How our new media start up Journalist Connect was born…

As founder of Journalist Connect (https://www.journalistsconnect.com), I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Sapna Shahani and I run a creative marketing agency in Goa called Blurb (www.blurbgoa.com). Over the past few years of running this agency, I have experienced the difficulty in connecting with national media to get visibility for my clients, who are often times very newsworthy.

Although we work in the lifestyle / hospitality sector, we represent brands who are comparable to the best. Even when we have promoted non-commercial, educational events such as the Story of Space (http://www.thestoryof.org/space2017/), it was not easy to connect with national media, whom we knew would be interested in the story.

Over the monsoon, I came across a website in the US that seemed to offer the solution… www.HelpAReporterOut.com, also known as HARO. I realized that a simple service like this does not exist in India. We have Facebook groups like Media Movements and Whatsapp groups like One Source, but I haven’t come across a website that connects journalists with non-journalists in a free and easy way.

I know from my knowledge of journalism (having written for national media myself), as well as my knowledge of public relations, that journalists always need to connect with more authentic sources. We often get calls from journalists asking us to connect them with persons with new or unique stories.

So armed with my intuitive knowledge, I wrote to HARO and asked if they would like to set up a similar service in India. Unfortunately, the answer was no. So I decided to develop it myself. With a little help from ex start-up founders, start-up mentors in India and abroad and web developers, we have got this far.

I hope you will support us by using the service and offer feedback on how it can be made better, if you like what we are doing.

Thank you so very much!