That theme surfaced repeatedly across two recent episodes of Cracking the Comms Code. Communications leaders from healthcare, technology, agencies, internal communications, and media relations  —  including Jasper Hamill, Lindsay Lapchuk, Alan Shoebridge, Keith Berman, Jennifer George, and Meredith Klein  —  explored what AI is really doing to comms, not what everyone fears it’s going to do.

Put simply, AI is dividing the people who create content from the people who create business value. The winners will be the communicators who do both — but are known primarily for the second.

Content vs. Counsel

The first panel focused on the content side of the AI era. Shoebridge argued that there’s now a strong inverse relationship between content (abundant) and strategic counsel (scarce). The “A” in “AI” doesn’t stand for “adviser” – the robot won’t tell you (or at least won’t do a good job telling you) what should be communicated, when, to whom, and why it matters to the business.

That’s where Shoebridge said the best communicators will stand out. They’ll move beyond trying to outrace AI systems and move to where humans do their best work – talking to other humans, understanding problems, and creating solutions.

Part of counsel is knowing the content strategy, including what narratives hit home the best. It’s easy to use AI tools for content creation, so the next frontier is learning (quickly) to use them well.

Hamill argued that the premium now sits on exceptional stories, memorable headlines, and interviews that uncover insights experts didn’t realize they had.

How do you get the AI to do all that? It starts with asking better questions.

Instead of broad prompts, experienced communicators ask for specific moments, decisions, or turning points. That gets them the gem in a piece of content to develop into a story that hits home.

And, finally, yes, you do have to know what AI search is up to. Lapchuk explained that customers, investors, job candidates, and journalists increasingly begin their research with AI tools. Every organization already has an AI reputation, whether it is managing one or not.

The strongest communications teams are working alongside SEO, sales, and product marketing to understand the questions buyers actually ask and to ensure AI systems have accurate information about their companies. Earned media, executive thought leadership, customer stories, and owned content all contribute to the information AI uses to generate answers.

Companies can’t control every AI response. They’ll have to work twice as hard, then, to influence the information that drives those responses – starting with counsel, then finding outstanding narratives, and then making sure those narratives spread properly. 

The Right Counsel Earns Trust – and Budget

The next panel barely mentioned AI, but elevated the “counsel” conversation to its highest strategic levels.

George urged communicators to tie their work to acquisitions, restructurings, market expansion, and other major business decisions instead of communications outputs. She said asking the finance squad for help did wonders for her business education and, later, her career as a comms executive. 

Klein encouraged professionals to think like business leaders who specialize in communications rather than communicators trying to learn business. That’s the only way to ensure that the C-Suite listens to you, on everything from forward-looking predictions to urging them to ditch the tie and go with an authentic approach to executive messaging. 

But trust doesn’t always come with all of the necessary tools. The Wall Street Journal article about CCOs storming the C-Suite had a number of shortcomings, including what George called an “unfunded mandate” where a single high-paid person is doing the work of five. Sure, the title and cash are nice…if you don’t burn out.

So start quantifying your work. Measure your workloads, calculate the cost of poor communication (you can be creative about this), and demonstrate how effective internal communications improve productivity and reduce risk. When you have data to leverage, you can act like the finance department and make a business case for your work, and the resources it deserves.

And, finally, Berman argued that if you want to be trustworthy, speak candidly. He’s been in external and internal comms, and since employees are a company’s most powerful asset, speaking candidly (and intelligently, armed with the data) is the only way to ensure that you are seen as equal to the longstanding members of the C-Suite. 

Enjoy each panel discussion in full below.

The real goal is becoming someone the C-suite instinctively calls before the biggest decisions are made. That happens only when communicators stop thinking like messaging specialists and start thinking like business leaders.

That was the recurring lesson across two recent episodes of Cracking the Comms Code. In one discussion, I was joined by

•       Ellen O’Brien, founder of Hudsons Media;
•       Conrad Bellehumeur, a veteran chief communications officer now working in fusion energy; and
•       Sarah Graham, cybersecurity lead at Kickstand.

In the other,

•       Lainie Keller, a longtime pharmaceutical communications executive;
•       Alex Dudley, VP of Communications at Cognizant; and
•       Erin Weinstein, Managing Director at SKDK,

explored what it takes to position executives for success.

Six accomplished communicators  —  in healthcare, cybersecurity, technology, government, public affairs, and energy  —  came to more or less the same conclusion: Speaking C-suite isn’t a “nice-to-have” anymore. It’s a core competency.

Build Trust Before It’s Needed

Every panelist, regardless of industry, kept returning to one idea: Trust comes before influence.

O’Brien noted that communicators are often brought in simply to execute instead of being given time to build relationships with leaders. But it’s those relationships — developed long before a crisis hits — that transform a communications professional into a trusted adviser.

