How to Pitch Teen Vogue, History.com, and WSJ Custom Content Studio

You may not have snagged a meeting with an editor at the ASJA 2025 conference or gone to the conference. But you can take advantage of the insider information on pitching that editors who attended shared during the event.

Here are pitching insights and guidelines shared at the conference by editors from Teen Vogue, History.com, and The Trust, the Wall Street Journal custom content studio.

Teen Vogue

Teen Vogue, the Conde Nast online-only publication that targets Gen Z and young Millennials, accepts freelance pitches for all sections. Editors’ contact information is on the site. Teen Vogue’s fashion and style team produces a mix of daily reporting, trending news, and features, and regularly writes about emerging designers. As part of a pledge to address sustainability and waste in fashion, the publication expects to include more secondhand and upcycled goods in shopping guides – something to keep in mind when pitching. “Anna Wintour re-wears dresses, and if she can do it, we can too,” said Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma

The publication is also expanding its coverage of women’s sports and travel.

Teen Vogue regularly works with student journalists. The magazine hired seven student journalists in seven swing states to cover the 2024 presidential election. Student work often appears in the publication’s Generation Next section.

Sharma suggests keeping pitches to one or two paragraphs and following up in a week or so if you don’t hear back. “Everyone on the Teen Vogue team does their best to follow up on pitches, but some might take a few weeks,” she said. Sharma encourages freelancers – and early-career writers especially – to follow Teen Vogue editors on social media and message them with questions. The staff is also relatively young and “we’ve all recently been there,” she said.

History.com

History.com is the online companion to the History Channel, the pay TV network with approximately 63 million subscribers owned by the A&E Networks joint venture between Hearst Communications and Walt Disney Co.

Current History.com article formats include:

• 800- to 1,000-word explainers, listicles, and articles on surprising things about little-known topics
• Visual stories, where photos and extended photo captions make up the bulk of the content
• This Day in History, 200- to 300-word articles

The site is in the middle of a refresh that will include new formats, including short pieces about science, innovation, and technology, according to Missy Sullivan, History.com special projects editor. The site is expanding what it runs on landmarks, architecture, traditions, pop culture, natural history, and military topics.

Educators and students make up a large portion of History.com visitors, so the site pegs content to school curriculum as well as yearly holidays and historical dates. The site also produces content tied to shows airing on the History Channel, and to current events. Content is apolitical: “We don’t name names, we provide historical context to help people understand” what’s happening in the present, Sullivan said.

Search drives a lot of the traffic that comes to History.com, so freelancers have to understand how to incorporate SEO into their work, Sullivan said. Contributors need to be meticulous fact-checkers of their own work: cross-reference sources, don’t assume big institutions always get it right, and watch out for sources with agendas, she said.

History.com assigns pieces much more often than it takes pitches. Freelancers can send letters of introduction to Sullivan through LinkedIn.

The Trust, Wall Street Journal Custom Content Studio

Dow Jones’ custom content division, called The Trust, uses storytelling to inform Wall Street Journal and Barron’s subscribers about corporate brands in a way that educates and engages without being too salesy. Clients include tech, finance, enterprise, luxury, and lifestyle brands. Prospective contributors should be familiar with the publications and be able to work quickly to produce brand stories tied to the latest headlines. They also should be comfortable writing in different formats. One of the studio’s newest is brand-sponsored mini-podcasts that run within longer WSJ podcasts, said Stephanie Chang, head of the content studio.

The Trust rarely takes pitches. Instead, Chang looks for writers who are versatile, can take direction and run with a project, and understand the ins and outs of business. “Writers with finance and tech backgrounds are the hardest to find,” she said.

Freelancers must be able to work collaboratively with the Trust team, which includes creative directors that conceive of campaigns and the project editors, designers, copyeditors, and fact checkers that along with writers carry them out.

The Trust pays by the project for writing, social media copy, and being on calls with clients as needed. Writers who are interested in learning more can reach out to her through LinkedIn.