A rapidly changing news cycle, shrinking reader attention spans and a crowded market all demand a unique, targeted approach to media relations and reporter engagement.
The Media Expert group at Walker Sands is a team of former journalists and PR strategists who carefully cultivate relationships with reporters at tier-1 and high-value trade publications to help our clients directly reach their target audiences through the press. I’m thrilled to share that Hunter Stuart, who has been leading this group, has been elevated to vice president, Media Relations.
Hunter brings to the role over a decade of in-the-field journalism for major international news outlets, a breadth of media relationships and an inside understanding of how PR professionals and journalists can effectively collaborate.
I caught up with Hunter to discuss his perspectives on the evolving media landscape, and his top tips for building stronger media relationships.
You’re one of several Walker Sands team members with a journalism background. Tell us about your career journey from working in the media to becoming a PR pro. What unique insights do you bring to your role at Walker Sands?
I was a reporter for 10 years, first on staff at Huffington Post in New York where I was a news editor and a business reporter. I was at HuffPost in 2010 when it was a start-up, and it was amazing to see it rocket toward rapid growth until it was acquired by AOL and then by Verizon. During that time I was sitting in an office all day, and that wasn’t my idea of journalism, so I ended up resigning in 2015 and moved to the Middle East.
I settled in Jerusalem and wrote for Vice, the International Business Times, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel and other outlets about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, culture and technology because Israel and the Palestinian territories are tech hubs for the region.
The work was incredibly interesting but it was also stressful and hard to make enough money to be comfortable. My wife and I also missed our families, so we moved back to the United States and at that point, I felt like I had accomplished everything in my journalism career that I wanted to accomplish. I was also in my mid-30s, and I saw the PR world as a way to have a journalism-adjacent job that could give me adrenaline and the ability to satisfy my addiction to the news, while also having a more comfortable life for my family.
As a PR professional with a journalism background, I can empathize with reporters and understand their interests, working styles, preferences and motivations because I’ve been there. I still have many journalists and writers as friends and family members, so I sympathize with them in a way that a lot of PR professionals don’t.
Where do you see the Media Expert group at Walker Sands heading in the future? What are some of the current focus areas for the team?
I see the team continuing to expand. We’re currently focused on reaching the high-value reporters in a media landscape that’s shrinking and rapidly changing. As PR agencies proliferate and PR professionals outnumber journalists by more than six to one, not to mention ongoing layoffs and buyouts in journalism, it has become increasingly difficult to reach reporters at widely read, prestigious outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Reuters and The Associated Press. So, our focus is building relationships with those journalists to the point where we can get them interested in our clients better than any other agency in the world.
Given the evolving media landscape, what are the main challenges reporters face today? How can PR professionals adapt to these changes?
I think the main challenge reporters face is being inundated with pitches that don’t speak to them. They’re getting pitched on companies, people, products and services that either don’t relate to their beat or aren’t newsworthy, or both. Their inboxes are flooded, which makes it harder for them to do their jobs. It’s harder to catch an important email from a source if you’re getting hundreds of PR emails every day.
I sympathize with PR professionals too, because they’re under a lot of pressure with a lot on their plate. It’s difficult and time-consuming to write a personalized email for every reporter on your list, especially when most of them may not even respond. But we’ve learned that the white-glove approach, where you write an individualized message to every reporter you’re targeting, is the only way to break through to these tier-1 reporters.
Can you describe a particularly memorable media placement you’ve secured and why it stands out?
We got NPR to cover a Sophos report on the morning news on “All Things Considered.” It was covered by a cybersecurity reporter named Jenna McLaughlin, the first-ever cybersecurity reporter in the history of NPR. She was discussing the Sophos report with NPR’s morning news anchor Korva Coleman, a household name in America and somebody that I and tens of millions of Americans listen to as they’re going about their morning routine.
That segment resulted from a relationship I built with Jenna McLaughlin, which began when she was hired at NPR in 2021. Throughout much of our three-year relationship, I wasn’t pitching her or asking her to cover my client. Instead, I was checking in to see what she was working on or letting her know that one of our Sophos spokespeople found her recent story interesting.
Reporters love hearing that PR professionals and marketers are paying attention to their work and that we respect it. By showing Jenna that I was interested in her work, I think she became open to being pitched on new research from our client, Sophos.
What key advice would you give for building strong relationships with reporters?
Consume as much news as possible and regularly reach out to reporters to let them know that you read their article or heard their segment on the news and found it interesting. That’s my single biggest piece of advice.
The more news you consume, the better counsel you can provide to your clients. You’ll understand what is newsworthy, be aware of the major trends reporters are covering in their space, and know how to position your clients into it.
Congratulations to Hunter on his new role! Learn more about media relations at Walker Sands here.
