In this episode of Cogcast, host Larissa Padden speaks with financial reporter Mallika Mitra about her journey in journalism and transition to freelancing. Mallika shares insights from her career path through CNBC, Bloomberg, and Money.com before becoming a freelance writer for publications like Barron's, Kiplinger, and Business Insider. She discusses how freelancing has paradoxically provided more job security in today's volatile media landscape, her process for building stories, and her relationship with PR professionals. Mallika also explores her passion for reporting on generational trends in finance, particularly how younger generations approach money differently than their predecessors and the increasing openness about financial matters among Gen Z and millennials. 

Mallika Mitra Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Cogcast, Cognito's podcast, where we talk to journalists and media pros on everything that's happening in the world of media and PR. I'm Larissa Padden, your host and a former journalist turned PR professional.

For today's episode, we are joined by Mallika Mitra, a financial reporter whose work has been featured in CNBC, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. Please enjoy this interesting conversation on how money makes the world go round, for better or worse, and how going freelance can offer more job security in this current media landscape.

Hi, Malika. Thanks for joining us today.

Hi. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

So I wanted to start a little bit by letting you give an intro, if you could tell us about your background as a reporter and what kind of publications you work with now as a freelancer.

Sure. So I started like, I think, a lot of journalists at my college paper, and then I actually dabbled in public relations for a little bit and then got my master's in business and economic reporting at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. And while I was finishing up school, I was an intern at CNBC.

So there I covered breaking news, and then everything from retail breaking news to there was a midterm going on at the time, so a bunch of different things.

And then I also would pitch a lot. So I pitched to the personal finance team at CNBC quite a bit, as well as just the retail space and the media space, the areas that interested me. I'm really interested in television and streamers, so I wrote a lot about that at the time.

And then I finished up grad school and I started an internship at Bloomberg where I was writing about municipal finance, which was very different from writing about some of the more, like I said, media and retail things at CNBC, but I learned so much.

Yeah. What kind of publications you work with now?

It's really broad. I mean, I began freelancing in part because I wanted to be able to write about a bunch of different topics, which I've been able to do. I still do a lot of personal finance and investing.

So I write pretty often for Barron's. I cover investing trends for younger folks, so like Gen Z and millennial investors specifically, which has been really fun because I think that's not like the typical Barron's audience. So it's really cool. They've been letting me do that.

I write for Kiplinger, which is another personal finance magazine. I still write a ton for Money. I do work for a bunch of different trade publications that are pretty investment focused. So like etf.com, planadviser, plansponsor, those types of places.

And then I still work for some national publications, so like Business Insider. I've written for like USA Today and CNN's kind of personal finance branches.

Yeah. So it's a pretty wide range. And then I also do a little bit of I would say not journalism work, but it requires all of my journalism skills. I'm still usually interviewing people or covering the news in some capacity.

Do you mind if I ask what kind of stories you're interested in right now? Kind of what you're pursuing, just broad topics?

I'm really interested in kind of generational trends when it comes to money. So how Gen Z and millennials are approaching saving and investing differently. I recently wrote a piece for Barron's on how older generations and younger generations have a really different approach when it comes to passing on their money, spending it now versus passing it on to future generations.

So that's always been really interesting to me, but I really love like the service journalism aspect of personal finance. I love to write a story, whether it's on paying off your student loans quickly or things that you may be forgetting about during tax season, like very basic things like that, that I feel like actually make a difference in people's lives.

When it comes to what I'm pitching, I tend to get a lot of assignments, but I would say the main things I pitch have to do with kind of investing for younger folks.

Interesting. I was curious about the decision to go freelance. I know it's been a few years for you, and I definitely see the appeal. I was not brave enough when I was a reporter to do it though, so I wanted to ask what made you decide to go freelance on your own and do you ever think about going back to full-time for one publication?

Yeah. So it was a decision I thought really hard about for a really long time. I loved Money. I think it's a team of really experienced writers and editors, and so I'm lucky that I still get to work with them a lot, but I think I was just kind of feeling like an itch for something new that I think a lot of people feel in their careers.

