By Jordan Baker, Founder of Fair Public Relations and former UK national journalist
Many of the people who make excellent media experts are also extremely busy.
Doctors have patients.
Lawyers have clients and cases.
Accountants have deadlines.
Consultants are advising businesses.
Founders are running companies.
They may have exactly the knowledge a journalist needs while having absolutely no desire to spend their working day searching for media opportunities, finding email addresses, writing pitches and monitoring whether anything appeared.
That is the problem Fair's Expert Commentary PR service is designed to solve.
The basic division of labour is simple:
You bring the expertise. Fair handles the PR execution.
It is not completely hands-off, because we cannot invent your professional opinion for you. But it should require considerably less administrative time than managing expert PR yourself.
What work does the PR team handle?
Fair handles the repetitive PR work around your expertise.
We identify relevant journalist opportunities and topical developments.
We assess whether they actually fit your professional background rather than forwarding everything remotely connected with your industry.
We establish what information is required.
We gather your input.
We turn that input into clear, journalist-ready material while preserving the substance of what you actually mean.
We pitch relevant journalists directly.
We manage communications and appropriate follow-up.
We monitor published coverage.
And we provide reporting so you can see what has been happening.
We can also develop suitable proactive expert angles instead of relying entirely on incoming journalist requests.
The intention is that your time is spent being the expert, rather than becoming an amateur PR administrator.
What does the expert still need to do?
There are several things we cannot responsibly do on your behalf.
We need accurate information about your professional background.
We need to know what you can and cannot comment on.
We need your genuine view when a journalist asks something that requires original expert input.
If a response contains technical information, you may need to confirm that we have represented it accurately.
And sometimes a journalist may want an interview or a direct conversation.
The exact level of involvement therefore varies according to the opportunity.
A designer explaining a relatively straightforward trend may be able to give us the necessary thoughts very quickly.
A doctor discussing a technical medical question may need to review the wording much more carefully.
Accuracy comes before convenience.
How much time should you realistically expect to spend?
There is no contractual number of minutes that applies to every client or every week.
As a rough working rule, many suitable experts should be able to manage the normal flow of approvals, answers and comments in something like five to ten minutes on many working days.
That is not a guarantee or a maximum.
Some days may require nothing.
A particularly good journalist opportunity might require more time.
Some routine approvals can be handled in batches.
What matters more than the exact number of minutes is that the expert remains reasonably reachable.
Expert Commentary PR removes a lot of the PR workload.
It cannot remove the need for authentic expertise.
What happens during the initial briefing?
The first job is establishing your professional boundaries.
We need to understand your role, experience, qualifications where relevant and the subjects you can legitimately discuss.
We also need to know the topics you are particularly interested in.
There may be subjects you technically understand but do not wish to discuss publicly.
There may be areas where professional or regulatory considerations mean commentary needs particular care.
We gather an approved biography, credentials, suitable expert topics, availability information and useful background material.
That gives the team enough context to filter opportunities intelligently.
This is intentionally lighter than the Founder & Authority Positioning Session used within Standard PR, where Fair is taking a broader strategic role in positioning a founder or business.
How do you give Fair your expert input?
Our preferred routes are straightforward.
The client portal on Monday.com is useful because it keeps the information connected to the relevant opportunity.
Email is also perfectly acceptable.
And WhatsApp is available when that is easier.
If you are a doctor walking between appointments, an accountant between meetings or a lawyer leaving court, you may find it quicker to send a WhatsApp voice note explaining your view.
That is fine.
The team can take the substance of that explanation, structure it and turn it into a clear response for the journalist.
A few accurate bullet points can also be enough.
You do not have to write a polished 500-word answer every time somebody asks a question.
That is part of the work you are paying us to do.
Can the PR agency write the response for you?
Yes, provided the substance comes from genuine knowledge.
We can draft from:
your direct answers
a voice note
approved previous material
technical information you provide
existing professional explanations
a conversation about the issue
We can make the wording clearer, remove jargon and shape it around what the journalist actually asked.
What we cannot do is invent your expert opinion because the deadline is approaching.
If you have never told us what you think about a technical subject, AI-generating a plausible quote and putting your name underneath it would undermine the entire purpose of expert PR.
