Fragmented Influence: Why PR Now Means Podcasts, Substacks, and Eight Revenue Streams Per Journalist w Brett Farmiloe, Founder at Featured.com

Brett Farlow, founder and CEO of Featured.com and the person who brought Help A Reporter Out back from the dead, breaks down how his team rebuilt trust in journalist-source matching after AI-generated pitches and spam eroded the platform's quality. The conversation covers AI detection as a signal for journalists, the fragmentation of media influence toward creators and newsletters, and why email-based Harrow works precisely because it offers a rare, direct human channel in an overwhelmed landscape.

In this episode, we explore:

• How Featured.com restored quality and trust after acquiring Harrow, including AI detection and source verification [00:03]

• The two camps of journalists on AI-generated pitches and what that means for PR practitioners [00:08]

• Why media influence is shifting from outlets to individuals, and what that means for earned media strategy [00:11]

• Using AI as a thinking partner, not the pitch author, and the case for human-in-the-loop workflows [00:14]

• The 2026 AI disillusionment thesis and how PR teams can do more with smaller teams [00:17]

Brett Farlow is the founder and CEO of Featured.com, the company behind the resurrection of Help A Reporter Out. He writes for Inc and Fast Company on AI in the workplace and previously ran a 500-client marketing agency for a decade.