Media Mention: Yes, AI Can Write Your Pitch. But Can It Give Journalists What They Need?
Media Mention

Yes, AI Can Write Your Pitch. But Can It Give Journalists What They Need?

HARO CEO Brett Farmiloe told EIN Presswire what an analysis of millions of media pitches reveals about AI, human oversight, and what actually makes journalists choose a source.

October 15, 20266 min read
AI has found its way into media pitching, but a new report from Help a Reporter Out (HARO) suggests most pitches still have a human behind them. Of more than 2 million pitches HARO analyzed, 79 percent showed some human involvement, while 21 percent -- roughly 420,000 pitches -- came back as fully AI-generated, HARO CEO Brett Farmiloe told EIN Presswire. Human-written pitches were about three times more likely to get featured than entirely AI-written ones.

Key findings from HARO's pitch analysis

  • Human pitches win about 3x more often

    Human-written pitches were roughly three times more likely to get featured than fully AI-generated ones, according to HARO's analysis of more than 2 million pitches.

  • 21% of pitches are fully AI-written

    About 420,000 of the pitches HARO analyzed were entirely AI-generated, with no human involvement in the writing process.

  • 35% of journalists block AI pitches

    More than a third of journalists have switched on HARO's filter that hides pitches flagged as AI-generated. The filter is unchecked by default.

  • Earned media feeds AI answers

    Featured's AI Citation Report found editorial sources made up roughly two-thirds of classified citations across 22,881 AI citations, while brand-owned content accounted for just 1.7 percent.

“

Most journalists I speak with say they can tell when a pitch is AI generated or not, just from a 'blink' test -- in one second or less, they can just tell.

”
Brett Farmiloe · CEO, HARO and Connectively
Farmiloe's advice to publicists doubles as the HARO acronym itself: be Helpful, be Authentic, be Relevant, be On time. Helpful means the pitch genuinely helps the journalist do their job. Authentic means the final pitch goes beyond what a generic AI model would produce on its own. Relevant means the source's credentials actually match the request. And 'on time' isn't about being first -- it's about arriving inside the journalist's working window with the best credentials and the most useful answer. A typical query draws about 42 pitches, Farmiloe said, and the math was never friendly to volume.
The interview also touched on Featured's AI Citation Report, published in August. The study ran 405 AI visibility audits across 378 brands, asked AI platforms 1,983 buying-style questions, and traced 22,881 resulting citations back to 11,499 domains. The median cited domain had a domain authority of 37 -- 31.2 percent of citations went to sites with a domain authority of 80 or higher, while 34.5 percent went to sites under 40. 'Media mentions help with model mentions,' Farmiloe said.
“

AI can polish any pitch into an authoritative stance. Now, it matters more about who is sharing that stance.

”
Brett Farmiloe · CEO, HARO and Connectively
HARO runs every pitch through AI detection with partner Pangram and reviews every journalist request before it goes out, requiring a minimum Moz domain authority of 20 for website outlets (podcasts are exempt); about 32 percent of requests get rejected at that step. Source profiles pass seven or eight verification checks before reaching a journalist, and HARO bans an account roughly every 23 minutes, mostly for spam. An AI score alone, Farmiloe noted, is never grounds for a ban -- it's one signal among many.

About Featured

Featured is an AI-powered public relations platform that matches founders and experts with journalist requests to help them secure earned media coverage.

Read the full interview