By Jordan Baker, Founder of Fair Public Relations and former UK national journalist
One of the biggest misconceptions about PR is that a successful result should look like this:
A newspaper publishes an entire article solely about your company.
Sometimes that happens.
A founder may receive a substantial profile.
A product may receive a standalone review.
A major business development may become its own news story.
But most earned media is much more varied.
A psychologist might contribute three paragraphs to a national feature.
An accountant might provide two sentences explaining a financial development.
A skincare product might appear alongside eight other products in a shopping roundup.
A founder could be interviewed about their personal experience.
A recruitment firm may be quoted in a specialist trade article.
A business announcement might become part of a wider industry story.
All of those can be genuine PR coverage.
At Fair, we describe earned media broadly because the format of the article is not the same thing as its value.
The question should not simply be:
How much of the article was about us?
It should also be:
Who was reading it?
Was our contribution relevant?
Did it build credibility?
Did it place the business or expert in the right context?
Was it independently published?
what did we actually want PR to achieve?
What actually counts as earned media coverage?
Earned media exists when an independent publication, journalist, editor, producer or other genuine editorial gatekeeper chooses to include your business, expert, product, service or story because it is relevant to the content they are producing.
The key word is:
chooses.
You have not simply bought the space.
You do not control the final article.
The publisher decides whether the contribution is used and how it appears.
That separates earned media from many other forms of visibility.
Advertising
You pay for space.
Advertorial or sponsored content
There is a commercial publishing arrangement.
Owned content
You publish it yourself on your own website, LinkedIn page, newsletter or social channels.
Distributed press release
A paid distribution mechanism may place or syndicate your release online.
Earned editorial
A journalist independently decides that your information contributes something to their work.
These can all have marketing value.
They should not all be reported as the same thing.
Type 1: Expert quotes and commentary
This is one of the most common forms of earned media.
A journalist is already writing about something.
They need somebody who actually understands it.
The expert may help explain:
why something is happening
what it means
what readers should know
whether an assumption is correct
what the likely implications are
what professional experience suggests
The final contribution could be two sentences.
Or several paragraphs.
Or an interview.
Or repeated comments throughout the article.
All can count as expert media coverage.
“But it’s only two sentences”
Yes.
It still counts.
Most journalism is not built around giving one PR client an entire article.
Journalists combine:
facts
reporting
research
different sources
quotes
examples
editorial interpretation.
A client who contributes two useful lines to a strong national or specialist article has still been selected as a credible source.
From my perspective, PR is ultimately trying to build things such as:
credibility
brand awareness
online authority
search visibility
AI-search visibility
commercial trust
A short relevant quote may contribute to one or several of those.
None is guaranteed.
But length alone is a very poor way of deciding whether a result matters.
Short contributions can lead to larger opportunities
There is another practical benefit.
A journalist may first use somebody for a brief comment.
They discover that the person:
responds quickly
knows the subject
gives useful answers
is easy to work with
That can make the expert more useful for future stories.
It is not a guaranteed progression.
But relationships often begin with something small.
A journalist does not necessarily begin by offering a stranger a two-page profile.
A real Fair PR example: Christine Schneider
Clinical Psychologist Christine Schneider of Cambridge Therapy Centre contributed expert commentary to an article in The Independent about discussing an HIV diagnosis with a partner.
The article was not a dedicated corporate profile of Cambridge Therapy Centre.
Christine’s expertise contributed professional context to a wider consumer-health and relationships story. The article was also subsequently syndicated to other destinations including MSN.
That is a useful example of genuine earned coverage.
Christine was not the story because her business had issued an announcement.
Her professional knowledge helped the journalist explain the subject.
Fair’s wider six-month campaign for Cambridge Therapy Centre produced more than 30 recorded published media opportunities across national, consumer, lifestyle, health and specialist outlets.
Those opportunities were not 30 identical dedicated profiles.
They were different editorial uses of relevant expertise.
That is normal PR.
Type 2: Founder interviews and personal-profile features
Founder coverage works differently.
Here, the person themselves may be a substantial part of the story.
A journalist might explore:
how they built the company
a personal challenge
an unusual career
a major turning point
a distinctive business philosophy
an experience relevant to a wider social or business issue
A weak founder pitch is:
“Sarah founded a successful consultancy and is passionate about helping clients.”
There is no story yet.
A stronger hypothetical example might be:
Founder who rebuilt her company after losing its largest customer explains the five financial decisions that kept 30 staff employed
Now there is:
conflict
consequence
experience
useful information
The founder still needs to substantiate the story.
Type 3: Product reviews and product roundups
Product PR can take several editorial forms.
A standalone product review.
A shopping guide.
A gift guide.
A comparison article.
A seasonal roundup.
A broader feature containing recommended products.
A product can receive meaningful visibility without an entire article being devoted to it.
