Fake experts, AI-generated comments and suspicious sources have made the industry hard to trust.

For you PRs, that means the pitches landing now need to be solid from the start, including trusted expertise, clear angles and stories that stand up, because that’s how you build media relations that last.

Got something strong? Send it to pitches@synapse.media, and we’ll help get it in front of the right journalists.

Right, let’s get onto The Loop – journo requests, PR tips and the news worth your time this week.

🔥 MUST READ

…because we want you to hear it from the experts themselves

At BrightonSEO, Corinne Card, Co-founder of Full Story Media, shared a stark warning:

“Don’t get lost in the slop. There is a real danger of becoming invisible.”

With more than half of new online articles now AI-generated, the brands that blend in risk getting lost completely. PRs now has to work harder to create distinct voices and real expertise that journalists can actually recognise.

👉 Read Corinne’s full deck here

🗞️ PR-Y STUFF

Here’s what we think you should see this week:

  • Strong case studies still win coverage – Steph Spyro’s latest piece in Off The Record is a reminder that case studies do more than support a story. The strongest ones have clear opinions, real-world impact and people who have something to say. For PRs, the takeaway is that statistics tell journalists what’s happening, but case studies show readers why they should care. read more
  • PR’s gender bonus gap is getting worse – New research from The Works Search found that male PR professionals earned 13% more in bonuses than women in 2025, which is more than triple the gap reported the previous year. The report also found the overall salary gap remains stubborn across the industry, particularly in-house. read more
  • PR needs to shape AI, not just react to it – In the latest PR in the Real World podcast, Ben Verinder and Stephen Waddington discuss how AI is changing public relations, from measurement and workflows to strategy and critical thinking. listen to the episode
  • Fake experts aren’t just a media problem. They’re a trust problem – Our blog piece looks at how AI-generated experts and fake sources are making journalist inboxes harder riskier. The bigger issue here is that good PRs are getting lost in the same overcrowded inboxes as bad actors. Trust now needs to be part of the workflow, with verified experts, and credible PR relationships matter more than ever. read more
  • PR agencies are growing, but working harder to stand still – In the latest Beyond the Noise podcast from PRWeek, the team digs into the 2026 Top 150 agency trends, analysing the pressure points shaping the industry right now. The big themes include AI changing workflows and agencies being forced to rethink where growth actually comes from. listen to the episode

🔎 JOURNO REQUESTS

Here’s what journalists are currently looking for on Synapse:

Reach plc:

Metro:

Daily Mirror:

The i Paper:

Prolific North:

MailOnline:

Newsweek:

National World:

Freelance:

JamPress:

The Express:

Or head to the marketplace now to look at requests yourself.

📆 NEXT MONTH’S HOOKS

…because we don’t want you missing out on stuff in June.

📊 2 Jun: Effective interest rates (April 2026) – Covers average interest rates across UK deposit and loan accounts using bank and building society data.

🏦 3 Jun: Bank of England to hear views from people in the West Midlands on the cost of living, as part of its Citizens’ Forum Programme.

🏆 11 Jun: FIFA World Cup starts – For the first time in history, the tournament will be co-hosted by three nations – the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and feature an expanded field of 48 teams.

🏏 12 Jun: Women’s T20 World Cup starts – This tenth edition runs until 5 July, featuring 12 teams across 33 matches.
📊 12 Jun: GDP monthly estimate, UK (April 2026) – Measures the value of goods and services produced in the UK and tracks economic growth.

🎖️ 13 Jun: Trooping the Colour – The Household Division parade runs from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade, followed by an RAF flypast at 1:00pm.

🔍 16 Jun: Searches for Father’s Day gifts peak – According to Google Trends.

🎬 19 Jun: Toy Story 5 – Animation / Adventure / Comedy, starring Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Annie Potts and Wallace Shawn.

☀️ 20 Jun: Summer Solstice – The longest day of the year and the astronomical start of summer.

👨 21 Jun: Father’s Day

🎬 26 Jun: Supergirl – Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi, starring Milly Alcock, Eve Ridley, Matthias Schoenaerts and Jason Momoa.

🎶 27 Jun: BST Hyde Park Festival begins – Runs until 12 July, with headliners including Garth Brooks, Maroon 5, Mumford & Sons, Pitbull and Lewis Capaldi.

