Did you know that only 3% of media pitches get a response? With six more PR professionals for every journalist, there is more competition for coverage than ever. The key to breaking through the noise is connecting with the right journalists—those whose beats, backgrounds, and interests align perfectly with your story.
Let’s be real: finding the right journalists for highly targeted media outreach feels like searching for a needle in a haystack. Journalists switch outlets, change beats, and require extensive research to confirm their relevance—turning the process into a tedious, time-consuming, and inefficient grind—all before you’ve even sent a single pitch!
Fortunately, there are ways to cut this time, making your outreach much more effective.
Where to start?
First, get specific about who you’re trying to reach. It’s not enough to search for “tech journalists," but really hone in on the details: are you looking for U.S.-based tech journalists covering generative AI or emerging software? Are you targeting niche outlets or big-name publications? Are you promoting a CEO, an expert, or the company itself?
The more precise your focus, the harder it can be to find the right contacts—but that precision makes all the difference in getting your pitch noticed!
Finding the right journalists—the old-school approach
There are many ways to build your media lists, and the process often combines multiple strategies. Here are a few to consider:
- Google Searches: Google can be a powerful tool if used well. Mastering search techniques like “site:forbes.com AI startups” or combining terms like “crypto + journalist” can lead to relevant results. However, it’s important to double-check that articles and contacts are recent and accurate.
- News Websites: Visiting platforms like TechCrunch or The Verge to find journalists actively covering your topic is a more focused approach. Searching for recent articles on similar topics ensures relevancy, but it takes a significant amount of time to sift through multiple sites.
- Social Media Searches: Platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn are great for discovering journalists or bloggers discussing your topic. Searching hashtags and following niche influencers can uncover potential leads, but you’ll still need to verify their relevancy and contact details.
- Media Databases: These can provide access to large contact lists but come with a steep price tag starting at $5k per user and require effort to navigate and filter through often outdated information.
While these methods can be effective, they’re time-intensive and prone to gaps—missing key journalists, relying on outdated data, or consuming hours just to compile a basic list.
Can AI help with media research?
While Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have come a long way, they fall short for media research. Here’s why: LLMs are trained on outdated data and aren’t built for in-depth, real-time web research.
Instead of digging deep into credible sources, they prioritize speed over accuracy, often skimming just a handful of web pages per query—many with questionable credibility. And if they can’t find the info online, they just use years-old training data. This leads to inaccuracies, outdated information, and even infamous “hallucinations.”
In our recent test of AI tools, we found that around 50% of the journalists recommended by ChatGPT and Perplexity are irrelevant or include outdated information. If these AI tools can't deliver accurate, reliable information and you have to verify every answer, they’re essentially useless.
Dazzle—the first PR-specific AI
General-purpose AI models were not designed for PR needs. Dazzle is the first and only AI search agent built specifically for PR workflows, and its basic version is free.
Created by PR pros, developed by AI experts, and refined through hundreds of real-world campaigns, Dazzle automates the most tedious and time-consuming parts of media research.
Compared to general-purpose AI models, Dazzle delivered:
- 40-100 journalists per query vs. just 3-10 from ChatGPT or Perplexity.
- 90%+ result relevance—double that of general-purpose AI tools.
- Accurate contact details for 80% of journalists, compared to less than 10% in other AI tools.
This works just as well for national, regional, or industry-specific outlets as it does for podcasts, blogs, and guest writing opportunities.
Dazzle’s superpower comes from its specialized AI agents tailored to every type of media research task. Dazzle scans hundreds of articles in real time, filtering journalists by their likelihood to cover your story based on their interests, audience, location, outlet type, and other criteria.
For each journalist, you’ll also get an AI-generated bio, beat, coverage details, and other info. If you miss something, just ask! Dazzle answers questions like “Which companies has this journalist covered before?” or “What is the best angle to pitch her my story?” This helps you tailor your pitch to each individual journalist and maximize its effectiveness.
Finding contact details for journalists is another tedious task that often requires hours of research or subscription to expensive databases. Dazzle pulls this info from verified data partners for you, including journalists’ email and social media profiles.
The result?
With Dazzle, you can build comprehensive, highly targeted media lists in minutes, not days. Why not use all this extra time for what really matters for effective PR—to build relationships with journalists and get top-tier media coverage?
The best part is that you can use Dazzle's basic version for free. Try it today.
