PR News: Suddenly, everyone is back in the office, wanting updates, calls & coverage.
Industry Trends & News, PR
Unfortunately, we can’t take your client calls for you; however, we can take some pitches off your hands and help you score coverage. Send your story to pitches@synapse.media (or add that address to your media list) and we’ll get it in front of the right journalists for you.
Now, welcome back to The Loop – your weekly scroll of journo requests, must-read news and media relations tips.
Here’s what’s hot this week…
🔥 MUST READ
…advice we’ve spotted from the experts
“When you’re writing a press release or pitching a story to journalists, remember that phone.”
Top reminder from award-winning media trainer Guy Clapperton that journalists might be reading your email on their phone so how your pitch subject line appears on that phone matters.
🗞️ PR-Y STUFF
Here’s what we’ve read this week so that you don’t have to:
- Daily Mail owner calls for crackdown on Google AI after traffic tanks– DMG wrote to the CMA saying that readership from Google searches has fallen by as much as 89% and called for the watchdog to extend its proposed regulation for the company to its Gemini chatbot and Google News Service. Read more.
- Reach to ‘radically reorganise’ editorial structure with one live news team– the plans intend to reduce duplication across Reach’s biggest brands, but are expected to involve redundancies. Staff have also been told to produce more video and less text-only content. Reach more.
- Wired says ‘AI-written’ story did not have ‘proper fact-check process’ – after Press Gazette revealed they, alongside other titles, had published an article bylined by a fake AI-generated author. Read more.
- Why trust in public relations is more than a barometer- From Stephen Waddington’s Substack, comms expert Charlotte explains how PR pros should be thinking about trust. Read more.
🔎 JOURNO REQUESTS
Here’s what journalists are currently looking for on Synapse:
Reach plc:
- Looking for an expert in travel to name their favourite UK beach
- Looking for an expert in the relevant laws to explain the laws/rules on whether you can cut/trim a neighbour’s tree
Newsquest:
LADbible:
The i Paper:
- Looking for an inheritance tax expert to speak to, about what they’re doing to reduce the bill for their own family
- Looking to speak to a student today whose university maintenance loan isn’t enough to cover their costs.
- Looking for some expert comments on the car finance scandal compensation scheme about what people can do next.
Metro:
- Looking to chat to renters who signed for a house without viewing it. Did it look anything like the photos at all?
- Looking to speak to wealthy people who lost all their money.
- Looking for What I own/rent property column – case studies.
Freelance:
- I need some specific and little-known tips on how to save money as a single person
- Still good to go? Why employees are less eager than ever to take that business trip and how employers can tackle the issue
Or head to the marketplace now to look our requests yourself.
📆 NEXT MONTH’S HOOKS
…just because we don’t want you missing out on stuff.
1 September: New car registrations – any vehicle registered from September 1st, 2025, onwards will display ’75’ as the registration identifier. 52% of Brits consider newsbrands a useful source of motoring info.
2 September: Back to School – According to MailMetro, 5.7 million parents engage with primary or secondary school content.
5 September: The Conjuring: Last Rites UK release date.
6 September: US Open Women’s Final
6 September: The Braemar Gathering, Aberdeenshire – One of the Royal Family’s favourite annual events.
7 September: US Open Men’s Final
7 September: Great North Run, Newcastle – According to Great Run, on average, there are 60,000 runners, making it the world’s biggest half-marathon.
8 September: Sexual Health Week starts
10 September: British Science Festival starts – held in Liverpool, organised by the British Science Association.
12 September: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale UK release date.
12 September: Heritage Open Days begin – Free access to historic and normally closed buildings across England.
12 September: Jane Austen Festival begins, Bath
13 September: Roald Dahl Day
13 September: Open House Festival begins, London
15 September: Prince Harry’s 40th birthday – Royal-related coverage spikes.
17 September: Searches peak for ‘Freshers Week’ – According to Google Trends, these searches hit their highest point on this topic last year, putting Scotland at 100 (the maximum) and England at 76 search interest points.
18 September: London Fashion Week kicks off
18 September: Bank of England Interest Rate announcement – The Bank will meet to review the rate, opting to either increase, decrease or keep it level.
19 September: Women’s Rugby World Cup Semi-Finals
20 September: Oktoberfest begins
26 September: The Strangers: Chapter 2 UK release date.
27 September: Women’s Rugby World Cup Bronze Final and Final – Takes place at Twickenham Stadium, London
✨ BEFORE YOU GO
Got something great but no time?
Send it over to pitches@synapse.media and we’ll get it in our marketplace for you.
FAQs
Registration is simple! Click here to here and then fill out your information. Our team hand verify all of our users within 24 hours. Once your account has been approved, you’ll receive an email inviting you to log in.
If you have any questions or problems, get in touch with support@synapse.media
Our team hand-verify every single one of our users. Synapse is designed for journalists, reporters, editors and those in the media sourcing stories. It’s also designed for PR professionals. We have our own verification process, but if required, we’ll always get in touch with you directly to get some more information on your day-to-day role and to make sure Synapse is right for you.
There are over 3000 amazing people on Synapse; all of whom want to revolutionise the media relations industry. Our PR user base is from across the UK and covers a mix of agency, freelance and in-house professionals. Our journalist user base is similarly broad. There are national publications, trades, regionals and freelancers all using the platform.
No! At the moment, Synapse is completely free to use for all users, so register today and try it out.
We’d love to. But we’re not quite there yet.
Synapse believes that journalists have the right to their own data, and that by giving journalists control over their data, PRs will receive more accurate and timely information that isn’t currently available on any other database.
This means that we need to work with journalists to register them on the platform, rather than adding every UK journalist without permission. This is something our team is working on every single day.
Have a journalist or publication you’d like to see on Synapse? Get in touch and let us know at support@synapse.media
We launched on 21st September 2023 with over 1800 users already pre-registered. Since then we’ve grown to over 3000 users, onboarded national publications and have more news to come. Watch this space!
Our users are so important to us. You literally keep us going each and every day so we’re always here to help. From solving tech issues, demoing the platform to posting pitches and requests on your behalf when you’re just having one of those weeks, we put our users at the heart of everything we do.
If you want to read more about our users’ experiences, you can check out their stories here or get in touch with support@synapse.media
Depending on whether you have a journalist profile or a PR profile, you’ll have access to slightly different AI tools.
For PRs, you can save time by exploring our intelligent recommendations of which journalists to pitch to. Our AI will make recommendations based on proprietary data, saving you hours of research time.
For journalists, our secure AI assistant is there to help you as you write your stories. You’re in control of whether you use the tool and to what extent with options of a bulleted summary through to a full generative article.
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