Bellehumeur said the same pattern has followed him through government, transportation, defense, and energy. Trust under pressure might work in a pinch, but it’s not what you want fro leaders over your career long-term. Instead, you want the people who matter to remember that you’ve consistently helped them solve business problems before those problems bled over into messaging.

Weinstein offered the flip side from the agency perspective. Clients often hire outside advisers for one reason: to hear what nobody inside the organization is willing to say. Honest counsel, even where it goes against the company grain, is what builds executive confidence.

If executives hear from you only when they need a press release, you’re a vendor. If they call you before making a business decision, then you’re an adviser.

Trust is Built on Learning the Business

Expertise is a no-brainer in every career, including communications. That’s how you get in the door. But it’s not enough anymore to keep you in the room.

Bellehumeur shared his “five keys” for becoming an executive adviser:

•       understand strategy
•       know the operating environment
•       build relationships across departments
•       speak the language of numbers
•       volunteer beyond your communications responsibilities

Alex Dudley took that even further: Be a business person first who specializes in communications — not a communicator who happens to work for a business. Saying you’re “bad at math” is disqualifying. The best communicators read the 10-Ks and earnings releases, understand the balance sheet, and know where revenue comes from. 

Lainie Keller added that business fluency also helps communicators know when not to respond. Sometimes — maybe often! — acting gets attention, customers, and revenue. But the communicator elevates himself into an adviser when he also knows how and when to remain silent for the business’s long-term health.

Learning the business is how we helped a client develop quality KPIs. They first came to us with a lot of useless measures like pitch volume. By the end of the conversation, we turned it around to them to answer questions like:

•       Did the USA Today op-ed help the sales team?
•       Was the Financial Times interview repurposed by business development?
•       How much content time did earned media save because placements could be repurposed on the blog and in newsletters?

Questions Earn More Influence Than Answers

The best advisors usually arrive with questions. Call it “ask, don’t tell.”

Sarah Graham applies the same mindset in cybersecurity. As buyers shift from CISOs toward developers and CTOs — and increasingly use AI tools to research vendors — she constantly asks where audiences actually spend time and how communications should evolve. This is especially important when trying to help technically sound CEOs who are small today but want to scale, because it helps keep everyone focused on success. 

Dudley emphasized another question communicators often skip in a crisis: Who is actually affected? Before speaking, determine whether the primary audience is employees, customers, investors, or regulators. Maybe it’s someone else entirely.

Keller suggested organizing audiences into three buckets:

•       core stakeholders who must align
•       critical stakeholders who require active management
•       contextual audiences worth monitoring

You can’t be lazy about this. The right answer is going to be different in every situation.

Internal Communications Is Business Strategy

Another remarkable point of agreement across both panels was the importance of internal communications. Employees have become ambassadors, skeptics, influencers, and fact-checkers. That’s all wrapped up in the job now.

Keller argued that organizations should tell employees first whenever possible, while assuming that anything communicated internally could become public within minutes — in other words, as O’Brien observed, today’s internal conversation can quickly become tomorrow’s headline.

Dudley described employees as the organization’s authenticity test. They know whether leadership’s words match leadership’s actions.

Bellehumeur stressed that employees trust direct supervisors far more than CEOs several levels removed, making manager communication one of the most important tools in any communications strategy. We’re talking about a lot more than just keeping HR happy here.

C-Suite: Think, Speak, Lead

Across both conversations, the message was consistent: Communicators who earn lasting influence are doing more than simply writing better messages. The next level is that they understand the business. They ask smarter questions. They build trust before it’s needed. They connect communications to growth, risk, operations, finance, and strategy. And they’re willing to tell leaders difficult truths when everyone else is simply nodding along.

Speaking C-suite has to go beyond learning executive buzzwords or faking it ’til you make it. You have to do the work, which starts with learning to think like an executive before you ever speak like one. That will get you in the right headspace to understand that your goal is not to ask politely for a seat at the table. The people already sitting there will get up and come to you, because they can’t afford not to.

Watch each panel below.

In a trilogy of Cracking the Comms Code episodes, we convened industry experts and thought leaders to explore how PR professionals can level up their skillsets to drive the greatest possible impact. Here’s what they told us.

Elevating your PR skillset

Our panelists agreed that although sector knowledge can be a genuine advantage in specialized fields, core skills matter more than narrow experience. PR professionals with strong fundamentals — writing, storytelling, media relations, audience awareness — will always be in demand across industries. What matters is whether you’ve handled similar challenges, not whether you’ve worked for an identical company.

Bringing the right mindset is just as important. That means showing up curious, coachable, and prepared to ask the right questions so you can learn quickly. Understanding how your client’s business works is critical. PR professionals need to know what leadership cares about, how the company makes money, the challenges it faces, and how communications can move the needle.

