Write For Us — World News Narratives

What we’re actually looking for, how the process works, and why most pitches get rejected before anyone even reads the writing.

Before You Pitch, Read This
Who We’re Looking For
What We Publish
What We Don’t Publish
Our Actual Editorial Standards
How the Submission Process Works
What Happens After You Submit
Payment, Bylines, and Rights
Common Reasons Pitches Get Rejected
A Real Example of a Good Pitch vs. a Weak One
Formatting and Style Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Submit
About the Author

Before You Pitch, Read This

I’ll save you some time. If you’re looking for a site that publishes anything with a byline attached, this isn’t it, and I’d rather tell you that now than after you’ve spent an evening writing something we’re going to turn down.

We get a lot of pitches — more than we can run, by a wide margin — and the honest truth is that most of them get declined not because the writing is bad, but because the pitch was never really written for us. It’s a generic world-news piece that could run on a dozen different sites with the header swapped out. We’re not interested in that, no matter how competently it’s written.

What we are interested in is genuinely narrower: writers who have something specific to say about a region, an economic trend, a policy shift, or a cultural undercurrent that they actually understand from the inside — not from skimming three other articles about it the night before deadline. If that’s you, keep reading. If you’re mainly looking for a portfolio credit, we’re probably not the right fit, and that’s fine — there are plenty of outlets built for that. We’re just not one of them.

Who We’re Looking For

We’re not gatekeeping around credentials for their own sake. We’ve published brilliant pieces from people with no journalism background and rejected polished ones from people with a decade of newsroom experience, because the substance wasn’t there. That said, a few types of contributors tend to do well with us:

Regional specialists — people living in, or with deep working knowledge of, a specific country or region, who can bring context international coverage usually misses
Subject-matter professionals — economists, policy researchers, diplomats, aid workers, and similar, who understand the mechanics behind a story better than a generalist reporter would
Working journalists looking for a place to publish analysis that doesn’t fit their usual outlet’s format
Graduate researchers in international relations, economics, or area studies who can translate academic-level understanding into something a general reader can use
Experienced freelance writers with a demonstrable track record covering global affairs, even without formal credentials

What we care about most is whether you can show us evidence of understanding, not just interest. A love of world news is common. A genuine, load-bearing understanding of one corner of it is rarer, and it’s what we’re actually shopping for.

What We Publish

To make this concrete rather than vague, here’s the range of pieces that tend to run well on the site:

Explainers — a policy shift, election, or economic event broken down clearly enough that a reader with no background can understand what happened and why it matters. This is our bread and butter.

Regional deep dives — pieces that go beyond the headline coverage of a country or region and explain the underlying dynamics international press tends to gloss over.

Analysis and forecasting — clearly labeled opinion or analysis pieces that make a specific, defensible argument about where a situation is heading, backed by evidence rather than speculation.

On-the-ground accounts — first-person reporting from someone actually present for an event, protest, election, or crisis, provided it’s grounded in verifiable fact rather than pure narrative.

Cross-border comparisons — pieces that put two or more countries’ approaches to the same issue side by side (immigration policy, climate response, digital regulation) in a way that illuminates something neither piece would show alone.

Data-driven pieces — reporting built around a specific dataset, government release, or research paper, translated into plain language.

What We Don’t Publish

Equally important, and the section most pitches would benefit from reading before writing anything:

Generic news summaries that just restate what wire services already reported, with no added context or analysis
Opinion pieces built on assertion rather than evidence — we’ll run a strong argument, but it needs to be backed
Content that’s clearly written to farm outrage or engagement rather than inform
Anything plagiarized, lightly reworded from another outlet, or AI-generated without substantial human research and editing behind it
Press releases or thinly disguised PR content for a company, government, or organization
Pieces on purely domestic (single-country, non-international-relevance) topics unless there’s a clear global angle
Unverified claims about ongoing conflicts, casualty figures, or breaking events without credible sourcing

That last point matters enough to repeat: we will not run speculative claims about active crises just because they’re dramatic. If you can’t source it, we can’t publish it, no matter how compelling the writing is around it.

Our Actual Editorial Standards

We put readers through a lot of detail on our About page about how we source and verify our own reporting, and we hold contributor pieces to the same bar. In practice, that means:

Every factual claim needs a traceable source. Not a vague “reports suggest,” but a specific, linkable origin — a government release, a named outlet’s reporting, a study, a direct quote with attribution.

We check, we don’t just trust. Our editors will verify claims independently before publishing. If something can’t be verified, it gets cut or flagged, even if it’s central to your argument.

Framing and fact stay separate. If you’re making an argument, say so plainly. Don’t dress opinion up as neutral reporting — we’ll catch it, and it slows the whole review process down.

No false balance, but no one-sidedness either. If a topic genuinely has legitimate competing perspectives, represent them honestly. If one side of a debate is factually unsupported, you don’t owe it equal weight just for the sake of appearing balanced.

How the Submission Process Works

We don’t accept finished, unsolicited articles as a first step — we work from pitches. Here’s why: it saves everyone time. A three-paragraph pitch tells us in five minutes whether an idea has legs. A finished 2,000-word draft takes much longer to evaluate, and it’s a rough experience for a writer to have a completed piece turned down when a quick pitch review could have caught the mismatch earlier.

Step 1 — Send a pitch, not a draft. Two to four short paragraphs: what the piece is about, why it matters right now, what your specific angle or access is, and roughly how you’d structure it.