🎾 29 Jun: Wimbledon begins – According to MailMetro, 1 in 5 men aged 16-34 buy summer fashion items specifically for sporting events.
📊 29 Jun: Effective interest rates (May 2026) – Covering UK deposit and loan account rates.

📊 30 Jun: GDP quarterly national accounts, UK (Jan-Mar 2026) – Provides a revised and more precise estimate of UK economic growth.

Have something great?

Head to the marketplace now or simply send it to pitches@synapse.media (or add us to your media list) and we’ll make sure it reaches the right journalists.

We’ve just flipped the switch on Synapse’s payment model, and over 3,000 PR professionals are moving from free to paid. This is a huge moment for us, and I would like to give an honest update about how it went.

Dozens of businesses are subscribing. Honestly, I was not sure what to expect. Asking people to pay for a product they’ve been using for free requires some level of trust towards it. The fact that PRs are opening their wallets early tells me two things: we’ve delivered genuine value, and people believe in what we’re trying to do. Through my conversations with PRs, I’ve got genuine feedback from our community, too.

As we have seen, there is something to believe in. The media relations process is broken. There is no efficient mechanism for story pitching and for finding relevant content for journalists. Synapse was created to fix it, and, thanks to early traction, we know that we are not the only ones who think it needs fixing.

What we see as missing in media relations is a trusted third-party marketplace. PRs need professional solutions to deliver professional service. Not workarounds, not outdated databases and spray-and-pray email lists, but modern technology built for how media relations actually needs to work in 2026.

On the other side, journalists should have access to high-quality content they can rely on and which is being delivered exactly where they need it, in their workspace.

The two sides have never been properly connected. Tech can solve that. It can strip out so many of the legacy inefficiencies that have built up over decades and replace them with something that genuinely serves both parties.

Part of what’s driving adoption is trust. Every PR professional listed on Synapse is checked and verified. So is every expert and every spokesperson.

But the media also face incredible pressure to get more done with fewer available resources. Changes in the advertising model and the growing impact of AI are just a couple of challenges to look at, but the main issue lies in the lack of trust in the content sourced from outside.

Journalists need high-quality content delivered to where they work, content that increases their productivity and reduces the risk of making mistakes, not vice versa.

This is exactly what Synapse can provide. Verified information from actual PR professionals. Verified experts and spokespeople. Trusted sources of high-quality content that reach exactly the place it should. All of this in a dedicated space tailored to the media, not an inbox.  It’s why media usage on our platform is growing and why we know we’re building something the industry genuinely needs.

This is something really important for our subscribers. The access they currently have and what we’re building next will put them in a position very few PR businesses have ever been in. We’ll give them a direct, trusted route into the hands of journalists who are actively looking for what they have to offer.


If you’re an agency trying to figure out how this works for your team, our pricing is on the website, but I do want real conversations, too. I want to hear about your challenges and your pressures so I can keep innovating and building products that are genuinely useful and powerful for the people using them. 

Reach out and let’s talk, I’m keen to listen and help where I can.

Charles Russell, CEO and Founder, Synapse

With inboxes being full and trust harder to earn, what actually wins now is credibility, and knowing the story is solid, the expert is real, and the angle is worthy.

That’s exactly what Synapse is built for.

Do you have something great just sitting there? Send it to pitches@synapse.media, and we’ll help get it in front of the right journalists.

Now, onto The Loop – journo requests, PR tips and the news worth knowing this week.

🔥 MUST READ

…because we want you to hear it from the experts themselves

Sophie R., Founder of Cupid PR, shares a simple but brutal filter for your next pitch.

Her key takeaway?

“P.I.T.C.H. is how we sanity-check a Digital PR idea before it ever leaves the room. Five questions. Miss one, the idea weakens. Miss two, don’t pitch it.”

Most ideas don’t fail because they’re terrible, but because they’re missing key elements: a weak hook, soft data, or no real person. The best PRs catch that before it ever reaches a journalist.