When speaking with decision-makers, avoid slipping into jargon. Translate your value into business language. Tactics like placements and outputs are only part of the story — what matters is how they connect to a broader strategic goal. The role of a strong PR advisor is to guide leadership and speak credibly to the C-suite. Dig deeper into this conversation with Amanda Coyle of Resilere Partners, Ted Merz of Principals Media, and Executive Communication Strategist Trish Nicolas.

Getting it right from the start

Too many PR campaigns fail before they’ve even begun. Teams build in isolation, protect the “big reveal,” and then wonder why nothing lands. The smarter approach is simple: Test early. Float ideas with a small group of trusted reporters, gather real feedback, and refine before committing.

Relationships matter here. They won’t save a weak story, but they do provide signal — faster replies, honest reactions, and a clearer sense of what will resonate.

Execution then becomes about removing friction. Make the reporter’s job easy. Offer your spokesperson, but also offer multiple angles. Package assets in a way that works for the particular reporter you’re courting. Coverage is far more likely when you’ve laid the groundwork.

It’s also important to think beyond attribution. Getting your client named could be “a good start” instead of the victory. Shaping the broader narrative — and being included as a credible voice within it — often matters more.

None of this works without a clear understanding of the client’s business. PR decisions should reflect commercial reality, internal politics, and leadership priorities. Talk to senior stakeholders early, and make sure your ducks are in a row before you make a push. Many “PR problems” are, in reality, internal clarity problems.

When engaging media, keep it sharp. Pitches should be brutally concise. You don’t need to be comprehensive to garner interest, and you don’t need company boilerplate. If the first line doesn’t land, nothing else matters.

Finally, operate in the world as it is today. There are fewer journalists, with more noise and tighter competition. AI is accelerating output, but the quality isn’t keeping up. That makes targeting, relationships, and judgment more valuable. Chris Piedmont of Slide Nine, Adam Brooks of Candor, and Chase of METATHEORY break-down some of their tips and tricks for PR practitioners here.

From activity to outcomes

The shift PR agencies need to make is straightforward: stop obsessing over doing things, and instead obsess over accomplishing things.

That sounds simple, but it’s harder in practice. It means validating ideas early, aligning internally, executing cleanly, and focusing on influence over volume. Clients won’t be impressed if you tell them nothing but how busy you are. They care about what changed.

The starting point is clarity. Define success upfront in plain terms — revenue, reputation, influence — and work backward. Explain your impact in business language, or else you won’t make the case.

From there, strip out the noise. Drop jargon and long reports. A clear one-pager linking actions to outcomes will outperform any bloated deck. And remember whom you’re really serving: not just your day-to-day contact, but the C-suite above them. If your contact can’t easily explain your value internally, the chopping block is just down the road.

Execution works only when it connects to the wider business. PR amplifies marketing, sales, and positioning. Or at least it should. When it doesn’t, results will always fall short. In this panel discussion Lynda Carlisle of CS-Effect, Melissa Havel of Turnitin, and Ashley Dennison of CommsConsultants.com share their expertise on driving real client outcomes.

Truth-telling and meaningful metrics 

It’s also critical to be honest about what PR can and can’t do. You can’t guarantee coverage — and pretending you can erodes trust. What you can guarantee is consistency, direction, and a steady build of presence over time. That shift from chasing hits to building momentum is where many teams founder.

The same applies to targeting. Reach is easy to inflate and largely meaningless. Relevance is more elusive, and far more valuable. A small, engaged audience that reacts is worth more than a large one that barely knows you. Step away from the vanity metrics and measure what actually matters: message pull-through, meaningful engagement, and inbound signals.

At a higher level, the role itself needs to evolve. Strong practitioners act as partners. They push back, refine ideas, and stay close to the market. They provide activity, certainly, but the real value lies in their judgment.

That becomes even more important as AI accelerates output. Everyone is tied now in the race to see who can produce the most, but there’s still competition for who can think the best. Used properly, AI helps you move faster, not think less. Average content is now abundant. Insight is not.

In the end, everything comes down to one question: Did this PR campaign change anything that matters? Unless the answer is yes, clients have every right to be unhappy.

Watch each panel below.

Communications leaders know this because they’ve watched in horror as their carefully crafted LinkedIn posts are mocked in the comments or inadvertently sparked a social media pile-on after sharing what seemed like an innocuous, brand-safe message.

(Just ask McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinksi, whose simple effort to chow down on his company’s food didn’t sit well with a lot of observers.)

With trust so hard to win and massively easy to lose, creative communicators aren’t just looking for spokespeople on the board, in the company’s Slack channel or through an Indeed job posting. Instead, they are finding the right people whose voice will resonate with ordinary people: physicians who spend their days saving lives, parents whose sick kids are made sicker by bad policy decisions, entrepreneurs who have built – or rebuilt – their businesses brick by brick. 

