cheat sheet

With tech IPOs looking a bit shaky these days, mergers and acquisitions become more important to the tech world. At a subscriber's request, here's a cheat sheet with 12 edit shops that focus on M&A, with contact info for what we believe to be the go-to journalist.

Ransomware is here to stay and both business and trade media will have to assign resources to cover it. The following is a short list -- well, maybe not so short -- of must-pitch reporters in the space. Many obvious names here, some less so.

We decided to break out our AWS cheat sheets along the lines of the obvious and less obvious. Even then, our lists might be missing your faves. We predicated our choices based on the volume of copy they produce, as measured by our friends at IT Database/Tech News.

For some reason we've managed not to offer cheat sheets on key tech categories, so as the summer progresses we're going to fix that. Let's get started with a list of 20 AWS reporters -- the more obvious ones, who write frequently. Watch for our list of 20 AWS reporters who might not be so top-of-mind.

This is a bit of an experiment -- a tiny amount of words seeking to set apart Tier 1 from the trades. What are their core values? Are any shared? How are they similar and different? PR pros may know all this -- especially you vets -- but do the clients? Perhaps this short-and-sweet copy can (in a small way) make agency-client life easier. 

Few things are tougher than building a useful list of reporters who cover funding rounds. Technically, any beat reporter could cover funding news based on the startup being a contender in an emerging marketplace. But PR folks mostly seek reporters who cover funding rounds from any VC in any market -- as they should.

By request, here's a cheat sheet on financial TV bookers, producers and talent. The focus is on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg and Cheddar.

Not exactly a target list -- more like a treasure map to the targets... here's the path to America's top 15 national newspaper tech sections, along with the email syntax for each. Tech is part of damn near everything these days, so it's valuable to monitor the sections as well as the individuals who write for them.

We predict that reporters will try to predict outcomes of 2019, and might even accept your clients' content in the process. Even if they don't publish it directly, these folks are worth pitch and influencing. Here's our cheat sheet.

Black Friday (and Cyber Monday, for that matter) are coming soon. It's another long-lead opportunity for you. Who wrote strong analytical pieces in 2018 on the subject? Our cheat sheet points the way. Sing out if we've missed someone.