Maria Korolov discovered fully fabricated AI-generated research on a reputable cybersecurity company's blog: fake Gartner stats, fake analyst reports, all of it. The company took it down, but the fake data is still circulating. In Part 2, Maria walks through what happened, what journalists are doing differently because of it, and what PR pros need to know about source credibility, expert quotes, and why she's done with HARO.

Maria Korolov, an award-winning technology journalist for CIO, CSO, ComputerWorld, and NetworkWorld, shares what a well-managed embargo looks like from a journalist's perspective. In next week's episode (part 2), Maria walks us through the moment she discovered a cybersecurity company's blog post was full of fabricated AI-generated statistics citing reports that don't exist. The fake data got picked up by other publications, and it's still circulating today.

If you've noticed that getting people to your website feels harder than it used to, you're not imagining it. More than two-thirds of searches now end without a click, and that number is only going up as AI answers replace the ones people used to find on your site.Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro and co-author of the upcoming book Zero Click Marketing, joined the show to talk about what this shift actually means for PR pros. Spoiler: it's not bad news.We get into why the channels and tactics PR has always relied on are exactly what brands need right now, and how to think about building influence when traffic is no longer the goal.

Want to know what journalists actually think about your pitches? Spoiler: 72% say fewer than a quarter of what lands in their inbox is relevant to them. Cision surveyed 1,800+ journalists and the results are worth your attention. I break down the key takeaways from their 2026 State of the Media report and share what I'm seeing play out in real life.

A niche regulation. Thousands of public comments. One skeptical editor. In this solo episode, Britt walks through a real campaign where AI did the heavy lifting by making sense of a mountain of public record data fast enough to matter. She breaks down the strategy, the journalist response, and what it actually means to use AI well in PR.

Barron's recently found one sentence construction showing up across thousands of corporate documents, earnings calls, and press releases and it is a phrase that barely existed two years ago. It's called the Great Flattening, and PR pitches are not immune. In this solo episode, Britt breaks down why AI-assisted pitches are increasingly blending together and introduces the POINT Check, a five-question framework you can run any pitch through before you hit send.

In this episode, I’m joined by freelance journalist Kris Ann Valdez to talk about what it actually looks like to source experts through Qwoted.We get into the volume of pitches journalists receive, why even strong responses don’t always make it into a story, and how Kris Ann decides who to work with when she has multiple good options.She also shares how a source she didn’t use for one article ended up being the perfect fit for another, which is a good reminder that silence doesn’t always mean your pitch missed.

In this episode, I’m joined by Emma Thumann, a reporter at Campaign US covering the agency world. We break down what actually makes a story worth covering, from the pitch that caught her attention to why it turned into a follow-up piece a year later.We also get into what helps (and hurts) your chances in a crowded inbox, how to stay relevant to a journalist over time, and the small details that can make their job easier.

If “spray and pray” doesn’t work, what do we do instead?In Part Two, Vince Nero and I get into what more intentional outreach actually looks like, from understanding how journalists work to rethinking what a “win” really is.

It’s never been easier to send more emails, but that doesn’t mean it works.In this episode, Vince Nero, Director of Content Marketing at BuzzStream, shares what millions of outreach emails reveal about what’s actually driving results in PR today.