The Open Notebook is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides tools and resources to help journalists who cover science, health, and the environment sharpen their skills. Learn more about TON here.
Before you pitch using the form below, please look over these guidelines.
What Kinds of Stories We’re Looking For
We sometimes commission story-behind-the-story interviews and reported features. Please note, however, that our capacity for assigning stories is very limited.
Note 12/14/25: Our slate is quite full for at least the next several months, so we are not accepting pitches at this time. We hope to have more capacity for assigning in late spring 2026.
What Not to Pitch
- We publish stories about the craft of science journalism. We do not publish stories about an area of scientific research or interviews with scientists about their science. Please familiarize yourself with our publication before pitching. Pitches that are not about the craft of science journalism will not receive a response.
- We need to know who you are. We do not commission stories from people who we know nothing about. Your pitch should include verifiable information about who you are, your background, and your relevant credentials or experience. Pitches that do not contain such information will not receive a response.
- We do not respond to pitches written by generative AI. We do not accept or publish editorial content with text generated or edited by AI. This includes pitches, article drafts and revisions, headlines, story summaries, images, and image captions. Please do not use generative AI to develop your pitch. We receive enormous numbers of pitches written by AI. It is extremely easy to tell that a pitch was written by AI, and such pitches will not receive a response.
What to Include in Your Pitch
Provide a brief (no more than 3,000 characters, which is about 500 words) query describing your idea, what makes it right for The Open Notebook, and how you plan to approach the story.
Your pitch should describe:
- Why you think this story is important and suitable for The Open Notebook
- How it goes beyond what has already been done on the subject, at TON or elsewhere
- The proposed story’s angle: What are the key questions you will ask and address? (And what, based on your pre-reporting, are some of the likely answers to those questions?)
- Elements that the piece is likely to include, as well as some of the sources that you may interview
- Note that TON stories typically include a heavy focus on science journalism craft, so we expect writers to offer lots of concrete, nuts-and-bolts strategies and tools that people can apply to their own work.
- We are very intentional about including sources with relevant expertise/experience who represent historically underrepresented communities and perspectives, as well as sources outside the U.S., including in low-income and middle-income countries (AKA the Global South). Please plan accordingly.
- If you’re pitching a story-behind-the-story interview, please provide some indication of why you think the story is noteworthy and what kinds of questions you’d like to raise with the writer, bearing in mind, again, our focus on science journalism craft. (Do not simply tell us who you’d like to interview and what they wrote.)
- Information about you and your background and relevant work (and if possible, include links to a few pieces of your published work)
Are you new to pitching? If so, you might want to begin by reviewing some guidance on pitching that we’ve published at The Open Notebook.
What We Pay
We are committed to paying fair and competitive rates to all our contributors, and we have raised our rates every year for the past six years. We currently pay the following rates:
- $1,800 for interviews (assigned at 1,500-2,000 words)
- $2,500 for reported features (assigned at 1,500-2,000 words)
We pay promptly upon acceptance of the final draft.
(Note: We are seldom able to negotiate on rates, but there are occasionally special circumstances when we can do so, such as when the writer and editor agree that the scope of a story has expanded beyond the original assignment. We will never revoke an offer of an assignment because a writer asked for a higher rate, or think less of a writer for asking. We encourage all freelance writers to advocate for themselves.)
What You Can Expect
Our Editorial Process
If you are assigned a story, you can expect a rigorous editing process. Most stories published at The Open Notebook go through several rounds of substantive editing as well as copyediting and fact-checking. Once scheduled, our stories hew to a tight editorial and production timeline. We depend on writers to meet their deadlines and to communicate promptly about any anticipated delays in the writing, editing, or fact-checking stages. Not doing so leads to production delays, increases the risk of errors being introduced into rushed copy, and requires members of our team and/or other freelancers to adjust their schedules to compensate.
Source Diversity Tracking
We are committed to including diverse sources in our stories so that we can accurately capture the range of people whose voices, perspectives, and expertise are relevant to our stories. As part of each TON assignment, reporters are asked to collect certain demographic information from their sources; we provide step-by-step instructions for doing this and the process is very quick and simple. All such questions are completely optional for sources, and responses are kept completely confidential.
Submit Your Pitch
If you would like to submit an idea for our publication, please use this form.
You might be wondering: Do I really have to use this form? Can’t I just email an editor at The Open Notebook instead? What if I’ve written for TON before or I know the editors? The answer is: We still want you to use this form. It’s the best way of ensuring that all the editors who need to see a pitch actually see it and that we can easily incorporate it into our editorial process. If you email one of our editors about your idea, we’re going to ask you to fill out this form instead. We promise that your pitch will actually be seen by the editors and you’ll hear back from us (unless you’re obviously a bot or you’re pitching us something written by AI, in which case you won’t hear back from us).