS Does Brunch is our regular get-together for the PR and marketing community in Bristol and beyond. Sign up to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss out on the next one.