I was trying to figure out what I'm good at and what I enjoy, and I think that's when I have a bunch of different deadlines and a bunch of different projects I'm working on, which obviously you can have at a staff job, but I think with freelancing, I'll one day be writing about crypto regulation changes, and then the next day I'll be writing, for a while I was writing about venture capitalism in the fertility industry, like IVF.

And so it's just such a broad range of topics and also types of stories. So I still do some breaking news and then I'll do long-form features for a print magazine. So a lot of it was just the flexibility to do that. I think obviously the flexibility of life also was a big appeal. I have family overseas in India that I'd like to be able to visit on a regular basis, as regular as you can go to India, so not that regular, and it's a lot easier to do that this way.

I think also it was appealing to me to be able to work with a bunch of different editors and reporters that I've worked at in my career, and a lot of them were in positions where they were now assigning editors. So that was really fun for me to reconnect with those people.

Also, as I'm sure you know, the media industry and journalism is so tumultuous right now. I have so many good friends who are such talented reporters and editors who've gotten laid off. So it was appealing to me to be able to create my own financial security and job security.

If a client goes away, which happens all the time, I have the flexibility now to be like, okay, I'm going to really prioritize finding a new client to fill this space, or you know what, this month I have a lot going on, I'm not going to fill that space, I'll make a little less money, and that's okay. And yeah, so it's strange to think that maybe freelancing gave me job security in a sense, but it feels that way sometimes.

It is interesting how the industry has changed, because it used to be you became a freelancer, it was a really risky move, and you're right, it does give people a little more job security now to be able to control what they do, and kind of their career and their path, given how volatile everything is right now, and how many publications are going away, or getting rid of reporters.

And it's interesting, kind of what we've seen from that is reporters building their own brand, and so instead of being a reporter at a big brand, you become the brand, and we're seeing newsletters pop up, and podcasts, and Substacks. And so it's a scary time, but I think it's an interesting time also in the industry to see where we go.

Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity, and I think for a lot of people, it obviously makes sense to stay at a staff job, and I think it so depends on your skills and what your fears are.

There's a lot of things that I'm worried about when it comes to work that I don't necessarily have to worry about in freelance. Or the things that are scary about freelance, maybe it's taxes. Or I have people tell me all the time, “I could never have the discipline to work a full day if I didn't have to.” Those types of things.

That didn't necessarily scare me. So I think it really depends on like what your skill set is, and what you want career trajectory wise as well, because it's obviously very different as a freelancer.

You kind of mentioned this up top when you were giving us a little insight into your background. But when you're building a story now as a freelance reporter, do you pitch publications, do they contact you for specific stories, is it a little bit of both, how do you work now as a freelance?

Yeah. For the most part now, I get assignments. It took a little bit to get there, I would say, but I have a few editors who I work with really regularly who will just send me an assignment. Some of them will say, “And here are a few source ideas,” and some of them are just like, “Hey, here's a headline,” or just a very general topic, “run with it.”

So that's mostly how I work now. I pitch a bit. For Barron's, for example, I pitch all my stories. I have an editor there that I work with closely, so he kind of knows my writing style and knows if I send him a pitch, sometimes he'll just call me immediately and be like, “Hey, interesting idea, why don't you just do it this way,” or you know, “Here's another way to look at it that might make it more of a Barron's story.”

So that's one that I pitch. Some places like Business Insider, I pitch, and I get assignments. I definitely should pitch more. It's definitely always one of my goals is to be pitching new publications and things like that.

But pitching is so much harder as a freelancer because it's unpaid work essentially and sometimes you have to report 30% or 40% of a story before you even have enough to pitch it. I'm sure you know that too. I know that's the same for the PR side who are pitching journalists. And so yeah, I'd say it's a mix for the most part I'm getting assignments.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I was kind of going to ask what comes first, the source or the publication who signs on for it first? Because on our side of the aisle, it is easier obviously to get a client to say they want to participate in a story if it's for a publication they've heard of versus a freelance that may pitch it at a publication. So I was just kind of wondering what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Yeah. I would say I almost always have the publication, either because I was assigned it or because I've already pitched the editor and gotten approval. If I'm going to pitch a story, I won't do reporting that involves the experts initially unless it's just like, “Hey, I'm trying to see if this is a real thing.”