These individuals can tell stories that customers understand and believe. But they aren’t easy to find, and their message isn’t as simple as a Yelp review or a corny ad. 

Elevating third-party voices is a powerful way to build trust while reducing the risk of turning C-suite executives into lightning rods. Here’s how to do it.

1. Pressure-test the narrative

Before seeking outside voices, make sure the story itself can withstand scrutiny. That means clarifying objectives, challenging internal assumptions, and, at times, telling clients or leadership that their preferred message will not land.

Start with alignment: What is the goal? Who needs to be persuaded? What evidence supports the case?

When we helped place everyday Americans in national and top state outlets in 2025, campaigns did not begin with pitch emails. They began with difficult conversations, rigorous research, and refining a narrative that an independent person could stand behind without compromising their integrity. 

If the story only works when delivered by a paid executive, it is not strong enough.

2. Find voices with real standing

The most effective outside voices are not mouthpieces with clean-cut success stories. They are people whose lived experience aligns naturally with the issue and who hold credibility with the intended audience.

That might mean individuals directly affected by policy, business leaders with firsthand market experience, or someone with a relatable human story. A plainly told account from someone without a grand title often carries more weight than commentary from someone with the letter “C” in their job description, because audiences assume they are less self-interested.

Sourcing these voices requires a disciplined search process. Identify individuals whose backgrounds genuinely support the narrative, conduct thorough interviews, and confirm alignment before drafting anything. The aim is credibility rooted in reality, not over-orchestration.

3. Build for multiple audiences

Once you have the right voice, approach the process like a journalist, not a marketer. Conduct an in-depth interview with the person to ensure they are on board with:

• The organization behind the curtain.
• The narrative you’re pushing.
• Their story’s alignment with the narrative.
• Putting themselves into the public eye.

Record the conversation, then transcribe it. Identify the emotional core and supporting evidence, before shaping the media content to work for four audiences: your organization, its stakeholders, the author, and the media gatekeepers (op-ed editors, reporters, producers, etc.) who will decide whether to feature this voice.

This is where many efforts fall short. Content may please the client, but ignore what editors actually run. Or it may lean heavily on data while flattening the author’s voice. Strong placements require disciplined editing, revision, and fact-checking. The same rigor applies whether targeting a national newspaper or a trade outlet. And remember that, often, regional publications deliver meaningful impact with lower reputational risk.

4. Train for discipline, not performance

A credible third-party voice is powerful, but unmanaged authenticity creates the risk that someone will fly off the handle, take advantage of their 15 minutes of fame, or have a tangential point of view that undermines the entire narrative. 

This is why media preparation is so important. Clarify the core message. Define off-limit topics. Rehearse responses to difficult questions. Align on key facts. In a crisis, independent validators can counter misinformation more persuasively than paid representatives – but only if they are properly prepared.

Preparation ensures that authenticity strengthens your position rather than undermining it.

5. Build relationships before you need them

Third-party credibility should be treated as infrastructure, not a one-off tactic. Develop relationships with experts, community leaders, and customers well before controversy emerges. 

After campaigns conclude, review what worked, be honest about what didn’t, and refine your approach.

In today’s information environment, narratives move quickly. Organizations that perform best can mobilize trusted voices without hesitation. That only happens when the groundwork is already in place.

This article was originally published as part of a sponsored partnership between Proven Media Solutions and Meredith & The Media.

Proven Media Solutions explored how AI is altering the media landscape and driving the emergence of a new answer economy across two episodes of Cracking the Comms Code, featuring:

• Five Blocks CEO Sam Michelson, Scale Without Chaos founder Samantha Riel, and Zen Media founder and PR strategist Sarah Evans on AI’s impact on the PR industry.
• Meredith & The Media founder Meredith Klein, Friday Reporter Public Affairs founder and host Lisa Camooso Miller, and Sources of Sources founder Peter Shankman on what’s next in corporate comms. 

Here are the most important takeaways.

Visibility is being rewired

Perhaps the most counterintuitive insight was also the most commercially important. Despite widespread industry assumptions, the sources shaping AI-generated answers are often not traditional earned media.

Practitioners tracking thousands of prompts across major large language models are finding that owned content, such as corporate websites, structured brand information, and even open press releases, shapes responses the most. Earned media still matters, but it is operating more as a reputational validator than the primary informational input.

This distinction changes how communication value should be sold and measured.

If audiences are asking AI tools to synthesize recommendations or explain markets, they may never click through to coverage at all. It might not be enough anymore for an organization to be mentioned in a piece of earned media. Instead, the organization needs to be “front of page” as the answer to the question searchers are asking.

In practical terms, strategy must evolve from media placement to something closer to answer engineering, which means mapping the questions stakeholders ask and ensuring authoritative brand content exists to address them.