The authority belongs to you.
The editorial packaging belongs to us.
How quickly do you need to respond to journalists?
Deadlines vary enormously.
Some opportunities allow several days.
Others move extremely quickly.
As a general working expectation, we need clients to be able to acknowledge time-sensitive opportunities within a few hours when possible, even if the initial response is simply:
"I've seen this and I'll get you the information later this afternoon."
That allows us to manage the journalist's expectations and decide whether the deadline remains realistic.
If somebody routinely disappears for an entire day, several days or a week whenever input is required, expert commentary becomes much harder.
Often the journalist will have moved on.
Does that mean you need to watch your phone constantly?
No.
We are not expecting a surgeon to stop an operation because a lifestyle journalist has emailed.
Nor should somebody abandon an important client meeting to answer a routine PR question.
The service is designed for working professionals.
The issue is general responsiveness, not permanent availability.
If your normal schedule means you can see important communications and respond reasonably promptly, we can work around it.
If your schedule means nobody can obtain your input for days at a time, the service may simply not suit the way you currently work.
Can you save everything until Sunday?
Routine approvals and background information can sometimes be dealt with in batches.
Urgent journalist opportunities cannot.
If something is genuinely time-sensitive on Tuesday and the journalist is filing on Wednesday, answering on Sunday serves no purpose.
That is why we distinguish ongoing account administration from live editorial deadlines.
You can be flexible with the first.
The second belongs to the journalist's timetable.
Do you need regular meetings?
No.
Expert Commentary PR is deliberately not built around scheduled recurring account-management meetings.
Clients have portal visibility, monthly written reporting, team WhatsApp contact and the option to arrange a purpose-led call when there is something useful to discuss.
That does not mean the service lacks human support.
It means we do not fill everybody's diary with a monthly meeting purely because the calendar says it is time for one.
Clients who want regular strategy calls, ongoing founder positioning and broader account-management support are better suited to Standard PR.
What happens during quieter news periods?
Journalist demand changes.
One month may contain several obvious opportunities connected with your expertise.
Another may be quieter.
Fair can develop proactive commentary around appropriate trends, seasonal subjects and news developments rather than simply waiting.
Expert Commentary PR can also include up to two proactive expert-commentary press releases in a month where there is genuinely suitable material.
"Up to" matters.
We will not manufacture two meaningless releases simply to hit a quota.
PR still depends on having something useful for journalists.
Is Expert Commentary PR suitable if you are extremely busy?
Potentially, yes.
Being busy is one of the strongest reasons to outsource the media work.
You do not need time to monitor journalism all day.
You do not need to research reporters.
You do not need to draft every pitch from scratch.
But you do need enough availability to contribute the one thing Fair cannot supply for you:
your professional knowledge.
If you can send a few bullets, a quick written answer or a voice note and confirm important technical wording when needed, the service can take most of the PR administration away.
If you cannot engage at all, it probably will not work.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to write my own responses to journalists?
Not necessarily. Fair can turn your genuine answers, voice notes or approved background information into clear responses. You may still need to check technical details and approve quotations.
Will I need to attend regular monthly meetings?
Not under the specialist service's usual delivery model. The proposed service includes written updates, team contact and purpose-led booked calls when useful rather than standing monthly account-management meetings.
What happens if a journalist needs a response quickly?
Some requests have short deadlines. Fair can manage the pitching process, but the expert must be reachable enough to provide or confirm accurate input while the opportunity is still live.
Can Fair guarantee that I will only spend a few minutes on PR each week?
No. The time required depends on the number and complexity of suitable opportunities. Some days may need no input; a technical interview or urgent request can take longer.
Let Fair handle the media outreach
If you have credible expertise but little time to find opportunities, draft pitches and contact journalists yourself, explore Expert Commentary PR.
You provide the knowledge.
We handle the PR process around it.
About the author
Jordan Baker is the founder of Fair Public Relations and a former UK national journalist with more than a decade of experience in journalism and PR. He writes about small-business PR, SEO and GEO strategy, AI search, earned media and practical ways businesses can build credible visibility without wasting money on work they do not yet need.
View Jordan Baker’s media expert profile