Step 2 — Include your relevant background. A sentence or two on why you’re positioned to write this particular piece — lived experience, professional background, prior reporting, whatever applies.

Step 3 — Link two or three writing samples. They don’t need to be about world news specifically, but they should show us you can write clearly and structure an argument.

Step 4 — Wait for a response before drafting. We try to respond within a week or two. If we’re interested, we’ll usually come back with notes on angle, length, and deadline before you start writing in earnest.

What Happens After You Submit

Once a pitch is accepted, the process generally looks like this:

We agree on scope, angle, and a rough word count together
You write a first draft and submit it by the agreed deadline
An editor reviews it for structure, sourcing, and clarity, and sends back notes
You revise based on those notes (usually one round, occasionally two)
We fact-check the final draft against your sources
The piece gets scheduled and published, with your byline and bio

The whole cycle, from an accepted pitch to a published piece, usually takes two to four weeks depending on the complexity of the topic and how much verification a piece needs.

Payment, Bylines, and Rights

We compensate contributors for accepted, published pieces — rates vary depending on the depth of reporting required, whether original sourcing or interviews are involved, and the writer’s experience level. We discuss specific rates directly once a pitch is accepted, rather than publishing a fixed public rate card, because the work itself varies too much for one number to be fair across the board.

Every published piece carries a full byline and a short author bio with a link of your choosing (personal site, portfolio, or a professional profile — not a commercial affiliate link). We ask for first publication rights; you’re free to republish the piece elsewhere after a reasonable window, with attribution back to the original.

Common Reasons Pitches Get Rejected

Being direct about this saves both of us time:

The pitch is too broad. “I want to write about the economy of Southeast Asia” isn’t a pitch, it’s a subject area. We need a specific angle and a specific news hook.

It’s not timely enough. World news moves. A pitch about a policy shift from eight months ago, with no new development attached, is a much harder sell than one tied to something currently unfolding.

No demonstrated access or expertise. If we can’t tell from your pitch why you specifically are the right person to write this piece, it’s an easy pass, even if the topic itself is good.

It reads like it’s been pitched everywhere. We can usually tell when a pitch has been mass-sent to a dozen outlets with the site name swapped in. Specificity to us as a publication matters.

The sourcing plan is vague. “I’ll look into it” isn’t a sourcing plan. Tell us where the facts are actually going to come from.

A Real Example of a Good Pitch vs. a Weak One

Weak pitch: “I’d like to write about climate change and its effects on developing countries. I think this is an important topic that doesn’t get enough coverage.”

This tells us nothing about angle, timeliness, or why the writer specifically should write it. It would get a form rejection.

Strong pitch: “I’d like to cover the recent water-rights disputes emerging in [specific region] following this year’s drought season, drawing on interviews I’ve already conducted with two local agricultural cooperatives and a regional water authority official. The angle is how climate adaptation policy at the national level is colliding with local water allocation practices that predate it by decades — a tension that’s about to come to a head as the next planting season approaches.”

Specific region, specific hook, specific sourcing already in progress, and a clear reason this writer is positioned to tell it. That’s the difference.

Formatting and Style Guide

If your pitch is accepted, a few house-style notes to keep in mind while drafting:

Aim for clear, direct sentences over ornate ones — we edit toward Hemingway, not toward academic prose
Use subheadings to break up longer pieces; readers scan before they commit to reading fully
Attribute claims inline as you go, not just in a source list at the end
Avoid unnecessary hedging (“it could be argued that…”) — if you believe the claim, state it and back it up
Keep quotes accurate and in context; we will ask for original transcripts or recordings where relevant

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need prior published work to pitch? No, but you’ll need to show writing samples of some kind, even unpublished ones, so we can evaluate your writing before committing to a topic.

Can I pitch on a breaking news event? Generally no — we’re not built for real-time breaking coverage. We’re much better suited to the days-to-weeks-after analysis of an event once the dust starts to settle.

Do you accept co-authored pieces? Yes, particularly when two contributors bring complementary expertise (for example, a regional writer paired with an economist).

Is there a length requirement? Most published pieces run 1,200 to 2,500 words, but the right length depends entirely on the topic. We’d rather have a tight 900-word piece than a padded 2,000-word one.

Can I write anonymously or under a pen name? In limited cases, yes — particularly if publishing under your real name would put you or sources at risk. This needs to be discussed directly with our editorial desk before a piece is accepted.

What if my pitch is rejected — can I try again? Absolutely. A rejected pitch isn’t a rejection of you as a writer; it’s usually a mismatch of timing, angle, or fit for that specific idea. We’d genuinely like to see another pitch.

How to Submit

Send your pitch, background, and writing samples through our contributor submission form, or directly to our editorial contact email listed on the site’s contact page. Please put the region or topic area in your subject line so it reaches the right editor without delay.

We read every pitch that comes in. We can’t respond individually to every one, but if you haven’t heard back within two to three weeks, it’s fair to assume that particular pitch wasn’t the right fit this time, and we’d encourage you to try again with something new.

About the Author

The Editorial Desk, World News Narratives

This page was written by the contributor relations team at World News Narratives, working alongside the site’s founding editorial staff. The team draws on backgrounds in international relations research, cross-border economic reporting, and regional journalism across South Asia and the Middle East, and has personally reviewed several hundred contributor pitches since the site’s founding.

The editorial desk oversees the pitch review process, sourcing verification, and final editorial sign-off described throughout this page, and remains the point of contact for prospective contributors with questions about fit, scope, or process.