The Best PR Is Written for Someone Else to Tell.

Most brands write PR for themselves. They write to satisfy an approval chain, to sound like themselves, and to say the things they most want said. That is precisely why most PR does not work. The mechanics of earned media have always required a specific kind of selflessness: writing content that serves the teller, not the brand doing the telling. What has changed is how many tellers there now are, how different their needs have become, and how badly the traditional press release format has failed to keep pace with any of it.

Key Takeaways

• Earned media works because a third-party voice carries more credibility than self-promotion. According to Nielsen research, 92% of people trust earned media more than any other form of advertising.
• Most PR fails not because it is poorly written, but because it is written for the wrong reader.
• The pool of "someone else" has expanded well beyond traditional journalists to include podcast hosts, newsletter writers, community moderators, and independent creators.
• Retellable PR is built around the teller's audience, not the brand's preferred messaging.
• Operationally, that means writing shorter, more specific, and more transferable content at every stage of the process.

What Is the Original Idea Behind "Writing PR for Someone Else"?

The foundational logic of public relations has always rested on a simple transfer of authority. When a journalist covers your company, their credibility becomes, temporarily, your credibility. The audience trusts the outlet. The outlet vouches for the story. The brand benefits from that chain of trust without having to build it themselves.

This is why earned media has always outperformed paid media on trust metrics. It is not complicated. A Nielsen study found that 92% of consumers trust earned media more than any other type of advertising. That figure has circulated long enough to become wallpaper, which is unfortunate, because it contains an instruction.

If earned media works because someone else told the story, then the job of PR writing is to make that someone else's job as easy as possible. The press release, in its original conception, was a service document. Here is the news. Here is a quote. Here is the contact. Go write the story.

That was the idea. The execution, historically, has been something else entirely.

Why Do Most Brands Write PR for the Wrong Reader?

Ask a PR team who they are writing a press release for, and the honest answer is usually: the executive who has to approve it.

That is not cynicism. It is an observation about organizational dynamics. Press releases pass through legal, marketing, communications, and leadership before they reach a journalist. Each layer adds language that protects someone's interests or reflects someone's preferences. The result is a document that sounds exactly like what it is: a piece of content written to survive an approval process rather than to attract coverage.

Consider the numbers. According to Muck Rack's State of Journalism report, 88% of reporters delete pitches because they are irrelevant to their coverage. Another 71% delete pitches that are overly promotional or advertorial. Those two numbers together tell a coherent story about what brands keep sending and what journalists keep ignoring.

The deeper problem is a category error. Brands treat PR writing as an opportunity to say what they want to say. Journalists treat incoming pitches as potential raw material for what their audience needs to hear. These are not the same project.

A press release that begins with "We are delighted to announce an exciting new partnership that will transform the industry" is not serving the journalist. It is making the journalist do the work of finding the actual story buried somewhere in the third paragraph. Sixty-nine percent of reporters prefer pitches under 200 words. That preference is not arbitrary. They are telling brands: get to the point because I do not have time to excavate one.

How Has the Pool of "Someone Else" Changed?

Here is where the real shift happened, and it is a shift in scope rather than kind.

For most of the twentieth century, "someone else" meant a reporter at a newspaper, a trade publication, or a broadcast outlet. The teller pool was relatively small. The gatekeepers were familiar. PR teams could map the landscape, build relationships, and learn the preferences of individual journalists over time.

That landscape has splintered. According to Edison Research's Infinite Dial report, 55% of Americans aged 12 and older now listen to podcasts monthly, the highest level on record. Substack newsletters, Discord communities, Reddit threads, YouTube creators, and independent industry analysts now shape how people form opinions about companies and products. A mention in the right niche newsletter can reach a more relevant audience than a feature in a major publication.

Lauren Kleinman, founder of Dreamday, has described it precisely: "Consumers don't build trust in one headline anymore, they build it in fragments across Substack newsletters, podcasts, YouTube creators, Reddit threads." The fragmentation of trust is the defining feature of the current media environment. It does not make PR harder, exactly. It makes it more specific.

Because each teller type is different. Meaningfully different. A podcast host needs a narrative arc. A newsletter writer needs insight they can synthesize into their own voice. A community moderator needs something genuinely useful to their members. A journalist at a trade publication needs a news hook and source access. Sending the same press release to all of them is not strategy. It is indifference dressed up as efficiency.

The table above is a simplified map, not a rulebook. Real tellers often blend these categories. A podcast host who also writes a newsletter needs elements from both columns. An analyst with a strong social following operates across multiple contexts simultaneously. The point is not to treat each category as a fixed target. The point is to think about the teller's audience before thinking about what you want to say.

What Does "Retellable" PR Actually Look Like in Practice?

There are three tests worth running on any PR content before it goes out.

The first is the sentence test. Can the story be summarized in one sentence that makes someone else want to share it? Not a brand sentence. Not a messaging sentence. A sentence that the teller could actually use. If the answer requires more than ten seconds of thought, the story is not retellable yet.

