The Propel Wrapped:Journalist Engagement H1 2023

Welcome to the results from our latest PR research endeavor, "The Propel Wrapped: Journalist Engagement H1 2023" report! In a year that has been nothing short of a whirlwind of news and events, we've set out to decipher the intricate dance between PR pitches and journalist engagement with them. As Einstein mused, “God doesn't play dice with the universe,” but navigating the currents of this year’s news cycle can feel like a game of chance.

We analyzed approximately one million anonymized PR pitches from the first half of 2023 to help you better understand the media relations climate and set up impactful strategies to use in the future. The result of this research project is a comprehensive analysis that sheds light on the art of pitching in a dynamically evolving media landscape. At the core of our investigation lies a simple question: how are PR pros leveraging the year's most headline-grabbing stories to captivate the attention of journalists?

Key findings include:

Journalists have been keen on positive news this year so far, with pitches mentioning growth being opened over 87% of the time and being responded to 6.38% of the time.
The year's big game-changing technology, generative AI, received an overall response rate of 11.57% showing journalists are yearning for interesting stories about this groundbreaking innovation.
Despite there being thousands of pitches mentioning the Super Bowl, only 0.52% of them were responded to by journalists, pointing to a situation where journalists were likely inundated with these kinds of pitches.
Influencer pitching seemed to become a lot more popular among PR professionals over the past six months, with pitches about these media personalities being opened 79.33% of the time and getting responded to 27.41% of the time.
Series A funding news performed quite well, with 11.92% of these pitches being responded to. Series B’s performed even better, receiving a 15.7% response rate. However, this was the series with the fewest amount of pitches. Series C’s excited journalists as well, with these pitches being responded to 13.14% of the time.