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For HR suppliers looking to raise their profile, understanding what journalists need from brands is an important part of developing an effective PR strategy. With competition for editorial space and journalists working under considerable pressure, relevant stories, credible expertise and original research all have a role to play.
Research from Cision and Muck Rack provides insight into what journalists’ value from PR professionals, and what HR brands need to consider when developing their media relations activity.
Relevance comes first
Journalists receive a significant volume of pitches, making relevance essential when deciding which stories to pursue.
Cision’s 2025 State of the Media Report, based on responses from more than 3,000 journalists worldwide, found that 86% reject pitches that are not relevant to their audience or area of coverage. The research also identified changing audience behaviour and maintaining credibility as major challenges for journalists.
For HR suppliers, this means understanding the publications and journalists their buyers will likely read, including the topics they cover. A story about recruitment technology, employee benefits or learning and development, for instance, needs a clear connection to the issues facing HR professionals.
Brands need to identify the wider workforce, business or employment issue that makes their expertise relevant to a journalist's audience. Pushing sales messages won’t work.
Original research gives journalists something new to add to their stories
Research and data can provide a valuable foundation for media coverage, particularly when they reveal something new about the HR market.
Cision’s 2025 findings show that 55% of journalists want original research reports from PR professionals, as well as identifying exclusive stories.
For HR brands, opportunities can include research into workforce challenges, employee expectations, recruitment trends, staff retention, workplace wellbeing or the adoption of HR technology.
Saying this, research needs to offer more than a collection of statistics. Findings should be accurate, clearly presented and supported by a credible methodology. The results should also offer a meaningful insight into an issue that matters to the intended audience, at the current time.
Original data can provide material for news releases, expert commentary and follow-up stories, creating numerous opportunities to communicate insights beyond a single announcement or sales pitch.
Access to experts is essential
Journalists also need access to people who can explain industry developments, provide informed analysis and contribute relevant expertise to their reporting.
Cision's 2025 research identifies interviews with industry experts among the resources journalists seek the most from their PR contacts. This finding highlights the importance of creating opportunities for senior executives, subject specialists and thought leaders who will effectively contribute to journalist conversations.
Expert commentary needs to address the specific issue being reported on. So, making suitable spokespeople available, supplying evidence to support claims and providing relevant background insights can help journalists assess a story and develop it further.
One of PR in HR’s most successful ways to gain editorial or ‘earned’ coverage for our clients is to identify their key experts who can make highly relevant commentary to journalists at the time they need it. This is a proactive and reactive process. We ensure insights get to the right media at the right time, while journalists also come to us to gain our relevant clients’ views in their articles.
Strong pitches that fit their audience need supporting evidence
Cision's 2025 findings identify short, audience-focused pitches supported by research as an important part of effective media outreach.
Muck Rack’s State of Journalism 2026 also found that 70% of journalists want a PR pitch to demonstrate clear relevance to their area of coverage and 88% immediately disregard pitches that fall outside of this. Brands need to demonstrate why the story matters to the journalist's particular audience, whether that is HR directors, business leaders, employees or employers.
This highlights the importance of understanding the publications and journalists being approached. A story about HR software may be relevant to a technology journalist, while research into employee retention could interest a journalist covering employment, business or workplace trends. Understanding this can be the difference between gaining coverage and a journalist dismissing a brand for filling up their email inbox unnecessarily.
Building trusted media relationships
Media relations is not simply about contacting journalists when a brand has news to announce. Cision's 2025 survey found that 85% of journalists considered an introductory email explaining why a brand wanted to connect the best way to begin building a relationship. And 63% of journalists rely on PR professionals to connect them with relevant sources.
With a a zero tolerance of AI-generated pitches or commentary, journalists need information they can verify and trust. Cision's research found that 72% of respondents were concerned about factual errors when PR professionals used AI to produce content.
In our article, What makes great PR, we explain how credible positioning depends on sector knowledge, relevant insight and an understanding of the challenges facing HR leaders.
Ultimately, journalists need HR brands to offer new insights. Not sales messages, ever. Relevant stories, original research, accessible experts, accurate information and an understanding of the media agenda provide the foundations for effective media relations. It’s this that literally means a brand has ‘earned’ their way into a journalist’s work.
Media coverage can influence AI visibility too
Muck Rack's separate What Is AI Reading? research, analysed more than one million links cited by AI models and found that approximately 25% of citations came from journalistic sources, while the majority of cited links were non-paid.
The research also found that more than half of citations were published within the previous 12 months, with the highest citation rate occurring within seven days of publication – with trade and specialist publications identified as important sources for industry-specific questions.
This makes media relations relevant to more than traditional press coverage. Journalistic articles can provide independent information about a company, its expertise and its market, which may subsequently be cited in AI-generated answers. This does not however guarantee that an individual article will be cited or that coverage will result in an AI recommendation. However, Muck Rack's findings show why earned media is considered as part of a wider strategy to build brand visibility across both traditional media and AI search.
To gain more information around how PR affects your AI visibility, our AI Search Visibility Playbook for HR Brands is worth a read.
We know that gaining valuable PR wins in the workplace media is vital, but it’s also complex.
Amplifying your messages with PR strengthens brand awareness and credibility to a much wider buying audience. It helps build trust. It helps grow your brand.
Problematically, there are hundreds of voices clamouring to be heard by national, HR and workplace B2B journalists and influencers, and only a relative few get into the media spotlight each day.
We help your brand to be one of them, repeatedly.
We use powerful PR so our clients - providers to the HR market - rise above the noise to gain exceptional brand recognition.