The situations in which I'll tend to get sources first are when I'm trying to find “real people” to talk to. If I'm saying, “Hey, Gen Z are feeling this way about their money,” I have to obviously find Gen Z who are actually saying that. But if I'm saying, “Hey, this happened this week with the Fed, and this is the impact on consumers,” I know I'm going to get an expert to talk about that pretty easily, so I don't have to gather that before I pitch the publication.

So I haven't had many situations in which I've had to go to someone and be like, “Hey, I'm working on a story, and I can't tell you what the publication is, because I don't know.” But I imagine that would be difficult.

I did once work on a publication that had yet to be launched, and so I did that, and I kind of just went to people who knew that I work at legitimate publications. I’m not scamming them or something like that.

Well, because I was going to say it's so much of it is a relationship business and building that goodwill with your sources. I would imagine it would be tough to pitch and get them to participate in a story, and then you can't get a publication to sign on board, and it's kind of not wasting their time. Obviously, you could pitch it somewhere else, but it's a little dicey. You don't want to jeopardize the relationships.

Totally. Yeah. And on the other side, really would never want to pitch an editor a story, have it be approved and not be able to follow through.

So, yeah, it's difficult on both ends. I think if I do ever have to talk to a source and I'm in that situation, I'm just really upfront with them. And that's the same goes for if I interview someone and there's a chance that it won't make it into the story. That's obviously always the case. It can always get cut from the story.

But if I know, hey, I'm interviewing 10 different people for this, I'll let them know that. There's a good chance that this maybe won't, but most of my sources I interview multiple times. So I'll try to call them for the next one.

Well, changing gears a little bit, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I was looking at your website, and it looks like you also maybe do content creation for companies.

And I'm thinking, assuming, thought leadership pieces, those kind of content creation. One, am I right? And two, if so, are you seeing an increased demand? And is that kind of why you decided to get into that side a little more?

Yeah. So I would say most of my work for brands and companies is actually more newsletters creation or blog post creation, things like that. I don't do a lot of like, “Hey, I wrote this story, but it's going to be with a CEO's byline,” or something like that.

So I think for the niche trade publications, there's often a bit more need for like, “Hey, we have an executive who can write an entire article on this thing.” But big name publications, it's rare to see that unless the executive is like Jamie Dimon or is saying something really controversial or something like that.

When I was an assigning editor, I don't think I ever really took—maybe one or two, I took those types of articles. I think they're really hard to land.

So to answer your question, no, I don't do too much of that. I do more newsletters, blog writing. I will do some white paper type work, that kind of thing, but not as much thought leadership in the traditional sense.

Okay. Interesting. So, selfishly, as a PR professional, I wanted to ask you, it seems like you have a lot of really great sources built up and relationships that you've made over the years. And we've seen your work. You write for great publications. Do you still work with PR individuals and accept pitches? And if so, what gets your attention in a pitch and your response?

Yeah, I work with PR people every day, multiple times a day, I would say. I think it's also helpful that I did work in PR back in the day. So, one, I understand how much work is being put into writing those pitches to journalists. And so, I do try to respond when I can. And then also, I know how useful you all can be to a story, whether it's a long term thing or more often like a breaking news thing where I'm kind of like, “I need a source within three hours,” which happens pretty often.

And so, it's more difficult for me now that I'm a freelancer for someone, a PR folk, to pitch me. And then I'm going to say, “Hey, yeah, I'm going to run with that story.” When I was in a signing editor or a writer who was pitching in a signing editor every day, that was way easier. I would constantly be taking PR pitches.

