Sugar Tax - Pitch - Public Health Approach to Tackling Campus Rapes - Essay Writing Assignment Help

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How to pitch
Grabbing the attention of a gatekeeper is often your first hurdle. This may be an editor or producer for a news outlet. It may be a foundation official or potential donor. It may be an elected official or members of their staff.  Regardless, your goal is the same: To quickly and clearly signal your value.
To do so, your pitch will generally need to include succinct answers to these questions:
1. Why is this message/idea important?
In the most compelling terms possible, state your argument, shooting for a single sentence. Be sure to provide the necessary context for an editor to understand why this matters to the target audience. (A common pitfall among academics is to assume that you can leapfrog over this and dive right into the argument, since “everyone” knows the larger context. Quite often, they do not.)
2. Why is it important right now?
At any given moment, thousands of truly important issues vie for our attention. Make a case that what you have to say is timely—the more urgent the better. Be creative in identifying “news hooks”—opportunities to link what you have to say with what’s going on right now. (Holidays, anniversaries, current events, cultural happenings—these are just a few examples.)
3. Why you? What qualifies you to write about this topic?
This is where your credentials, experience, awards, and other such things come in.
4. What’s new? What are you adding to the conversation?
Do you have a counterintuitive or otherwise fresh perspective? New research findings? What you have to say may be important right now—and you may be the single most qualified person to say it—but if it’s already been said, you’ll be fighting a strong headwind. (This doesn’t mean you should give up, but you should be aware of the issue.)

How to pitch an op-ed or essay
Here are a few nuts-and-bolts tips for pitching opinion pieces to news outlets (both online and print).
1. Get to the point.
Editors are busy, busy, busy. Pitches should be as short as possible—a couple of very short paragraphs and under 200 words is a good rule of thumb. One common formulation: In the first paragraph, briefly summarize your idea/message, being sure to include answers to questions, 1, 3, and 4. In the 2nd paragraph, explain who you are, including the credentials that make you an expert on this issue.
2. No email attachments.
Always copy and paste the piece into the body of your email beneath your pitch. Check formatting to be sure you haven’t lost paragraph breaks, hyperlinks, or other formatting. (You might conclude the pitch saying: “The piece is copied below. Do you see a fit for [name of outlet]?”
3. Give thought to your email subject line.
Make clear that this is a pitch. Then: Think how best to grab a busy editor’s attention as she scans her jammed email inbox—your goal here is to get her to open your email. Consider highlighting your Harvard affiliation. If you have a personal referral/connection to the editor, signal that! A couple examples of subject lines from successful pitches:
Pitch: Higher ed profs need to join the sharing economy (via Amy Gutman)
Pitch: A public health approach to tackling campus rapes (by Columbia Univ prof)
4. Check submission guidelines.
If the outlet is new to you, be sure to check submission guidelines, which you can usually find by Googling if you can’t find them on the site. Many sites have strict word count limits, most often between 600 and 800 words.
5. After you pitch—and this is critical!—be sure to follow up.
You will find your own rhythm for dealing with editors, but here’s one follow-up approach that has proven effective:
If the topic is blazing hot and timely, follow-up in 24 hours. Send a forwarded email of the original pitch, saying in subject line ahead of FW: Chance to look? Then in body say something like: “I do not mean to pester, but I was just checking…”  (If the topic is less urgent, you might wait longer—say three to five days.)
If no response, 24 to 48 hours after first follow-up, ahead of last FW, write in subject line: Assume no? In the body: “I know you are swamped, but I am eager to place elsewhere if it doesn’t work. Thank you.”
If no response, 24 to 48 hours after second follow-up: In subject line ahead of last FW: “Moving on” or “Pitching elsewhere.” In body: “Thank you for your consideration; because this is timely, I am pitching elsewhere. I hope to connect with another piece in the future.”
Always keep in mind that some news cycles are far more challenging than others, depending on what else is going on in the world. Be polite and respectful in your follow-ups, recognizing that editors are dealing with many stories on any given day.
6. Pitch only one outlet at a time. Inform them that you are pulling the piece/moving on before pitching elsewhere.
 

PITCH EXAMPLE TRANSCRIPT

Sugar tax: The sweetest way to combat diabetes in Australia 
A sugar tax, a sin tax, a healthy tax. Whatever you want to call it, a tax to encourage people to eat healthily can only be a good thing for Australia. 
Hello, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today on behalf of Diabetes Australia. We have been advocating for sensible policies since 1985 and we thank you again for the opportunity to speak on this vital issue. 

A sugar tax has been shown to be an important strategy in reducing the risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases such as diabetes but also cardiovascular disease and stroke. Countries all around the world have already reaped the benefits from a sugar tax both through reduced rates of obesity as well as an increase tax revenue to fund additional health interventions tackling NCDs (ncdfree, 2020). 
At Diabetes Australia we see an ever-increasing number of people experiencing diabetes, and that population is getting younger and younger. At this point in time, over a million Australians are living with diabetes (Diabetes Australia, 2020). Taking a structural tax-based approach to addressing the risk factors associated with diabetes is an important step in reducing these numbers. 

It is well understood in the research that the consumption of excessive sugar-based products such as soft drinks are consumed in higher proportions by young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and disadvantaged people (Duckett & Wilcox, 2017). These groups often are already experiencing other risk factors associated with overweight and obesity, with excess sugar consumption compounding these risk factors. While education and communication are important health promotion measures, a stronger policy that will see a measurable change in behaviour will lead to reductions of consumption among these groups.

The revenue raised through a sugar-tax could be leveraged as an important source of funding for further health promotion and prevention interventions, with estimates in excess of $400-$500 million a year (Diabetes Australia, 2020). Programs targeting at risk groups, establishment of other behaviour change strategies and education campaigns could all be funded through this revenue. 
Diabetes Australia does acknowledge the sugar tax policy does have some negative impacts; as a regressive tax, those in the lower socio-economic group will be disproportionately impacted (ncdfree, 2020). Engagement with this group will need to occur to avoid adverse consequences. Targeted communication and education should accompany a policy change of this magnitude. 

Farmers, producers and those along the supply chain for sugar-based products will also be impacted. In other countries the drop in consumption has not decimated an industry, but the producers have adapted to the policy and increased their healthy food production- an important and positive impact of the policy. 
We work with communities all over the country, and the devastating impacts of cheap accessible sweets and soft drinks have is undeniable, the damage, particularly to children and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is preventable if we see bold, fearless policy decisions from this panel. NCDs account for 90% of deaths in Australia, doing nothing on this continuing health crisis is no longer an option (Diabetes Australia, 2020).
Thank you for your time today and the opportunity to contribute to the policy formation process and I hope you take our advice under consideration and adopt the sugar tax in Australia. 
 

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