Pitching to L.A. TACO
Thank you for your interest in pitching for L.A. TACO!
Before submitting a pitch, please ensure that you are familiar with L.A. TACO’s style and mission. We are an independent, street-level publication receiving a high volume of pitches, so please don’t take it personally if we don’t get back to you.
To make sure your subject hasn’t already been covered by us, please search our site before pitching. Our freelance rates vary, depending on an article’s lift and the writer’s experience.
EDITORIAL
As of now, our editorial team is prioritizing pitches for food guides from writers that know L.A. well enough to defend their claims on the street, if need be. (Past examples include “L.A.’s 30 Best Black-Owned Restaurants” and “Nine of L.A.’s Oldest Family-Owned Hardware Stores to Shop at Instead of Home Depot.”) We will also selectively consider features on breaking news, culture, the arts, and human-interest topics, if the pitch checks our boxes for edge, uniqueness, and subject matter. You can direct L.A. TACO-esque guides and feature pitches to our Editor-in-Chief, Javier Cabral (editor@lataco.com), Managing Editor Hadley Tomicki (hadley@lataco.com), and Associate Editor Julianne Le (julianne@lataco.com).
INVESTIGATIVE
Our investigative desk is mainly prioritizing accountability investigations and watchdog pieces centered on policing and surveillance, the criminal legal system, and stories that intersect with food in some way. You should have already done some reporting before you pitch us, but we don’t expect you to have a rough draft ready. We’re interested in stories with an L.A. angle that have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Not ideas or topics that you think should be looked into. That is for our other email, tips@lataco.com. In your pitch, you should be able to identify a person, company, or agency that can be held accountable and explain what you think the impact of the story could be. You can direct story pitches to L.A. TACO’s Head of Investigations, Lexis-Olivier Ray (Lexis@LATACO.com).
VIDEO
We are currently not accepting video pitches, but feel free to check back in the future.