Now, unless it fits into like something I'm pitching for a specific publication, like when I pitch Barron's, more often I'll be, like, if it's something that's of interest to me, like, “Hey, this is super interesting. I might be able to use this in a future story. I can't guarantee it.” And that just happened recently where someone pitched me a report back in October. And I just published an article where I used it five months later, because I had noted, I thought it was super interesting.

I think what gets my attention is data and reports on things that I'm interested in. If you can send a statistic, a very clear statistic, that will definitely—I'll at least read it and think more about it because that's what I usually need to pitch a story. So if you provide me with something that I need to pitch a story, that's going to be helpful for sure.

And then also often I'll kind of get back to folks when they say, “Hey, I don't have a specific pitch, but I've seen your, what you write and your beat.” Obviously my beat is a little bit all over the place right now. “But this resource that I have would be really great. He or she can speak to X, Y, and Z.”

And it's especially helpful if they're like, “And they can respond within this amount of time. They're open to doing written commentary,” which I almost always want to get on the phone with someone. But if it's like a really, really quick breaking news thing and I'm interviewing other people, sometimes I'll be like, “Hey, do you just have like a quick sentence or two? And then I'll give you a call if I need to,” that kind of thing.

So if they can like provide upfront, like what the availability is of that spokesperson, that's really helpful to me too. But yeah. And then a lot of PR folks I work with, it's kind of the opposite where I reach out to them and I'm just like, “Hey, I have an article from this publication due in two days. Do you have anyone who can talk to this specific topic?”

That's really interesting. And that's kind of why I love asking this question. Because I think unless you're in the nitty gritty of the journalism industry, you don't really understand the nuance of how people work with PR based on the position they're in.

So a beat reporter is probably almost always looking for a source that can talk about market reaction after a rate cut, whereas you are looking for more people that you can reach out to when you're looking for someone to pair up with a story.

I will say 90% of the time when I ask that question though, maybe even higher, in that answer somewhere is data. Reporters just really, really love and need data and we always try and hammer that home to our sources, I mean, our clients when we can. So interesting.

Yeah, because I think it's hard. I'll often get good story ideas, but then they'll just tell me that it's a trend and then I have to go find the data and that's going to take me maybe weeks depending on what I'm working on. So it's just a way to speed up the process, I would say.

Well, you've been very generous with your time and your insight, and I was reading about what you're passionate about and you write a lot about money. You say you're passionate about how it makes the world go round and makes things work for better or for worse.

And you've written on a lot of diverse topics. We've seen crypto recently. You talked about the saving habits of Gen Z earlier. So my last question is, if you were to write a book about anything, no restrictions, money wise, what would it be about right now and why?

Yeah. I'm super interested in kind of the cultural change around money that I think we're seeing with younger people. If you talk to our grandparents or parents even, there is such a taboo around talking about how much you make and those kinds of things, which has been written about a lot. A lot of people talk about that.

But I just think it's so fascinating now that we have people on TikTok breaking down exactly how much they make. And I don't just mean like Crypto Bros being like, “I invested in Dogecoin and made this much today,” or whatever it is. But people being like, “Hey, my parents came here with no money, or I left an abusive marriage or something. And this is how I changed my financial situation. And this is the difference it's made in my life.”

I think there's this idea that wanting money and having money be an avenue towards happiness is a greedy thing. And I think that's so interesting because it's so not true in my mind. And I think that especially for marginalized communities, that is a notion that manages to keep money kind of at the top, I guess I would say.

But yeah, I'm super interested in how we're kind of breaking down the taboo around money, specifically young people, and how they're open to talking about how much they make with their friends and those kinds of things. So I don't know if I'm ready to write a book about that. But that is a topic pretty broad that I'm interested in.

That's really interesting. Kind of looking at money from the opposite side as I think it gets villainized, you're right, as greed or crass and wanting money. And for better or worse, in this world, you do need it. So that would be an interesting book. I would read it. So if you ever do, great.

I'll let you know in a few years maybe.

All right. Well, this has been great. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. This is fun.