👉 Read Sophie’s full LinkedIn post here

🗞️ PR-Y STUFF

Here’s what we think you should see this week:

  • The future of PR? It starts with trust – In The Digital PR Podcast, Sarah Waddington, CEO of the PRCA, unpacks where the industry is heading, from rebuilding trust and tackling fake experts, to closing the gap between digital and traditional PR. listen to the episode
  • Pitching freelancers? You need a different approach – In her newsletter Get Featured, Rosie Taylor breaks down a simple truth: freelancers aren’t just journalists, but they’re pitching your story onwards to editors, and that changes everything because your pitch isn’t just being judged once, but twice. claim your free post here
  • AI is moving from insight to execution in PR – The latest PR AI update shows a clear shift: AI isn’t just analysing campaigns anymore, it’s starting to run parts of them. From planning and content creation to performance tracking, new tools are closing the “execution gap” for teams. According to the article, visibility is getting tighter. AI answers are surfacing fewer brands, which means competition to be cited is higher than ever. read more
  • Paid dominates: Google, Meta and Amazon on top in UK – New data shows Google, Meta and Amazon now take two-thirds of UK ad spend, with around £31bn of a £46bn market. Meanwhile, revenue flowing to news publishers continues to decline. For PRs, this shift matters. read more

🔎 JOURNO REQUESTS

Here’s what journalists are currently looking for on Synapse:

Reach plc:

MoneyWeek:

Metro:

Daily Mirror:

The i Paper:

Prolific North:

MailOnline:

Newsweek:

National World:

Freelance:

JamPress:

The Express:

Or head to the marketplace now to look at requests yourself.

📆 NEXT MONTH’S HOOKS

…because we don’t want you missing out on stuff in June.

📊 2 Jun: Effective interest rates (April 2026) – Covers average interest rates across UK deposit and loan accounts using bank and building society data.

🏦 3 Jun: Bank of England to hear views from people in the West Midlands on the cost of living, as part of its Citizens’ Forum Programme.

🏆 11 Jun: FIFA World Cup starts – For the first time in history, the tournament will be co-hosted by three nations – the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and feature an expanded field of 48 teams.

🏏 12 Jun: Women’s T20 World Cup starts – This tenth edition runs until 5 July, featuring 12 teams across 33 matches.
📊 12 Jun: GDP monthly estimate, UK (April 2026) – Measures the value of goods and services produced in the UK and tracks economic growth.

🎖️ 13 Jun: Trooping the Colour – The Household Division parade runs from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade, followed by an RAF flypast at 1:00pm.

🍺 15 Jun: Beer Day Britain – Celebrated on the date the Magna Carta was sealed in 1215, marking the historic importance of ale in British culture.

🔍 16 Jun: Searches for Father’s Day gifts peak – According to Google Trends.

🎬 19 Jun: Toy Story 5 – Animation / Adventure / Comedy, starring Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Annie Potts and Wallace Shawn.

☀️ 20 Jun: Summer Solstice – The longest day of the year and the astronomical start of summer.

👨 21 Jun: Father’s Day

🎬 26 Jun: Supergirl – Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi, starring Milly Alcock, Eve Ridley, Matthias Schoenaerts and Jason Momoa.

🎖️ 27 Jun: Armed Forces Day
🎶 27 Jun: BST Hyde Park Festival begins – Runs until 12 July, with headliners including Garth Brooks, Maroon 5, Mumford & Sons, Pitbull and Lewis Capaldi.

🎾 29 Jun: Wimbledon begins – According to MailMetro, 1 in 5 men aged 16-34 buy summer fashion items specifically for sporting events.
📊 29 Jun: Effective interest rates (May 2026) – Covering UK deposit and loan account rates.

📱 30 Jun: World Social Media Day
📊 30 Jun: GDP quarterly national accounts, UK (Jan-Mar 2026) – Provides a revised and more precise estimate of UK economic growth.

Fake experts are not just a PR problem. They are also a trust problem. For whom, you may ask? For journalists, for publishers, for genuine PRs, and for readers who expect the advice they see in the media to come from real people with real experience.

It has landed right in the busiest place in media relations, the inbox.

This is where Synapse comes in. Journalists already have too many emails, too many irrelevant pitches and way too many “just following up”.

On top of it all, they also have to ask: is this expert even real?

Right, not ideal…

The inbox has become a free-for-all

Charles Russell, CEO & Founder at Synapse – The Stories Marketplace has talked about this topic a lot recently, and for good reason.

