How do I build relationships with journalists when it intimidates me?

You can write a solid release, but building real relationships with journalists intimidates you. That is understandable. Reaching out to people who can shape how you are seen feels like a risk in a way that writing never does. Journalists are not a wall to get past; they are people doing a job, looking for something true and useful. A relationship with them is built the ordinary way, over time, by being honest and reliable rather than by being clever. The intimidation shrinks once you treat it as a human relationship, not a performance. Reach out to one journalist this week with something genuinely useful to them and no ask attached. Just be helpful once. Relationships are not built in a grand gesture but in small, honest contacts repeated over time.