News

Journorequest on Bluesky

Monitor #journorequest on Bluesky with Dot Star Media

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

We’ve fully integrated Bluesky monitoring to the Dot Star Media platform. Customers receive alerts for journo requests posted with the #journorequest tag on Bluesky alongside alerts for requests on Twitter/X.

While Bluesky doesn’t yet rival Twitter/X for volume, it’s growing and sometimes journalists share opportunities only on Bluesky. That means PR professionals relying solely on Twitter/X may miss out.

Of course, the hashtag has its fair share of noise. Our system filters out non-journalist posts, de-duplicates cross-posts from Twitter/X, and delivers only genuine media opportunities from journalists working on commissioned editorial.

You can monitor #journorequest on Bluesky manually, if you prefer. One way to do this is with our curated feed on Bluesky. This removes some of the clutter: 👉 Bluesky #journorequest feed

Another way to monitor journo requests on Bluesky is with an automation tool such as Zapier. This may require a subscription especially if you want to built a multi-step process with filters to weed out noise.

The Dot Star Media journalist request service is free to try out 👉 Start a free two-week trial

Here’s an example of an email alert for a Bluesky #journorequest post

The Story of 2024 – Month-by-Month Trends in Journalist Requests

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

As 2024 unfolded, the journalist requests distributed by Dot Star Media revealed trends and key themes. Here’s a month-by-month breakdown of what journalists focused on and the opportunities for PR professionals to connect.

This summary was created by tokenising the words in nearly 20,000 journalist requests. Using keyword analysis we identified recurring topics, terms and phrases to uncover broader themes. To make sense of the data, we grouped related terms into six major categories: Technology, Health, Politics, Lifestyle, Business, and Entertainment.

January: A Fresh Start

Journalists kicked off the year with a focus on:

  • Health & Wellness: Resolutions and trends like fitness and mental health dominated.
  • Lifestyle: Travel and interior design were in high demand.
  • Business: Start-ups gained attention, with requests for innovative economic stories.

February: Love and Policy

The short month saw:

  • Health: Continued focus on wellness, particularly diet trends.
  • Politics: A spike in government-related queries ahead of policy announcements.
  • Entertainment: Valentine’s Day 💘 drove interest in events and celebrity partnerships.

March: Springboard for Innovation

March highlighted:

  • Technology: Requests around innovations in AI and blockchain.
  • Lifestyle: Outdoor travel themes alongside fashion features.
  • Business: Journalists explored funding trends in start-ups and small businesses.

April: Fresh Perspectives

Spring brought:

  • Entertainment: Event-heavy coverage, from festivals to film premieres.
  • Health: A rise in mental health awareness campaigns.
  • Lifestyle: Garden and home stories gained traction.

May: On the Move

With warmer days, journalists looked for:

  • Travel: Emerging destinations and summer getaways.
  • Health: Wellness retreats and fitness journeys.
  • Technology: Continued buzz around emerging apps and tech solutions.

June-August: Summer Peaks

The summer months were filled with:

  • Lifestyle: Stories on vacation trends and summer living 🌞
  • Entertainment: Festivals and music events took centre stage.
  • Technology: Coverage of innovation in green energy and AI integration.

September: Back to Business

As routines resumed:

  • Business: Increased focus on economic forecasts and market trends.
  • Health: A push toward work-life balance and employee well-being.
  • Politics: Discussions around upcoming US election.

October: Storytelling Season

Autumn storytelling focused on:

  • Lifestyle: Seasonal home décor and holiday travel.
  • Technology: The lead-up to major tech launches and reviews.
  • Entertainment: Awards season brought celebrity features to the forefront.

November: Reflect and Prepare

Journalist request focus shifted to:

  • Business: Year-end financial summaries and projections.
  • Health: Pre-holiday wellness and mental health.
  • Politics: Continued discourse on government policies.

December: Closing Chapters

The year’s close highlighted:

  • Lifestyle: Reflective features on travel and home.
  • Business: Predictions for 2025.
  • Health: A resurgence in fitness resolutions and detox plans.

Don’t miss out on shaping 2025 – subscribe to Dot Star Media to receive real-time journalist request alerts and stay on top of the trends.

Media Request summary in email alert subject line

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

Every journalist that sends a journalist enquiry has their own style and technique. For public relations professionals the ongoing task of identifying the best media opportunities from hundreds of individual journalist request emails every week can be hard work. It is certainly time-consuming.

For PRs: At-a-glance journalist request headlines

To tackle this issue we’ve made an update to the Dot Star Media journalist request service. We now show short summaries that capture the essence of the full journalist request body-text in the email alert subject line.