“The fact is, anyone can get a journalist’s email address and pitch them a story, meaning inboxes are not just overcrowded, but now dangerous places for journalists, full of time bombs ready to go off,” he says in one of his LinkedIn posts.

That does not mean most PRs are doing anything wrong. Far from it.

There are thousands of brilliant PRs doing proper, ethical media relations every day. They know journalists, check their spokespeople, care about accuracy, and most importantly, they understand what journalists need.

The problem is that bad actors make everyone’s job harder.

Journalists lose time checking people who should never have reached them in the first place, with publishers facing reputational risk. On the other hand, real PRs get ignored because their good story sits in someone’s overcrowded inbox as if it doesn’t matter.

Why does ‘fake experts’ topic matter?

Fake experts damage more than just a story, but they damage trust altogether.

If a journalist sees advice from someone who does not exist, or someone with no real credentials, that creates a bad image about the publication. It also damages the wider PR industry’s reputation, even when the pitch didn’t come from a real PR at all.

This is why publishers are now taking this issue seriously. Reach plc has introduced clearer processes around expert verification, and PR bodies, including CIPR and PRCA have urged journalists to check PR sources and credentials where concerns arise.

This adds an additional job to an already busy day.

Journalists still need expert comments and case studies. They still need useful insight, fast. What they do not need is to waste half an hour working out whether a person exists.

Verification cannot sit on journalists alone

“Just do more due diligence” sounds simple.

In reality, it is another task on top of writing, editing, sourcing, publishing, updating, checking, and trying to keep up with the news cycle.

Verification matters, and the media relations process needs to make verification easier, not slower.

On Synapse, PRs should have the basics ready before they pitch: a clear expert bio, a website or company profile, LinkedIn or social profile link, relevant credentials, a headshot, contact details, clear response availability and what their experts can actually talk about.

And all of it is important, because it is how you build trust before the journalist has to ask.

Good PRs should not lose out because of bad practice

This is the awkward part.

Naturally, when trust drops, journalists go back to the PRs they already know. That is understandable. But it also makes it harder for newer PRs, smaller agencies, freelancers, and in-house teams to build media relationships.

That is not good for the industry, because journalists need fresh voices. So the answer cannot be “only speak to people you already know forever”. That shuts out good people and limits the stories that get told. Media relations should not be limited.

So now, we ask how we can change all that? The answer is: a place where journalists know the PRs have been verified, and where experts come with the information needed to assess them quickly. Journalists need a place where communication does not rely on a public inbox that anyone can pile into.

That is where Synapse comes in.

How does Synapse help tackle “fake experts”?

Every PR and journalist on Synapse is hand-verified before they get access to the platform. Our expert database adds another layer, helping journalists find credible experts uploaded by verified PRs, with all the useful profile information in one place.

Journalists can search by things like:

  • Sector
  • Company
  • Keyword
  • Region
  • Channel
  • Response speed
  • Interview format

They can see the details they need, then contact the PR behind the expert directly through Synapse.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Communication always happens through verified PRs and journalists. And the best part is that there aren’t random emails or suspicious “experts” that appeared five minutes ago.

Just a safer, faster way to connect.

Trust is now a workflow issue

Media relations have always been about relationships, and that’s what we are all about at Synapse. But now, trust also needs to be built into the workflow.

Synapse helps both sides move faster without skipping the important checks. Journalists can source expert comments from verified PRs, and PRs can get their genuine experts in front of the right people without the constant fight against the inbox. As per the Synapse Yearly Report 2025, our own performance data shows that 55% of pitches on the platform receive journalist interaction, while 70% of journalist requests are accepted by PRs.

That tells us a very important thing: when the environment is more relevant, people respond, and when the process is cleaner, good stories have a better chance.

No fakery. Just better media relations.

We all know that fake experts are not going away overnight, but the industry can make it much harder for them to succeed.

Publishers can tighten how they check experts, and PRs can focus on updating their expert information. On the other hand, journalists can ask the right questions.

Platforms like Synapse can create safer spaces where verified professionals work together without the need to deal with crowded inboxes.

Because journalists do not need more emails, PRs do not need more barriers, and the media definitely does not need more fake experts.

It needs real people, real expertise, and better ways to get good stories told.