--- title: "Reactive PR in practice: turning breaking news into links" url: https://marketingsignals.com/insights/reactive-pr-turning-breaking-news-into-links type: Article date: 2026-11-01 author: "Joseph Woodcock" --- # Reactive PR in practice: turning breaking news into links How we run reactive PR: the morning news scan, picking stories a spokesperson can credibly comment on, sign-off in an hour and why the first quote wins. ## Key takeaways - Reactive PR earns coverage every week between bigger campaigns, and its cost is mostly people's time, so speed and judgement decide the return. - Agree spokesperson topics, approved positions and no-go subjects in advance, so sign-off on the day is a check rather than a debate. - Only comment where the spokesperson has real expertise and can add a figure, prediction or practical advice the story lacks. - On a live story the first credible, usable quotes tend to fill the available slots, so time from story to pitch matters as much as wording. - Never pay or trade goods for a quote placement or link; Google's spam policies treat that as link spam. Big data-led campaigns take weeks to build and land a few times a year. In between, journalists are writing stories every day that need an expert voice, and the brands that answer quickly and usefully are the ones that get quoted. That is reactive PR: commenting on news as it breaks, in time for the journalist to use it. Done well, it produces coverage every week and a spokesperson journalists come back to without being pitched. Done badly, it produces off-topic quotes, an approvals queue that misses every deadline and, occasionally, a comment on a story the brand should never have touched. This article explains how we run it, what it should deliver and when it is the wrong tool, so you can decide whether your business is set up to do it well. ## Why reactive PR earns its place in the budget Reactive work is the cheapest coverage in a PR programme to produce: there is no research to commission and no asset to design. The cost is people's time, which means the return depends almost entirely on speed and judgement. The commercial benefit is steady rather than spectacular. Regular quotes in the titles your customers read keep the brand present between campaigns, and each piece of coverage is one more trusted page describing what you do. Some will carry a link, though reactive comment is more likely to earn a mention than a linked citation, so we report the two separately: links feed rankings, while [unlinked brand mentions](https://marketingsignals.com/glossary/unlinked-brand-mentions) shape how journalists and AI assistants describe you. The cost of getting it wrong is mostly lost opportunity. A spokesperson quoted on the wrong stories starts to look like a rent-a-quote, and a sign-off process that takes a day keeps the brand out of the first wave of coverage. The rarer, larger risk is commenting on a tragedy, a court case or a political row in a way that becomes the story itself. There is a longer-term benefit beyond the links. A spokesperson quoted regularly in the same trade and national titles builds a public record of expertise around a named person, which makes later thought leadership pitches easier to land and gives the brand's own author pages something real to point to. ## How we run reactive PR, day to day Our [digital PR](https://marketingsignals.com/service/digital-pr) team runs reactive work as a daily routine rather than an occasional scramble. These are the steps, in the order we take them. 1. Agree the rules before the news breaks. We build a spokesperson brief with each expert's credentials, the topics they can speak on, the positions the business has already approved and the subjects that are off limits. In regulated sectors compliance signs off those positions in advance, so on the day they check a quote against an agreed line instead of drafting one. 2. Run the morning news scan. First thing each day we review the front pages, the main news sites for the brand's sector, the [Trending now](https://support.google.com/trends/answer/3076011) view in Google Trends, which Google says refreshes on average every ten minutes, and overnight [journalist requests](https://marketingsignals.com/glossary/journalist-requests) from services such as the ResponseSource [Journalist Enquiry Service](https://www.responsesource.com/pr/journalistenquiry/). A shorter scan follows at midday and again in the late afternoon. 3. Prepare for the news you can see coming. Plenty of news is scheduled: official statistics on the [ONS release calendar](https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar), Bank of England rate decisions on dates it publishes in advance, budgets, exam results and seasonal moments. We draft comment for those the day before, so it can go out minutes after the figures are published. 4. Decide whether the spokesperson can credibly comment. We apply three tests: does the expert have genuine knowledge of this exact topic, can they add something the story lacks (a figure, a prediction or practical advice for readers), and is the story safe for the brand to stand near. If any answer is no we pass, however big the story is, because that line separates useful [reactive PR](https://marketingsignals.com/glossary/reactive-pr) from [newsjacking](https://marketingsignals.com/glossary/newsjacking) that looks opportunistic. 5. Write the comment for the journalist, not the brand. A usable comment is short, opens with its most quotable sentence, contains one specific point nobody else will offer and ends with a one-line description of the spokesperson and the business. Product plugs get cut or, more often, get the whole comment ignored. 6. Sign off in under an hour. One named approver, with a named deputy, checks the comment against the agreed positions; a committee is how reactive programmes die. Because the hard decisions were made in step one, approval is a check rather than a debate, and an hour is realistic. 