First Person Strategies
Research and communications, built on newsroom standards
First Person Strategies is a research and communications practice for experts, business owners, and nonprofit leaders who have a lot to say and not enough time to say it. The work runs on the discipline of more than 15 years in newsrooms and investigative reporting.
Our main offering is The By Line. We also take on select research and communications projects, including investigative research, corporate and crisis communications, and ongoing communications retainers. Get in touch to talk through what you need.
Who it's for
Experts whose credibility lives partly in public: business and practice owners, nonprofit and civic-sector leaders, academics, fractional executives, and anyone whose audience expects to hear from them regularly, in their own words, on a particular set of topics. It works for businesses and organizations too, on a founder's account, a house account, or both, with every brief going to whoever signs off.
What arrives in your inbox
Each brief scans your beat and scores what it finds against a rubric we weight together, so only what clears the bar reaches you. It points you to what's worth weighing in on, online and off, and posts can be built from work you've already done. When you want drafts, they come sized to each platform, with licensed images, credit lines, and quote cards where they help.
For a business, a brief can also suggest a promotion to run alongside a post, like a free light check when the clocks go back, and link it to your promo calendar so the posts and the offers line up.
Over time, the briefs also build a list of the people and organizations shaping your beat, and a lead spreadsheet of everyone who engages with you, each with a next step. Both are yours to keep.
Nothing is ever posted in your name without your OK.
How it works
Every engagement starts with the standard build. We interview you, study your actual writing, and create a voice profile. We map your beat: the topics you own, the sources to watch, the people to know. Then the system goes to work, and it keeps improving with your feedback.
How we check
All items in a brief link to the article or primary document they came from, so you can see the source yourself, and anything only you can confirm, like store hours or a quote from a colleague, is flagged for you. On the Club Car, we also check every brief before it reaches you, verifying the facts, dates, names and quotes against the original source.
Images are openly licensed or your own, with the credit line already attached, so you never have to wonder whether you can use a photo.
From a client
It knows what to look for because it was created by someone who knew what to ask.
I met with a book editor who was interested in my work, but told me I needed a platform. I was very discouraged. Doing my own social media never came naturally for me. I had plenty to say — I'd been a writer and editor for years — but I had no system for saying it, and no help inventing one.
What changed was that Kate sat down and asked me what I was actually trying to accomplish, and then built a system around the answer. It knows what to look for because it was created by someone who knew what to ask. Today, I'm still crafting every post. But the research is done by the time I sit down, and the ideas are sorted. I'm finally building that platform and already getting results.
A writer and editor building a book platform, 2026
See a brief
Here is the first item from three sample briefs. Pick the one closest to you. Each item arrives as a draft, a prompt or an outline, in your voice, with the facts checked and the sources linked.
The businesses and people are invented. The facts are real.
Ask for a full sample brief
Photo: Ohio Redevelopment Projects, CC BY 2.01 of 7
Finds what’s worth talking about
Items worth weighing in on, including the less obvious ones, picked for you.
For a neighborhood bike shop whose posts are short, dry and a little cheeky.
Slide 1 of the post
Slide 2 of the post
Caption
Clocks go back Sunday. Monday you’re riding home in the dark.
That’s an hour less daylight on the way home. Rude.
Swing by next week and we’ll check your lights for free. Five minutes, while you wait.
Beyond the feed this week
Checked: when the clocks change and how much earlier it gets dark.
Source: New York sunrise and sunset times, timeanddate.com ↗
Before posting: make sure the shop can handle the extra walk-ins that week.
For an economist who writes for a general audience: plain, patient and allergic to hype.
Photo: Ohio Redevelopment Projects, CC BY 2.0What’s going around
A widely shared story says rents are dropping, based on listing prices for apartments on the market right now. Readers are taking it to mean their own rent is about to fall.
Your reply, drafted
So you heard rents are falling…
Worth knowing what this measures: asking rents for apartments on the market right now. Most renters aren’t signing a new lease this month. The government’s rent index counts everyone, including renewals and people mid-lease, so it moves more gradually.
Both numbers are right. They answer different questions.
Places to weigh in
Checked: what each rent measure covers, against the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and how quickly each one moves, against Cleveland Fed research.
Sources: “New Tenant Rent Index,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ↗ and “Disentangling Rent Index Differences,” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland ↗
Before posting: link the story you’re replying to, and keep the reply about the measure, not the reporter.
For a founder who writes warm, direct, first-person posts.
Photo: AFL-CIO America’s Unions, CC BY 2.0The post, drafted
Turn a food drive into real sustenance.
When someone tells me they’re running a food drive for us, my first feeling is gratitude. My second is a question: can we talk about what goes in the box?
We buy food through partners at prices you can’t get at the store, so a dollar often goes further than a can. If you’d rather collect food, our wish list shows what we’re short on this month.
Every drive helps. A few small changes help more.
A note to the organizer
Thank you for thinking of us. Before you set out the boxes, could I send you our current wish list? It would make your drive go even further.
People worth reaching
Checked: why cash can go further than donated food, against Feeding America’s own explanation.
Source: “Why Cash Donations Help Food Banks More,” Feeding America ↗
Before posting: confirm this month’s wish list, and make sure “a dollar goes further” holds for how you buy food.
Three ways to ride
The standard build, handed over for you to run yourself. Briefs arrive in your inbox with post ideas calibrated for you, and there's no ongoing dependence on us.
The Locomotive with our editing after the build. Every brief is checked before it reaches you, from facts, names and sources to whether each item sounds like you, with a monthly session to keep it on course.
The Locomotive, plus your whole system as a private web app, with prompt lists built around your beat, drafting panes sized to each platform, and word counts as you type.
See a Private Car
A working sample, built for an invented client: an economist who writes for a general audience. Click through today's brief, the drafting panes sized to each platform, and the prompt lists.
Open the sample ↗Want to watch one run on today's news? Ask for a live demo.
Optional Add-Ons
Additional sessions + additional platforms + newsletter setup + visual identity
Details and rates available on request. Follow The By Line on LinkedIn for updates.
About
First Person Strategies is built and run by one person: me. I'm Kate Pastor, an editor with more than 15 years in newsrooms and investigative reporting, and an interviewer's ear honed to listen until the real story shows up. The AI editorial systems I build run on the same discipline. The system does the searching, and an editor teaches it what to look for.
First Person Strategies on LinkedIn · The By Line on LinkedIn
Tell us what you're working on.
Whether it's your voice online, a research project, or a communications challenge, send us a note and we'll tell you what fits.
Get in touch