Imagine a £45 kitchen gadget appearing in:
12 genuinely useful gifts for people moving into their first home
The product may receive:
a photograph
price
short description
link
editor’s comment
That is still earned product coverage if the inclusion was independently editorial.
Samples do not buy favourable reviews
A journalist may need access to the product.
The brand can supply one.
That does not mean the brand has purchased the journalist’s opinion.
The reviewer remains free to dislike it.
They may choose not to publish.
Or they may compare it unfavourably with another product.
Editorial independence is part of what makes earned media credible.
Paid influencer promotions and affiliate arrangements can involve different commercial structures and disclosure requirements.
Do not blur them together.
Type 4: Company news and business developments
Sometimes the company itself really is the story.
Examples might include:
a substantial launch
expansion
a meaningful partnership
a major appointment
credible new research
a significant acquisition
another development with genuine implications
The difficulty is that businesses naturally overestimate how interesting their milestones are to everyone else.
“Company celebrates fifth birthday” may matter deeply to the team.
It may not be news.
A meaningful expansion creating 100 local jobs is different.
Newsworthiness depends on the audience.
Type 5: Consumer advice and service-led articles
Service businesses often overlook this category.
A cleaner can explain stain removal.
An organiser can explain decluttering.
A plumber can discuss winter pipe problems.
An interior designer can explain layout mistakes.
A therapist can discuss boundaries.
A chef can discuss cooking.
The journalist’s article is not necessarily:
“Meet this cleaning company.”
It might be:
“Seven places people forget to clean before Christmas guests arrive.”
The company is visible because the expertise contributes to the reader’s problem.
This is how Fair’s historic One Less Thing campaign worked. Practical cleaning expertise helped generate 38 published articles in the first 12 months, including 35 articles containing backlinks.
Again, that should not be interpreted as a promised result for another business.
It demonstrates the diversity of service-led earned media.
Type 6: Trade and specialist coverage
Trade media is sometimes undervalued because the audience can be much smaller than a national newspaper’s.
That misses the point.
If you sell cybersecurity software to chief information security officers, a publication read by those people can be extremely relevant.
If you advise recruiters, recruitment media matters.
If you manufacture specialist building products, construction trade media may matter.
Trade coverage can include:
expert comments
founder interviews
company developments
technical features
case studies
specialist product news
Trade is an audience category, not one single coverage format.
Type 7: broadcast interviews, podcasts and editorial video
Earned media is not limited to written articles.
A source may appear:
on television
on radio
on a genuinely editorial podcast
in an online video interview
within a live news discussion
Preparation changes.
Someone giving written comments has time to review wording.
Someone on live radio needs to explain the point naturally in real time.
Podcast interviews may be much longer.
But not every podcast guest slot is automatically earned PR.
Some shows sell guest packages.
Others exist primarily as branded or sponsored marketing products.
Again, understand the editorial arrangement.
How do the seven types compare?
| Coverage type | Typical editorial need | What the business provides | Best suited to | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expert quotes | Explanation/context | Credible specialist insight | Professionals, advisers, founders | Expert must genuinely fit topic |
| Founder profile | Human/business story | Personal experience, evidence, availability | Distinctive founders | “I started a business” is rarely enough |
| Product review/roundup | Product recommendation/testing | Product facts, images, samples where relevant | Consumer products | Inclusion and positivity not guaranteed |
| Company news | Newsworthy development | Facts, evidence, spokesperson | Growing businesses | Internal milestone may lack wider relevance |
| Consumer advice | Reader problem | Practical expertise | Service businesses | Business is supporting source, not centre |
| Trade coverage | Specialist industry relevance | Technical/business knowledge | B2B and professional services | Audience smaller but more concentrated |
| Broadcast/podcast | Strong spoken source | Availability, clarity, confidence | Experts/founders | Format and editorial model vary |
Is a short quote less valuable than a whole article?
Not automatically.
Imagine two results.
Result A
A financial adviser gives three sentences to a national article about retirement planning.
The attribution is accurate.
The topic exactly matches the adviser’s expertise.
The article appears when prospective clients are researching pensions.
Result B
The adviser gets a 1,500-word profile on a general business blog with little readership among people interested in financial advice.
Which is more valuable?
There is no automatic answer.
But the second result does not win merely because it contains more words.
Relevance matters.
What should you evaluate?
Ask:
Was the publication relevant?
Was the right person named?
Was the company attribution accurate?
Was the topic aligned with what you want to be known for?
Was the article genuinely editorial?
Was the contribution substantial enough to be meaningful?
Could the coverage be legitimately referenced later?
Was there a backlink?
Did useful traffic, enquiries or other measurable outcomes follow?
Did the result strengthen a longer-term media relationship?
Those questions are much more useful than counting column inches.
Earned-media output is not the same as business outcome
An article is an output.
