Digital PR glossary

Reactive PR

Reactive PR is the practice of responding quickly to news, trends and journalist requests with expert comment, data or a fresh angle, rather than launching a planned campaign. It covers newsjacking, answering source requests and commenting on scheduled announcements, and it usually wins coverage within hours or days.

Reviewed by Gareth Hoyle, Managing Director
Last reviewed 31 October 2026

How is reactive PR different from proactive PR?

Proactive campaigns are planned weeks ahead around an asset the brand controls, such as a survey or study, and launched on the brand's timetable. Reactive PR follows the news agenda instead. There is no asset to build, so each piece of coverage often costs less, but it depends on approved spokespeople and fast sign-off.

Newsjacking is one form of reactive PR. Others are replying to journalist requests and preparing comment for predictable moments, such as the Budget, exam results days and official statistics published on dates set in advance by the Office for National Statistics.

What makes reactive PR work?

Relevance matters as much as speed. In Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026, 88% of journalists said they immediately disregard pitches that miss their beat, so reactive comment should go only to reporters covering that story.

A list of spokespeople with named areas of expertise and approved biographies
A sign-off process measured in minutes, not days
Monitoring of news, social feeds and request platforms from early morning
Short comments that lead with a fact or figure, not a sales message
A calendar of scheduled releases, with comment drafted in advance

How to measure it

Track coverage by story and by spokesperson, whether each piece linked, and the time between a story breaking and the comment being sent. Response time is the measure to watch first, because a slow team rarely wins coverage however good the comment is.

Example

A grocery delivery app that knows the date of the next ONS inflation release can prepare a comment on food prices using its own basket data, send it to consumer reporters within an hour of publication and appear in that day's coverage of the figures.