It seems like almost every week there’s a new story about how AI PR has fooled news publications into putting up stories which are partly, or wholly, fake.
The latest story, by the excellent Rob Waugh at Press Gazette, is about AI software for PRs which “generates entire PR campaigns, from the idea stage through to writing press releases and relentlessly pursuing journalists”.
While there has been a lot of tutting on social media about this, the reality is that many major PR platforms and databases are also using AI to help tailor media lists, and, yes, some also have options to help you generate ideas and send pitch emails.
If your competitors are doing it and it makes PR campaigns so easy, why wouldn’t you?
From my perspective as a freelancer pitching to editors, I can see why there is a temptation to automate at least some parts of the pitching process - which can be a lot of effort for very little feedback or results.
But as a journalist, my instinct when I see an AI-written release is: delete. While there have been some notorious exceptions, it is usually pretty obvious if a release has been heavily written by AI. (Those weird ChatGPT turns of phrase and the random bolded headlines in a release are a dead giveaway.)
And because we’re so cautious and distrustful of anything AI-generated, it means I’m wary of believing any element of a release that’s obviously been constructed using ChatGPT or other LLMs. It may be that you’re only using it to help you with the writing and the story is legitimate, but there’s nothing obvious to indicate to journalists the difference between an AI press release about a fake scenario and one about a real story.
I’ve written before about avoiding “Kill Mode”, where editors are looking for an excuse not to run your story because they’ve got so much to deal with. When a release has clearly been generated by AI with no or little editing, it makes it too easy for an editor to think: I can’t trust it, I’ll kill it.
But we clearly can’t ignore AI - so how do we find a the balance between using it wisely and getting blacklisted by editors?
Everyone’s got a different perspective on this, but here are some of my “Do”s and “Don’t”s on using AI in pitching:
Don’t use AI to write the release for you
Every Letter In The Headline Is Capped Up… And then there are some catchy but empty bullet points, followed by a press release with lots of nice little bold headings and more bullet points.
Weirdly short sentences. Sentences which list three things. Commas in the wrong place around “and”, “or” and “but”. Too many direct verbs (“Swap your X for Y”)…
There are plenty of giveaways that something has been written with a bit too much help from AI.
Yes, ChatGPT (and the others) can write a fine generic press release which reads perfectly well in isolation. But remember that when journalists are getting bombarded with dozens of these every day, the patterns and styles used by AI become immediately obvious.
And when your pitch is competing with up to 1,000 daily emails landing in an editor’s inbox, you don’t want to be writing a generic press release - you want yours to stand out from the crowd, not blend into the same boring format and style as everyone else’s.
Do use it to help with tone and formatting
That doesn’t mean you can’t go anywhere near AI when you’re putting together a pitch or press release.
It can be really helpful for things like honing your pitch to fit the style of the publication you’re targeting or for suggesting headline ideas based on those which already exist on a website.
The key is to take these as suggestions, not to use them verbatim. I’ve written previously about how I’ve used AI for inspiration for turning complicated concepts into tabloid-style headline words. But I’d never use the full headlines it suggests - these are always really cringey for a start.
And it’s also great for speeding up those boring formatting jobs that take up precious time. I use prompts like: “Turn this table into a plain text list” or “Transcribe all the text in this infographic”, for example.
So, yes, use AI to give you inspiration and speed up the boring bits of putting together a pitch. But don’t let it write your pitch for you - it won’t stand out in a busy inbox.
Don’t rely on AI media lists
There are clearly a lot of terrible AI media lists out there which scrape journalists’ contacts and mismatch them to topics - I know because I and my colleagues keep ending up on them.
ChatGPT is useful for giving suggestions for relevant journalists to target but it does tend to pull up a lot of out-of-date information. It means the journalists and editors it recommends may have changed subject area or publication - so don’t trust what it says without double checking first.
It’s obviously more time-consuming, but I’d always argue that you’re better off pitching to a small, tailored list than a massive “spray and pray” one. And nothing beats checking out journalists individually to see if they’re right for the job - not just because they cover this subject, but because they do the right type of story and are available to take it on.
For example, I asked ChatGPT to come up with suggestions for journalists who would want to receive a press release about a specific health condition. It came up with some decent suggestions but, from checking out their social media profiles, I could immediately see one of the journalists it recommended is on maternity leave.
Spending just two minutes verifying the journalists on your AI-generated list could save you time wasted sending out tailored pitches only to get a bounce-back.
Do use it to deep dive on individual journalists
Because it can dredge up information from just about anywhere, AI is alarmingly good at deep-diving into exactly what an individual journalist is interested in and the types of stories they write.
I’ve shared before how ChatGPT stalked me and came up with a scarily accurate summary of what I do - but more importantly, how likely I was to cover a specific release.
Asking AI how well the journalists on your list match the specific release you’re sending could be a really useful way of stopping you wasting pitches on the wrong person.
Don’t forget how important YOU are
Whether you’re pitching as a freelance journalist, a PR on behalf of a client or promoting your own thing, a vital element to your pitch is your voice and the human connection that you form with the editor you’re pitching to.
It can be easy to feel intimidated and think AI is “better” than us at writing, because it can create a pitch email in seconds that sounds impressive. But don’t forget that the person the editor really wants to hear from is you - even if your writing is not perfect.
Pitching is not just about conveying information but conveying why the journalist should care about that information. A key part of that is showing your passion for it - and that won’t come across unless it’s in your own words.
Write your pitch in a professional but conversational way. Show genuine interest in things the journalist has shared or you think they might be interested in. Throw in a personal anecdote if it’s relevant to the topic... All of these things help you make a connection and show you’re a human being.
And in this age where anything could be fake, when journalists distrust everything and newsrooms are hyper cautious about being tricked by AI, it’s never been more important to show how human you are in your pitch.
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