This provides an ‘at-a-glance’ summary making it super-easy for public relations professionals to scan through the journalist request alert emails selecting the best opportunities.

In a Gmail web-browser inbox, the new email subject lines summaries look like this:

And in Microsoft Outlook’s desktop email client, the new email subject lines look like this

For Journalists: a simple, quick, journalist request submit form

We’ve streamlined the process of submitting a media request in a couple of ways:

  • Journalists submitting requests don’t need to spend time considering and selecting topics. There is no need for the journalist to devote mental energy in thinking about how their enquiry fits into our subject areas. Categorisation is handled by us.
  • Journalists are no longer asked to summarise their request at the point of submission. This is done automatically.

The shortened journalist enquiry form looks like this:

Journalist can submit their media requests – free of charge – here: dotstar.media/submit

AI streamlines Journalist Request Service, saving precious newsroom time

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

We’ve deployed an AI assistant to streamline how journalists submit their journalist requests, saving busy newsrooms time each week.

When submitting a journalist request an artificial intelligence assistant categorises the enquiry into subject areas to match our PR subscribers’ preferences. This simplifies the process for journalists by eliminating the need to make manual topic selections.

Benefits:

  1. Time-saving innovation: Journalists can submit requests without navigating category systems, streamlining the media request submission process.
  2. Needs matching: Artificial intelligence assistants analyse journalist request content to assign relevant topics, ensuring accurate and rapid distribution of the journalists’ requests that match public relations professionals’ individual needs.
  3. Newsroom efficiency: By simplifying the enquiry submission process, journalists can focus more on story development and less on administrative tasks.

This update is about empowering journalists to focus on what truly matters – crafting compelling stories. By removing the tedious task of categorising when submitting journalist enquiries we’re giving valuable minutes back to every request and making journalism more efficient without compromising on quality or human insight.

As newsrooms continue to adapt to digital transformation, tools like the Dot Star Media journalist request service demonstrate the potential for AI to support and enhance journalistic practices without replacing the essential human element of reporting.

Journalist can submit their media requests – free of charge – here: dotstar.media/submit

Dot Star Media + Microsoft Teams

Journalist Requests Alerts in Microsoft Teams

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

Microsoft have announced the retirement of Office 365 connectors within Microsoft Teams. This changes how the ‘Dot Star Media + MSTeams’ integration works. This post provides updated instructions for setting up a journalist request alerts feed in Microsoft Teams.

Why use Microsoft Teams for managing journalist request alerts

Receiving media request notifications in a Microsoft Teams channel offers some advantages over receiving alerts by email:

  • Delivery to Teams is quicker than email.
  • It’s easier for your team to collaborate on the best way to respond to a request.

Set up journalist request alerts in Microsoft Teams

In Microsoft Teams create a new (or choose an existing) team to place a ‘Dot Star Media’ channel in and add a new channel for ‘Dot Star Media’ request notifications.

In the newly created ‘Dot Star Media’ Requests channel click the three dots to the right of the channel name, click on ‘Workflows’ and search for ‘Post to a channel when a webhook request is received‘.

Next, give your webhook connection a name and confirm the Microsoft Teams Team and Teams Channel (this may be pre-filled)

You should receive confirmation that a workflow was added. You’ll need to copy the link provided to your clipboard.

Now visit the Dot Star Media website and log in. You’ll need to be an account administrator. Visit the distribution channels page by clicking the ‘Configure channels’ button in the ‘Organisation’ area.

On the distribution channels page and paste in the endpoint URL created in the previous step. Click the checkbox to enable the new endpoint.

You’ll now receive journalist requests in Microsoft Teams, making it even easier to work on replies with your colleagues. Please let us know if you would like support setting this up or if you have any feedback on receiving requests in Microsoft Teams.

Using Grok for public relations

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

Anyone working in public relations will know that X/(Twitter) is still regularly used by journalists and remains an influential platform. Grok’s ability to access current X posts (Tweets) means that there are potential use cases for public relations professionals.

All Premium subscribers to X have access to Grok, the large language model developed by xAI. It’s worth taking a look.

Grok for media research and insights

Grok appears to be able to provide up-to-date information on various topics, including trends, public sentiment, and competitor activities.

For example, try asking Grok ‘What topics are [sector] journalists talking about right now?’ and Grok will return a summary, including recent posts. This is potentially useful for identifying up-to-the-minute trends and developing pitch ideas.

Grok for summarising and contextualising news stories and events

Grok also seems to be capable of providing story backgrounders and context for current news stories.