The second is the quote test. Read the executive quotes in your press release out loud. Do they sound like a person speaking? Or do they sound like someone speaking through a blender of approved talking points? Muck Rack's research shows that press releases with well-crafted quotes have a pickup rate up to 40% higher than those without. That figure exists because a good quote does actual work. It gives the journalist something to use without attribution effort. A quote like "This partnership positions us to accelerate our mission-driven approach to stakeholder value creation" does not help anyone. It does not even mean anything. A quote like "We spent eighteen months trying to solve this problem on our own and we couldn't. That is why this partnership exists" is a story.

The third is the audience test. Before sending anything, ask: does this serve the teller's audience, or does it serve the brand's preferred narrative? These can overlap, but only when the PR content is built around what readers, listeners, or subscribers actually want to know. Muck Rack's data shows that 78% of journalists evaluate pitches on whether they "directly affect the community my audience belongs to." Only 3% say PR outreach consistently reflects the communities their outlets serve. That gap is where most PR fails.

Beyond the tests, the operational shift looks like this: shorter pitches, cleaner angles, specific data over vague claims, and genuine willingness to help the teller tell the story their way. Not your way. According to Muck Rack, 50% of journalists say one follow-up is ideal, and they prefer pitches before noon. These are small preferences, but they communicate something larger: the journalist's workflow is the constraint, not the brand's announcement schedule.

None of this means abandoning voice or precision. It means directing that voice and precision outward, toward the teller and their audience, rather than inward toward the approval chain.

The Part Everyone Skips: Making the Story Portable

There is a concept in film production about making footage "edit-friendly." Cinematographers who understand post-production shoot with the editor in mind. They provide clean in and out points, enough coverage, reaction shots that the editor can use to bridge cuts. The footage is designed to be usable, not just beautiful.

Good PR writing works the same way. The press release, the pitch, the media kit: all of it should be designed to be usable by the person who picks it up. That means clean facts they can verify. Quotes they can actually print. A narrative angle clear enough that they can slot it into a story format without rewriting the whole premise.

The brands that generate consistent earned media coverage tend to share one observable trait: they make the journalist's job easier. They provide access. They respond quickly. They offer data with context rather than data alone. They understand that coverage is not a transaction where the brand pays in press releases and receives attention in return. Coverage is a collaboration where the brand provides material and the journalist transforms it into something their audience can use.

That transformation is the whole point. The best PR is not the writing that most accurately reflects what the brand wants to say. The best PR is the writing that makes someone else want to say it in their own words.

Stop Writing Press Releases That Only You Can Love

The approval process will always fight against retellable PR. Legal will soften the quotes. Marketing will add brand language. Leadership will want the headline to lead with the company name. These instincts are not malicious, but they produce content that serves internal audiences better than external ones.

The discipline required to write good PR is the discipline of writing past your own preferences. It means testing your story against the teller's needs before testing it against the CEO's preferences. It means cutting the sentence that protects the brand and keeping the sentence that makes the journalist's job possible.

The media environment has expanded the number of tellers available. The fundamental logic has not changed. Someone else has to want to tell your story. Everything in PR writing should be working toward that moment, not away from it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "writing PR for someone else to tell" actually mean?

It means crafting press releases, pitches, and media content around the needs of the person who will use it, specifically journalists, podcast hosts, newsletter writers, and other media voices, rather than around what the brand wants to announce. The goal is to give the teller everything they need to cover the story easily and accurately in their own voice.

Why do most PR pitches get deleted?

According to Muck Rack's State of Journalism report, 88% of journalists delete pitches because they are irrelevant to their coverage, and 71% delete pitches that are overly promotional. Most pitches fail because they are written for the brand's approval process rather than for the journalist's actual editorial needs.

How is pitching a podcast host different from pitching a journalist?

A journalist typically needs a clear news hook, verifiable data, and source access. A podcast host needs a compelling narrative, strong opinions worth exploring in conversation, and a guest who can sustain 30 to 60 minutes of engaging discussion. Sending the same press release to both is a mismatch. The pitch format, angle, and content should reflect the teller's specific format and audience.

What makes a press release quote actually useful to a journalist?

A useful quote sounds like something a real person said. It takes a position, shares a perspective, or reveals something that goes beyond the surface-level announcement. A quote that could appear in any press release by any company in any industry adds no value. A quote that explains the reasoning, the difficulty, or the decision-making behind an announcement gives the journalist something to work with.

How short should a PR pitch actually be?

According to Muck Rack's research, 69% of journalists prefer pitches under 200 words. That is the constraint to work within. The pitch should contain one clear story angle, one data point or hook, one sentence explaining why it matters to that journalist's specific audience, and contact information. Anything beyond that should be held in reserve for the follow-up conversation.

Does earned media still matter when brands have their own publishing channels?

Owned channels and earned media serve different functions. A brand newsletter reaches existing audiences. Earned media reaches new ones through a voice the audience already trusts. According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust earned media more than any other form of advertising. Owned content builds a relationship with an existing audience. Earned coverage builds credibility with audiences who do not yet know the brand exists.

What is the biggest mistake brands make when expanding PR to newsletters and podcasts?

Treating them like smaller versions of traditional media. Newsletter writers and podcast hosts have built audiences around a specific voice and perspective. They are not looking for content to republish. They are looking for angles, ideas, and sources they can filter through their own point of view. A pitch to an independent newsletter should explain why the story is relevant to that writer's readers, not describe how great the product is.