Productivity gains are buying back time

AI is making certain work faster and more efficient. What’s good about that is the time communicators now have on their hands to take care of higher-level tasks. But it also means higher expectations.

On the one hand, teams are already using AI to turn live conversations into content pipelines, transform messy strategic thinking into structured plans, and accelerate operational decision-making. On the other hand, an employee who once generated $120K of annual value may soon be expected to deliver multiples of that. 

On both hands, the takeaway is that AI amplifies the need for human judgment. Used well, it gives thinkers and doers the bandwidth to think and do, with good results up and down the company. Used badly, it takes over uniquely human functions and industrializes mediocrity at every level.

The most effective practitioners treat AI like a junior colleague – training it, correcting it, and refining outputs. Organizations expecting one-line prompts to replace expertise may find that AI-hallucinated strategies are simply fancier ways to put themselves at the back of the line.

Corporate crises now burn hotter and faster

Attention cycles in corporate communications are collapsing, meaning crises can erupt and disappear within minutes — or go on a long rampage, and someone has to know which kind we’re dealing with from moment to moment.

In a media environment where a geopolitical conflict, a viral customer complaint, and a celebrity meme can appear in the same social feed, audiences process outrage differently. Often, they move on fast — even before corporate responses clear legal review. This creates a paradoxical new discipline: knowing when not to respond.

Strong organizational values remain the most reliable compass. Companies grounded in consistent messaging and clear principles are better able to weather episodic storms. Preparation is therefore less about predicting specific events and more about stress-testing core positions in advance. 

Clarity is still king — both in how crises are handled and in how organizations present themselves both to outside consumers and inside team members.

Trust is fragmenting – again

Perhaps the most provocative shift involved in the AI answer economy is social rather than technological.

Audiences are increasingly bypassing institutional voices in favor of smaller, more familiar ones: local journalists, niche creators, subject-matter experts, and micro-influencers embedded in real communities.

Research and practitioner experience both suggest that local media retain disproportionately high trust. A recommendation from a neighbor or respected specialist may drive more behavior than a national campaign reaching millions. Meanwhile, mega-influencer credibility has eroded as it’s become harder to hide that the big guys are just trying to sell something.

For communications buyers, this creates a difficult recalibration. It’s cheap to reach the masses but more expensive than ever to persuade them.

The craft is still everything

One important point to remember is that the same skills that drove success in the 20th century remain relevant today. Narrative still matters. So do third-party validation and consistent positioning. What has changed is the mechanism through which these strengths are discovered and acted upon.

AI-mediated discovery will reward organizations that carefully and thoroughly stock their content libraries. Corporate volatility will reward those with pre-agreed value frameworks and faster internal decision pathways. Fragmented trust will reward communicators who cultivate authentic advocates rather than chasing vanity metrics.

Above all, the impact of communications must increasingly be demonstrated in business terms. Board-ready metrics like visibility in AI outputs, influence on purchasing pathways, and contribution to revenue will shape future budgets — so professionals need to be prepared to chase these numbers and prove their achievements. 

A new brief for buyers – and the industry

For organizations investing in communications services, the takeaway is not that PR has become obsolete, but that the definition of effective PR has expanded dramatically. We need more than just coverage, more than just speed, more than just scale.

Buyers should now demand strategies designed for how information actually moves: integrated owned-and-earned ecosystems, measurable visibility in AI discovery, influence rooted in credible voices, and productivity models aligned to real business outcomes.

For communications professionals, the message is sharper still. AI is exposing where the discipline was never applied rigorously enough. The opportunity ahead is enormous, but only for those willing to stop optimizing for impressions and start competing to become the answer.

Dive deeper into the full conversations in the videos below.

In countries like Iran, speech the government doesn’t like results in the speaker being threatened, jailed, and/or killed. But it doesn’t stop there. The people who facilitated the speaker often end up in the same circumstances, as do their families.

America’s speech laws aren’t perfect. Some people opposed the Biden administration’s jailing of two dozen pro-life activists, while others will point to the recent deaths surrounding Minnesota protests against immigration enforcement.

But the fact that millions of people can publicly protest, spread awareness on social media, and advocate for change through the media and to their elected representatives means that our speech is still mostly free.

Contrast that with Iran, where in the last few months tens of thousands of people were slaughtered for the crime of protesting against their government. 

As you go back to your day, please take a moment to read our piece above, or to watch a few minutes of our panel conversation with Iran International journalist Negar Mojtahedi about the freedoms we cherish in the West and hopefully will see flourish in Iran. 

Then they go home, close their laptops, and leave their own LinkedIn profiles untouched for four months.

That contradiction was at the center of a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, where Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins sat down with Brendan Watts, Director of PR and Communications at Storyblok; Jacqueline Martinez, President and Chief Communications Officer at Digital HQ; and Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker. 