A journalist deciding to interview you is another form of progress.
An increase in branded search is an outcome.
A qualified sales enquiry is a commercial result.
Those are different stages.
PR measurement should not pretend publication itself automatically equals revenue.
Does every mention need a backlink?
No.
Some publishers include them.
Others do not.
Some links are followed.
Others use nofollow or other attributes.
Sometimes a journalist can add one.
Sometimes editorial policy prevents it.
All other things equal, I would generally prefer strong online coverage with a useful editorial link.
But an excellent article does not become worthless because no hyperlink was included.
The public attribution still exists.
What about AI search?
Public online editorial coverage may become part of the wider information environment AI systems can retrieve.
But do not say:
“One expert quote means ChatGPT will recommend you.”
There is no evidence supporting that guarantee.
Use AI/search visibility as one potential longer-term benefit to monitor, not a promised consequence of every article.
What about syndication?
Suppose The Independent publishes an original article.
The article then appears through legitimate syndication on MSN and other partner sites.
There may now be several URLs.
That does not necessarily mean several journalists independently developed separate stories.
At Fair, the accurate description is:
one primary editorial opportunity with syndication
where that is what occurred.
Syndication can increase visibility.
We simply do not pretend each syndicated copy represents a different independent journalist relationship.
Which coverage suits which type of business?
1. Accountant
Most natural opportunities:
expert commentary
consumer financial explainers
business advice
trade commentary
broadcast where appropriate
A founder profile may also work if the personal story is genuinely strong.
2. Skincare brand
Potential opportunities:
product reviews
shopping roundups
gift guides
beauty features
founder story
credible expert commentary where there is suitable specialist expertise.
3. Founder with a distinctive life story
Potential opportunities:
founder interviews
personal-profile features
real-life stories
business features
podcasts
The personal story needs to be genuine, consented and relevant.
4. Professional-services firm with meaningful company news
Potential opportunities:
business news
trade coverage
founder commentary
expert quotes
research-led stories
The mix will normally be broader than one format.
Four-business decision guide
| Business | Strongest media asset | Most natural coverage | Secondary opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accountant | Professional expertise | Expert commentary | Business/trade explainers |
| Skincare brand | Product | Reviews/roundups | Founder/beauty commentary |
| Distinctive founder | Personal journey | Founder profile | Expert/podcast appearances |
| Growing B2B consultancy | Company development + expertise | Trade/business news | Expert commentary/research |
How does this affect the PR service you choose?
Fair’s Expert Commentary PR is specifically for credible specialists where the primary media asset is their professional knowledge.
The work centres on identifying relevant opportunities and putting that expertise in front of journalists.
Standard PR is broader.
It can incorporate:
expertise
founder stories
business news
products
services
customer stories
real-life stories
other proactive campaign routes
Neither is automatically better.
The correct service depends on what the client actually has to work with.
Frequently asked questions
Does a short expert quote count as genuine PR coverage?
Yes, where an independent journalist chose to use the contribution and the expert is meaningfully attributed. Most editorial articles are not solely about one PR client. Experts commonly contribute one paragraph, a few quotations or one piece of context within a much larger article. The value depends on relevance and quality rather than word count alone. A two-sentence comment in an article read by the right audience can be a perfectly strong PR result.
Does an article have to mention the company name to count as coverage?
Not always. Sometimes a journalist identifies the expert primarily through their professional role, particularly where the individual’s expertise is the editorial point. However, the precise attribution matters commercially. If business visibility is an objective, clear company attribution is naturally more useful. Fair records what was actually published rather than pretending every expert quote provides identical brand exposure.
Is a paid article the same as earned media?
No. Paid advertorial, sponsored content and commercial publication packages may have legitimate marketing value, but the business has purchased the opportunity. Earned editorial coverage involves an independent editorial decision. The two should not be reported interchangeably, particularly where a company is using coverage as evidence of independent media interest.
Can a business pursue both expert commentary and wider company PR?
Yes. Many Standard PR campaigns do exactly that. A founder may provide expertise while the company also has products, business developments, customer stories or research. Fair’s narrower Expert Commentary PR service is specifically designed for clients whose primary requirement is specialist expert outreach rather than a broader company campaign.
What type of media coverage makes sense for your business?
Fair PR approaches media from a journalist’s perspective rather than assuming every client needs the same kind of article.
Explore Expert Commentary PR where the main opportunity is specialist knowledge, or Standard PR where the business has a wider range of stories.
If you want help identifying the coverage formats that genuinely fit your business, get in touch with Fair PR to discuss your stories, expertise and appropriate service scope.
About the author
Jordan Baker is the founder of Fair Public Relations and a former UK national journalist. He works across expert commentary, founder visibility, products, services, business news and wider earned-media campaigns.
View Jordan Baker’s media expert profile
