Last Friday, Nikki Mascali, a general assignment reporter for Metro New York, sat at a table with the Momentum team for our May Lunch and Learn. We spent an hour discussing what journalists wish public relations professionals knew—how to pitch, when to call reporters, what editors are interested in—all fruitful insight when it comes to placing clients in the media.

Then she flipped the conversation, and we were in the hot seat.

“What draws you to work here?” Nikki asked us. “Do you feel passionate, sometimes even emotional when you pitch your clients?”

We looked around and nodded, knowing that we all work at Momentum for various reasons, but one motive is universal: we are devoted to championing the causes of our clients and taking on their missions as our own.

In a news cycle laced with violence, destruction and intractable conflicts, our clients’ uplifting stories matter. We read articles of corruption and yearn for stories of moral and virtuous leaders–our fingers turn the pages until we find one. Bombarded with the bad, readers crave the good, and so do journalists. When we pitch clients dedicated to positive change, reporters like Nikki want to put their stories in front of readers.

Nikki has written about a blind art teacher at Lavelle School for the Blind teaching blind students how to make art inclusive, a graduate from American University of Antigua who led a medical mission trip to thousands of hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and ethics classes for children in the age of Trump.

All were stories about our clients. All were stories that needed to be told. We fervently advocate for stories about organizations we serve because as much as our clients need the press to further their goals, now more than ever, journalism needs them, too.