Pitching and writing an opinion piece for Latitude Media
About Latitude Media
Latitude Media covers the new frontiers of climate technology, with stories geared toward well-informed practitioners in the climate and tech industries.
Our stories fall into one or more of the following topics:
- Tech: grid edge, solar, energy storage, artificial intelligence, data centers/cloud, carbon removal, hydrogen, and emerging tech
- Markets: U.S. market, global markets, policy, regulation, and research
- Deals: venture capital, project finance, mergers and acquisitions, and government funding
Coverage priorities and tone
Latitude Media’s audience is made up of a wide variety of practitioners: clean energy executives, technologists, engineers, analysts, developers, and financiers. Accordingly, our coverage is more technical than many climate sites geared toward a more general audience. It is rigorous, practical, and provocative. All stories — both reported pieces and op-eds — should be relevant, interesting, and impactful for climatetech practitioners.
While our audience is largely North American, we welcome stories and op-eds that cover other parts of the world, provided their industry relevance is clear; we would cover novel or otherwise market-moving developments, or international case studies that have big picture implications.
What makes a good op-ed for Latitude Media?
An op-ed that we would consider publishing does the following:
- Covers a subject represented on our site (see above for what that scope includes)
- Covers a subject that is of genuine interest and relevance to a climate tech audience (a hotly debated question, a big-picture trend, an ongoing controversy, a newsworthy development, etc.)
- Has a novel and unique take
- Includes detail specific to the author's experience (anecdotes illustrating the argument, a case study, data, etc.)
- Is authored by someone with genuine authority and expertise in the subject matter
- Avoids incorporating a pitch for the author’s organization or company
- Has a strong, incisive voice
Our op-eds are typically 750-1,000 words.
The edit process
After the op-ed is turned in, we do one collaborative round of edits with our op-ed contributors, which involves suggested changes for structure, voice, and (occasionally) content. This may take up to two weeks, or less time if there is urgency to publish (due to some developing news event, for instance.)
Once both editor and writer agree upon a final draft, Latitude Media reserves the right to make small edits before publishing, assuming those edits have no impact on the story’s substance. Edits made in the second round would be for things like formatting, grammar, or inserting links to background contextual information.
How to pitch
We have a strong preference for receiving pre-written opinion pieces. All opinion submissions should be sent to Lisa Martine Jenkins, editor for Latitude Media (lisa@latitudemedia.com), with “OPINION” included in the subject line.
If you have an idea for an opinion piece that is not yet written, we also are willing to review pitches. However, we can only say for sure that we will publish an op-ed once we see a final draft.
The ideal pitch is no more than a few paragraphs. It should quickly articulate what the topic is, why it is relevant to Latitude Media’s readers, and what’s new about it. Pitches should clearly lay out why the potential author is uniquely positioned to comment on the subject they’re writing about, and why their insight is relevant. If the potential op-ed is pegged to a particular developing news story, the timeline should be made clear.