Be sure to fact check the output though. In Grok’s own words – it’s ‘an early feature and can make mistakes’.

HARO alternative: free media requests from USA & Canada

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

Help A Reporter Out’s (also known as HARO) long running three-times-a-day request digest emails stopped on 2nd April 2024. To access HARO queries you now need to login to Cision’s Connectively platform. Receiving email notifications for HARO queries has become a paid feature based on saved keyword searches.

There are plenty of reasons why Cision moved their service to a new platform, not least dealing with automated AI generated pitches. The changes, however, have left some HARO subscribers looking into other sources for media requests. The original founder of HARO, Peter Shankman, has responded to the demise of the free HARO digest emails by launching Help Every Reporter Out (HERO), a free service echoing the style and spirit of his original project.

Monitoring #journorequest for USA and Canadian media requests

The #journorequest hashtag 𝕏/Twitter is well used by UK journalists. It also includes requests for sources from journalists writing for US, Canadian and other media outlets from around the world.

At Dot Star Media our job is to deliver prompt email alerts for requests posted on 𝕏/Twitter alongside the requests directly submitted by journalists on our journalist enquiry form.

We primarily issue alerts for media requests from journalists writing for UK and Irish outlets, for which we charge (see pricing). Requests from journalists writing for outlets in USA, Canada and the Rest of the World are available free of charge.

How to get free USA and Canadian media request alerts

Register for access at https://app.dotstar.media/register using a business email address. Select your topics of interest and make sure that your ‘Regions of interest’ alert options include the ‘USA & Canada’ region.

USA and Canadian media requests

Regions of interest

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

We’re seeing, and including, increasing volumes of journalist requests from non-UK/IE journalists in our alert feeds and so have added a Regions of interest preference setting to the profile settings page.

This setting allows those that want to receive journalist requests from regions outside of the UK and Ireland to receive them, and those that don’t, to exclude them.

There are two new regions of interest available. Receiving requests from both of these two new regions is free of charge:

  • USA & Canada
  • Rest of the World

Existing subscribers who want to receive requests from journalists covering non-UK & Ireland regions can opt-in by login into your account and clicking the checkboxes for the additional regions that you want.

journalist enquiry region settings

If you’re new to Dot Star Media and would like to receive journalist enquiries from the USA & Canada region, or the Rest of the World region – free of charge – sign-up here.

Journalist request alerts – updated for 𝕏

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths

Links in the journalist request alert emails and the button labels in the online media request archives have been updated for 𝕏, the new name for the website formerly known as Twitter.

Journalist request alerts - updated for X

Journalists are welcome to submit their media requests for comment to an established network of public relations professionals at agencies, businesses, charities and universities using the Dot Star Media journalist enquiry form.

Event: PR Live with Natalie Trice

Posted on | by Dan Griffiths
PR Live with Natalie Trice

PR Live – event series with Natalie Trice

Natalie Trice will be hosting PR Live, the first in a series of ‘meet the journalist’ events on Friday 10 November 2023. The launch event features three established freelance journalists each speaking about their careers and how best to pitch stories to them. Each speaker session is followed by a question and answer sessions and live pitching opportunities.

Event #1: The Freelance Session

Kelly Rose Bradford

Kelly Rose Bradford

Kelly has been a freelance journalist for over 25 years. today she divides her time between freelancing as a features writer and commercial copywriter with a staff position with one of the UK’s biggest newspaper and magazine publishers. With extensive television and radio experience as a social commentator, Kelly will open your eyes to the potential of PR and the need to pitch well.

Sarah Whiteley

Sarah Whiteley

Sarah has been working in real-life and human-interest journalism for the past 17 years. After working as the features editor for Best magazine for six years, she is now a freelance writer and a parenting columnist. Sarah works for all of the national magazines and newspapers and it’s a job she still feels passionately about and a world she will let you into.

Sam Brick

Sam Brick

Sam has been a features writer for the last 15 years and mainly writes for the Daily Mail, The Sun and various women’s weekly magazines. Before that, she worked in the US and UK in television where she was an award winning documentary producer. Got a question about hitting the right note with the press, Sam will tell you how.

Tickets and Event Details

Friday, 11th November 2023 at 10:45am

  • Session 1: 11:00 AM – 11:50 AM – Kelly Rose Bradford
  • Session 2: 12:00 PM – 12:50 PM – Sarah Whitely
  • Session 3: 1:00 PM – 1:50 PM – Sam Brick 

Tickets are £25/session (discount available for all three sessions) and available from the PR Live website