The topic was how PR professionals can build their personal brands and the uncomfortable finding was that most aren’t doing it.

The skills transfer perfectly

Jacqueline said it directly: “You already know what to do. You’ve just always done it for everybody else.”

Think about what a strong LinkedIn presence actually requires. A clear point of view. Consistent messaging. An understanding of your audience and what they want to hear. The ability to turn an insight or an experience into something worth reading. The discipline to show up regularly. PR professionals develop all of these skills on behalf of clients. Why not apply the same skills to their own career?

Dustin made a similar point from his own experience. When he transitioned from political journalism to running his own company, he had no idea what to post about. His father’s advice was simple: write things down throughout the day as they come to you, then once a week, sit down and pull out the best ones. That’s a content strategy. It’s also exactly what communicators do when they’re building a messaging calendar for a client.

What “building your brand” actually means

One point the panel was quick to correct: personal branding on LinkedIn is not self-promotion. 

Brendan’s most-engaged posts have nothing to do with his employer. They’re about how he thinks about his work – the process behind a campaign, an observation about the industry, a lesson from something that went sideways. “People sense they don’t want you to sell them,” he said. “But if I talk about how we planned a campaign rather than promoting it, it pops off.” Noah’s top-performing post of all time was a breakdown of how he’d approach getting a product’s first hundred customers – actionable, generous, no pitch attached.

PR professionals constantly write thought leadership for clients. They ghostwrite op-eds, develop executive voices, and shape how a CEO comes across in an interview. The same instincts apply on LinkedIn – the only difference is whose name goes on it.

Jacqueline’s framing was useful here. A client of hers in the public sector had built a consistent LinkedIn presence around his work and his thinking. When he walked into the governor’s office to meet the chief of staff for the first time, that chief of staff pulled out a book the client had recommended on LinkedIn weeks earlier. The client came back to Jacqueline, saying he was walking into rooms where his reputation preceded him. “We are warming these rooms for our clients,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we be warming these rooms for ourselves?”

The mechanics are the same, too

The tactical elements of LinkedIn success map almost exactly onto what communications professionals already practice.

The hook – the first two or three lines before someone hits “read more” – is a lede. Noah said it deserves as much attention as the rest of the post combined, because it determines whether 100 people see the content or 1,000. Any PR professional who has written a pitch email or a press release knows how to write a lede.

Commenting on other people’s posts is relationship-building and source cultivation. Jacqueline makes 10 to 15 substantive comments a day, not to drive traffic back to her own profile, but to stay connected, add value, and keep relationships warm. That’s account management. Noah noted that a thoughtful comment shows up in connections’ feeds – it’s essentially a post with lower stakes, and it’s a natural starting point for anyone not yet comfortable publishing original content.

Content planning is already in the toolkit. Brendan keeps a running text document – currently over 560 items – of observations, one-liners, and passing thoughts that he draws from when it’s time to post. It’s a source list. PR professionals maintain those for clients all the time.

Even the question of what to post answers itself through a PR lens. Dustin described a lobbyist whose organization had just secured a White House meeting on a low-profile bill. The instinct was to announce it. The better post, as Dustin reframed it, was: “Here are five things we did to get a White House meeting that had nothing to do with Venezuela, immigration, or government shutdowns.” Don’t just report the win. Explain the strategy behind it. That’s the difference between a press release and a story – and PR professionals know how to tell stories.

Why it matters now

The stakes are real and getting higher. Brendan is about to hire two PR professionals. Before he opens a job description, he’s already on LinkedIn. What he’s finding is that 95% of candidates have profiles that are effectively empty – recycled company posts, a CV-style about section, nothing that shows how they think. He said: “You’re being hired to do this for your execs and your company and immediately I have a bad taste in my mouth.”

Noah told us that for every hiring manager doing this consciously, there are probably a hundred doing it without realizing it. People posting regularly have built familiarity and credibility before the first conversation happens. The people who aren’t posting start at a disadvantage that they may not even know exists.

PR professionals have spent careers making other people visible, credible, and worth listening to. The tools are the same. The platform is the same. The only thing that needs to change is realizing who the client is: themselves. 

Catch the full conversation in the video below.

Hosted by Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins, the show featured Erick Woods Erickson, nationally syndicated talk radio host and former Fox News and CNN contributor; Glenn Kessler, longtime Washington Post reporter and former Fact Checker; and Dave Levinthal, senior editor and investigative reporter at NOTUS.  

The headline lesson was simple: “left vs right” is rarely the real problem. The real problem is that comms teams often pitch as if all media work the same way.

They don’t. And the wider the spectrum you’re trying to cross — from local to national, blog to newsroom, talk radio to fact-checkers — the more your success depends on understanding what the outlet is built to do.

