What is reactive PR?
Reactive PR is the practice of spotting a story the media is already covering and responding fast with something a journalist can use: an expert quote, a quick piece of data or a fresh angle. The aim is to be included in coverage that would have been written anyway, earning a brand mention and often a link [1].
A simple example: a central bank raises interest rates at 2pm. By 3pm, a mortgage broker's head of lending has emailed three personal finance reporters a two-paragraph comment on what the rise means for people coming off fixed deals. One reporter quotes the comment and links to the broker's site in that evening's story.
Reactive PR sits inside digital PR. It is the fast, opportunistic half of the discipline, while planned campaigns are the slow half.
How does reactive PR work?
Reactive PR works by watching the news, matching a breaking story to an expert the brand already has, and getting a usable response to the right journalist before the story is filed. Speed matters because a news story has a short window: once the piece is published, a late comment is rarely added [1].
The usual workflow has four parts:
- Monitoring. News alerts, social media searches and journalist request feeds surface stories and open requests as they appear [3].
- Matching. Someone decides whether the brand has a credible expert and something genuinely new to add. If not, the opportunity is skipped.
- Drafting. A short comment or data point is written and signed off. Sign-off is where most reactive PR fails: a quote that needs two days of legal review is useless for a story filed today.
- Pitching. The response goes to journalists already covering the story, or to the journalist who posted the request.
Many teams also run "planned reactive" work: predictable news moments such as budget announcements, housing market updates, holiday seasons and annual reports, where the date is known and the comment can be prepared in advance [1][3].
What are examples of reactive PR?
The common forms of reactive PR are expert comment on breaking news, responses to journalist requests, quick data pulled for a trending topic, and timely commentary from a brand on a viral moment [2].
- Expert comment. A cybersecurity firm's researcher explains a major data breach for a technology reporter.
- Journalist requests. A reporter posts "Looking for an HR expert on four-day weeks, deadline 4pm" and a consultancy replies with a usable quote. Links earned this way are covered under journalist request links.
- Quick data. A travel brand pulls its own booking data within hours of an airline strike announcement.
- Commentary on a cultural moment. A health or legal expert explains the real-world facts behind a plotline or celebrity story. Cedarwood Digital describes earning coverage for a medical negligence client by offering expert comment on breast cancer symptoms after a soap opera storyline [3].
What is the difference between reactive PR and proactive PR?
Reactive PR responds to news on the media's timetable, while proactive PR creates news on the brand's own timetable through planned campaigns, studies and launches [2]. Reactive PR is cheaper per piece and faster, but each piece earns a handful of mentions. A proactive hero campaign takes weeks to build and can earn far more coverage when it lands, or very little when it doesn't.
| Reactive PR | Proactive PR | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the timing | The news cycle | The brand |
| Typical output | A quote, comment or quick data point | A campaign, study, survey or tool |
| Lead time | Hours to days | Weeks to months |
| Coverage per piece | Usually a few placements | From none to hundreds |
| Main risk | Being too slow or adding nothing new | Spending weeks on a campaign that lands flat |
Most brands that do digital PR well run both: reactive work keeps a steady trickle of coverage between larger campaigns.
What is the difference between reactive PR and newsjacking?
Reactive PR is the broad practice of responding to any news or request, while newsjacking is one form of it: inserting a brand into a big trending story, usually one that has nothing to do with the brand's own industry. Answering a journalist's request for a pensions expert is reactive PR but not newsjacking. A furniture brand riffing on a celebrity moment is both.
The distinction matters for link building. Reactive PR built on genuine expertise tends to earn coverage in the outlets that matter to a brand's topic. Newsjacking can earn attention in unrelated outlets, which brings brand awareness but adds less topical relevance to a link profile.
How has reactive PR changed over time?
Reactive PR is as old as the press office, but its link building form grew with online journalist request services that matched reporters to sources. Those services have changed hands and names several times, so a reactive PR process should not depend on any single one.
2008: HARO launches
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) was launched in 2008 by Peter Shankman, starting as a Facebook group that connected journalists with expert sources [4]. HARO became the default inbox for link builders doing reactive PR.
2010 to 2014: HARO moves to Cision
HARO was acquired by Vocus in 2010, and came under Cision when Vocus and Cision merged in 2014 [4].
December 9, 2024: Connectively is discontinued
HARO was rebranded as Connectively, and Cision discontinued the Connectively platform on December 9, 2024 [5].
April 2025: the HARO name returns
Featured.com relaunched HARO in April 2025 [4]. By then, many reactive PR teams had already spread their monitoring across social media hashtags such as #journorequest, other request platforms and direct journalist relationships [1].
Does reactive PR still work for links?
Reactive PR still earns links, but in smaller numbers per piece than a successful campaign, and it rewards relevance over volume. Paddy Moogan's guide sets the expectation plainly: reactive PR tends to earn dozens of links, not hundreds [1].
Two things limit it:
- Crowded inboxes. Popular stories attract many near-identical comments, so a generic quote rarely gets used [3]. Muck Rack's State of Journalism research found 73% of journalists reject pitches because they are not relevant to what they cover [6].
- No published benchmark. There is no independent figure for what share of reactive comments become linked coverage. Agency case studies report their wins, not their misses, so any "average reactive PR link rate" is a guess.
Links from reactive PR are only as good as the editorial decision behind them. Paying for placements dressed up as comment, or pushing keyword-rich anchor text into distributed articles, falls under Google's link spam policies [8].
How do you do reactive PR well?
To do reactive PR well, prepare the expert and the sign-off process before the news breaks, then only respond when the expert has something a journalist cannot get elsewhere.
- Build an expert bench in advance. List who can speak on what, with approved bios and headshots ready.
- Pre-agree sign-off. Decide who can approve a quote within an hour.
- Add something new. A specific number, a local figure, a practical tip or a clear opinion beats a summary of the news. A useful test: if the journalist could have written the comment themselves from the original story, do not send it.
- Keep it short. Muck Rack found 69% of journalists prefer pitches under 200 words, and journalists warn that chasing within hours is counterproductive [7].
- Target the right people. Send to the reporters already covering the story, from a tight media list, not a mass blast.
When should you use reactive PR?
Use reactive PR when a brand has genuine experts in a topic the news covers often, such as money, health, law, property, technology, travel or work. Brands in those topics can keep up a steady flow of coverage between bigger campaigns.
Reactive PR is a poor fit for brands with no spokesperson, slow approval chains or a niche the media rarely covers. In those cases, planned campaigns, hygiene campaigns and data-led work usually earn more for the same effort.