7. Send it to the people covering the story. We send to the journalists already writing about it and to the relevant desk, with the comment in the body of the email rather than an attachment, and the spokesperson's name and angle in the subject line. Our guide to [pitching a journalist](https://marketingsignals.com/insights/how-to-pitch-a-journalist-what-ex-reach-plc-pro-thinks-of-your-pitch) covers that craft in more detail. 8. Log it, and ask for a link only where it helps the reader. Every placement goes into the coverage log with its URL, date and link status. Where a page on the site genuinely adds context, such as the data behind a figure, we ask for a link to it, and we never offer payment or goods in return, because Google's [spam policies](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies) treat exchanging money, goods or services for links as link spam. ## Why the first credible quote usually wins On a live story a journalist is filing and updating copy against a deadline. They need one or two expert voices, and once those slots are filled the story moves on. A later quote, however good, arrives after the decision has been made. That is why we judge reactive work on the time from story to pitch as much as on the quality of the words, and why a brilliant spokesperson who takes a day to approve rarely gets used. Speed compounds too: a journalist who received a usable quote quickly last week will often contact the spokesperson directly next time, which is how a reactive programme turns into relationships. ## How to measure it Reactive PR is a game of consistency, so we measure the process as well as the output. - Time from story breaking to comment sent, and from comment drafted to approval. - Comments sent, comments used and the rate between them, by publication tier. - The share of coverage carrying a link, and which pages those links point to. - Journalists who come back to the spokesperson directly, the clearest sign the programme is building authority. - Coverage in the publications on your target list, rather than coverage anywhere. ## What to report upwards For leadership, a monthly line is enough: coverage won, the titles it came from, linked placements and any direct journalist approaches. One month is noise; the trend across a quarter is the signal, and a falling time to approval is often the earliest sign that results are about to improve. It also helps to show leadership the stories you declined. A short list of passes, with the reason for each, shows the programme is protecting the brand as well as chasing coverage, and it gives the approver a shared reference point for the next borderline call. ## When it does not fit, and the mistakes we see most Reactive PR is a poor fit when there is no spokesperson with real expertise, or the one you have cannot make time at short notice. It also struggles where every statement needs external legal review, and in sectors that rarely make the news, where planned commentary and thought leadership usually work better. The mistakes we see most often: - Commenting on everything, which teaches journalists to skip the name. - Quotes that restate the story instead of adding to it. - Chasing tragedies or divisive stories for reach. - Paying for quote placements, which turns earned coverage into advertising. - Judging the programme on a single week's results. ## Questions to ask your team or agency - Who are our approved spokespeople, and which topics have we pre-cleared them to speak on? - How long does sign-off take today, from first draft to approval? - Which stories did we pass on last month, and why? - How many of our comments were used, and in which titles? - Are any journalists now contacting our spokesperson directly? ## Frequently asked questions ### What is reactive PR? Reactive PR is the practice of offering expert comment to journalists on news stories as they break, so a brand's spokesperson is quoted in coverage the brand did not plan. It relies on daily news monitoring, pre-approved positions and fast sign-off. Unlike a planned campaign it needs no research or assets, which makes it a steady, lower-cost source of coverage and, where a link adds context, editorial links. ### What is the difference between reactive PR and newsjacking? The terms overlap. Reactive PR usually means supplying expert comment on a story a journalist is already writing, often in response to a request. Newsjacking means attaching a brand's own angle, data or story to a trending news moment and pitching it proactively. Both depend on speed, and both work only when the brand has a credible reason to be part of the story. ### How quickly should you respond to a journalist request? As fast as you can while still adding something useful, and always within the journalist's stated deadline. On a breaking story the first credible quotes tend to fill the available slots, so a comment sent hours later often arrives after the piece is filed. Pre-approved positions and a single named approver make a turnaround of around an hour realistic for most businesses. ## Sources - [Explore the searches that are Trending now, Google Trends Help](https://support.google.com/trends/answer/3076011) - [Journalist Enquiry Service, ResponseSource](https://www.responsesource.com/pr/journalistenquiry/) - [Release calendar, Office for National Statistics](https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar) - [Monetary Policy Committee dates, Bank of England](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/upcoming-mpc-dates) - [Spam policies for Google web search: link spam, Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies) Visibility Playbooks ## Related Playbooks More Insights ## More articles we think you’ll like