Help a Reporter- Help Yourself!

In case you haven't signed up yet- this is a "must-do" today if you want to be quoted for free by reporters all over the country. Help a Reporter Out is a website originally conceived on Facebook, but since Facebook caps group emails at 1,200 people, the mission of the idea had to move to its own server.

Here is how it works: each day, you'll receive up to three emails, each with anywhere from 15-30 queries per email. They'll all be labeled with [shankman.com] in the subject line, for easy filtering. If you see a query you can answer, go for it! HelpAReporter.com really is that simple.

The developer built this list because a lot of his friends are reporters, and they call him all the time for sources. Rather than go through the contact lists each time, he figured he could push the requests out to people who actually have something to say.

These requests only come from reporters directly to the developer. He never takes queries from that other service, he never SPAMs, and he's not going to do anything with your email other than send you these reporter requests when they arrive in his in-box.

So a few things about this list: First off, yes, it's free. It takes him a few minutes each day to do this, and the good Karma is immeasurable. So he's not charging. If you really feel like sending him a donation or something, just send a few bucks to an animal hospital or animal rescue society somewhere. Some good places are Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, or The National Search Dog Foundation. That'll keep the good Karma flowing.

Next: This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you'll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn't send the response.

Try it out- you can always unsubcribe later if your email box gets cluttered.