HARO Sent 100M+ Emails In The Last Year. Here’s What the Data Says About PR

Featured today announced that HARO (Help a Reporter Out) has sent more than 100 million emails connecting journalists with sources since Featured relaunched the service in April 2025, providing a view into how AI, spam, and increasingly crowded inboxes are changing the relationship between journalists and PR professionals.

HARO's 2026 statistics show that as the volume of communication between journalists and sources grows, both sides are putting more emphasis on filtering and authenticity.

What HARO’s data shows:

• 21% of pitches are entirely AI-generated: More than one in five pitches submitted through HARO are written completely by AI.

• 35% of journalists block AI-generated pitches: More than one-third of journalists now choose to block AI-generated responses when submitting a request.

• A user is banned every 23 minutes: HARO bans users primarily for spam and violations of its terms of service

• 32% of journalist requests are rejected: Nearly one-third of journalist requests are rejected during the approval process after reviewing the journalist, publication, and request for quality and legitimacy.

• Human-written pitches are ~3x more likely to be used by journalists

The rise of AI-generated pitches is one of the clearest signals in the data. While AI can make it easier for publicists and sources to produce responses at scale, journalists are increasingly filtering those responses.

“Human-written pitches are about 3x more likely to get featured than AI-written ones,” said Brett Farmiloe, CEO of HARO. “The sources who stand out typically come from fully human teams who can provide credible information, respond to what the journalist actually asked for, and make the journalist’s job easier. As inboxes get more crowded, being helpful becomes the differentiator.”

Every pitch submitted through HARO is analyzed using AI detection technology provided by Pangram. Journalists can also report unhelpful pitches, which triggers a manual review by the HARO team.

The data points to a growing challenge for PR professionals: as access to journalists increases, earning their attention is becoming harder. In increasingly crowded inboxes, relevance, credibility, and expertise are becoming critical ways for sources to stand out.

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a free newsletter that connects journalists with expert sources who can provide insights and expertise for stories. Founded in 2008, HARO was shut down by its previous owner in December 2024 and relaunched by Featured in April 2025. HARO delivers journalist requests directly to subscribers, giving subject matter experts, publicists, and PR professionals opportunities to respond to relevant media inquiries and earn coverage.

Featured is an AI co-pilot for public relations (PR) that helps communications professionals and subject matter experts find earned media opportunities, draft responses, and secure coverage - across journalist requests, podcasts, bylined articles, speaking engagements, awards, and generative engine optimization (GEO). The company owns and operates HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and Connectively, which connect journalists and publishers with subject matter experts. Featured supports more than 100,000 users and helps 2,500 publishers fill content gaps with expert insights.

Press Inquiries
Brett Farmiloe
Email Contact
https://helpareporter.com

Terkel, Inc. (dba Featured)
7014 E Camelback Rd, Suite B100A
Scottsdale, AZ

This contant was orignally distributed by Newsworthy.ai. Blockchain Registration, Verification & Enhancement provided by NewsRamp™. The source URL for this press release is HARO Sent 100M+ Emails In The Last Year. Here’s What the Data Says About PR.