Pitching partisan outlets without sounding fake

Partisan media are best understood as audience service. They exist to meet a specific reader’s or listener’s expectations, sticking to values, language, and framing that feel familiar. That doesn’t mean it’s inherently unserious; it means it operates under a strong “audience contract.”

This means two rules apply for PR pros.

First, sound native. If you use language that reads as though it was copied from the other side’s talking points, the pitch comes across as not “balanced,” but manipulative. A conservative outlet receiving a pitch full of progressive-coded phrases will assume you’re either trying to bait it or that you don’t understand its audience. A liberal outlet seeing loaded right-coded phrasing may assume you’re bringing a culture-war fight, not a story.

Second, offer something real. Partisan outlets still reward the same things traditional outlets do: exclusivity, credible sources, hard facts, and specificity. “Here’s an issue” is less valuable than “Here’s a local example, a human story, or documentation that proves this isn’t just an opinion.”

When comms teams struggle here, it’s usually because they treat partisan media as a checkbox: “We need conservative coverage” or “We need progressive coverage.” That mindset produces generic, over-engineered pitches. What works is the opposite: tailored framing, clear relevance, and substance that stands up to scrutiny.

Pitching media styles, not just politics

The most useful way to think about “the spectrum” is as a difference in media format. The same story can be pitched in completely different ways depending on who’s receiving it, because each format has different constraints and incentives.

For instance, investigative editors and reporters want leads, not copy. They’re looking for material that can support reporting, such as documents, patterns, conflicts of interest, wrongdoing, or hypocrisy that can be proved. The strongest pitch to this style of journalist is not a polished narrative. It’s the building blocks of a story with a clear “why now.” 

If you’re pitching an investigative reporter, aim for

• a specific claim that can be tested;
• evidence (documents, filings, credible witnesses);
• a clear conflict or discrepancy; and
• a short explanation of why it matters to the public.

What usually fails is “PR theater”: sweeping statements, big adjectives, or pre-packaged articles. Good investigative journalists don’t want to paste your story. They want to own it, because ownership is what protects credibility.

Talk radio and personality-driven media run on attention

A talk show host is not a newsroom assignment desk. Even when they care about facts, their job is to hold attention. That changes what a successful pitch looks like.

Here, a pitch works when it is

• relevant to the host’s existing interests,
• sharply framed (the hook needs to land fast),
• deliverable in the host’s voice,
• not overly scripted or “campaigny.”

A common mistake is sending talk radio the same thing you’d send a policy reporter: dense, careful, document-heavy material with no immediate spark. A host needs a reason to talk about a topic right now, not a thesis statement. 

This is where relationships become unusually important. Hosts are inundated and operate with ruthless filters. The people they already trust rise to the top.

Reaching traditional reporters 

Reporters are allergic to spin. The easiest way to lose them is to package a pitch as a conclusion rather than a question.

As such, the most effective stance is “Here’s what was said. Here’s what we believe is wrong. Here’s the supporting evidence.”

If you’re pitching a reporter, you’re essentially inviting scrutiny. That’s the point. The reward is credibility. If you’re right, you get powerful validation; if you’re wrong, you learn — perhaps painfully, but quickly. 

Handling negative coverage like a professional

One of the most useful parts of the conversation, especially for PR practitioners, was how political operators respond to negative media. There’s a lesson here that transfers perfectly into corporate comms: don’t take it personally.

What separates strong comms teams from fragile ones isn’t whether they avoid negative stories. It’s whether they can respond without emotion getting in the way of judgment.

Here are some practical takeaways:

• If you’re wrong, correct cleanly and quickly. Don’t litigate.
• If you’re right, don’t gloat. Support your position with evidence and calm repetition.
• Avoid “pleading” with journalists. It reads as insecurity and rarely works.
• Don’t demand friendly language from an outlet whose audience expects different framing. Translate your message without losing its substance.

The deeper point is that the media aren’t there to protect your self-image. They’re there to serve their audience. Once you accept that, pitching becomes less stressful and more strategic.

Relationships matter, no matter the politics

The final takeaway was the oldest one, and still the most ignored: relationships matter.

Not in the cheesy “I know a guy” sense. In the professional sense, the reporters and editors who have learned that you don’t waste their time, you don’t send irrelevant garbage, and you don’t spin them into embarrassment are far more likely to read you when it counts.

That trust is built through

• relevance (you understand what they cover),
• restraint (you don’t spray-and-pray),
• honesty (you don’t hide bad facts), and
• consistency (your tips don’t collapse on inspection).

The era of mass pitching is ending — not because PR people stopped doing it, but because the media environment has become too noisy. Signal, credibility, and attention are scarce.

If you can pitch in a way that respects those constraints — tailored to format, rooted in evidence, framed for the outlet’s audience — you can still land coverage across the spectrum. But you have to stop treating “the spectrum” like a list and start treating it like a set of distinct worlds.

Now we’re living with the consequences: a slopocalypse. And for comms professionals, it’s creating a real strategic dilemma. When everyone can produce “good enough” copy in minutes, how do you justify quality work that takes time? How do you keep a human voice from getting ironed out into something that sounds like every other brand on the internet?

The answer is sobering, but surprisingly hopeful.

The AI challenge to comms professionals

In a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins hosted two members of the content team to explain how comms teams can use AI as leverage while keeping the human voice and story-first craft that actually earns attention.

Content Director Jasper Hamill and Senior Editor Drew Belsky started with some honesty about AI. It didn’t just make writing faster, but changed expectations.

Leaders started to ask: Why does this take a week when a tool can produce a draft in ten minutes? Why do we need three rounds of edits when a model can “polish” a piece instantly? Why pay for craft when speed now looks like competence?

That pressure is real, and in many teams, it has meant fewer writers doing more work, with less time to think. And once the internet is flooded with easy content, attention becomes even harder to earn. You can publish every day and still feel invisible.

That’s the trap. AI increases output, but it doesn’t create impact. Most of what it produces sits in the same gray zone — technically fine, emotionally flat, structurally predictable.

So yes, AI is a threat. But not in the way people first feared.

The surprising opportunity for PRs

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: AI is not great at the part of comms that actually moves the needle.

It’s good at generic competence. It can summarize a report, generate variations, brainstorm headlines, and produce a clean paragraph that “sounds professional.” If your goal is to fill space, it’s an efficient machine.

But if your goal is to be memorable — if you need content that lands with a specific audience, feels human, carries a distinctive voice, and earns trust — AI still struggles.

Why?

Because high-end communications is not just writing. It’s judgment. It’s knowing what to leave out so the reader keeps going, putting the most interesting detail at the top and finding a hook that makes an editor lean forward rather than hit “delete,” and understanding which line will make a piece feel alive in a crowded feed.

AI can imitate patterns. It can’t reliably choose the best pattern for this moment, audience, publication, or human reader.

Editors and journalists are already developing a feel for machine-written text. The clichés change over time, but the feeling is consistent. The writing is frictionless, and that’s the problem. There’s no tension, no personality, no risk. It reads as though it was engineered not to offend anyone, which is exactly why it fails to engage.

In a world where a thousand companies can publish “acceptable” content, the advantage shifts to those who can produce something distinct.

That’s the opportunity. The more slop there is, the more valuable the signal becomes.

How Proven Media makes it work

At Proven Media Solutions, the operating assumption is simple: AI is a tool, not a substitute for craft. Used well, it can accelerate the parts of the process that shouldn’t require human genius. But the parts that matter most — story selection, interviewing, voice, structure, and editorial standards — stay human-led.

The core differentiator is not a secret prompt. It’s doing the thing that slop can’t do: talking to real people.

When you interview someone properly, you get specificity — scenes, tensions, contradictions, lived experience. That’s where the “angle” lives. It’s also what makes a piece credible. Anyone can pull data. Not everyone can capture a voice.

That matters even more in public affairs and opinion work, where readers are saturated with talking points. Proven Media’s approach is to find the human story inside the policy or the issue: what does it change, whom does it affect, and what’s the surprising detail that makes it worth reading?

Then comes the part AI still can’t do at a consistently high level: shaping. Great writing is not simply correct grammar and a professional tone. It’s architecture. It means opening with a compelling detail rather than a generic thesis. It’s pacing, clarity, and a sense of momentum. It’s what elevates content that gets published into content that gets remembered.

Finally, there’s the unglamorous but decisive step: editing. In the AI era, copyediting becomes a strategic advantage. A single obvious “machine-ism,” a misplaced phrase, or a too-neat rhetorical formula can trigger a reflexive rejection from an editor who has seen the same pattern fifty times that week. Human editors catch what models miss: the subtle signals that a piece isn’t truly authored.

Take advantage of the era of AI slop

The comms industry is heading toward a split. There will be fast, low-cost content that satisfies basic needs. And there will be bespoke, high-trust content that organizations use when the stakes are higher: reputation, persuasion, credibility, authority.

If you’re a comms professional who cares about staying valuable, don’t compete with AI on speed alone. That’s a race to the bottom. Compete on what AI cannot commoditize:

• Original reporting and interviewing
• Distinctive voice
• Sharp hooks and structure
• Local relevance and specificity
• Rigorous editing
• A clear and fresh point of view

The slopocalypse is real, and believe it or not, it’s a gift. It has made the difference between “content” and “communication” visible again.

In an era where anyone can publish, the winners will be the teams who still know how to say something worth reading — and say it like a human being.