Yes ! You CAN turn your expertise into media coverage by answering reporters' questions on journalist-query platforms, and three names matter for academics: Qwoted, Source of Sources, and HARO. The catch is that HARO changed hands (twice). The version most people used was discontinued at the end of 2024, but HARO itself is very much alive. It runs today at its original address under new ownership, alongside a second successor from its original creator. This guide explains how each platform works, shows a pitch that gets used, points to the other services worth knowing, and lays out how a researcher can turn them into real, citable coverage.
What do Qwoted, Source of Sources, and HARO actually do?
All three are journalist-query platforms: services where reporters post what they need, and experts like you reply with a short, quotable answer. A journalist writing about, say, the use of AI in education or supply-chain risk, posts a request, a topic, a deadline, and the kind of source they want. You scan the requests (or have your mail filter scan them), find one that fits your field, and send a tight response. If the reporter uses it, you get named in the story, and often linked back to your website or faculty page. Remember, mentions are gold in the age of LLMs. 😉
For an academic, that trade is a good one. You already have the knowledge a reporter is hunting for. What you usually lack is the reporter's phone number. These platforms hand you a steady stream of reporters who are actively asking for someone exactly like you. No cold outreach, no press agent, no waiting to be discovered.
The three differ in tone and price. Here is the quick version before we go deeper on each:
| Qwoted | Free tier (2 pitches/mo); Pro $149/mo (35 pitches/mo); Teams custom | Lower, curated | Higher-tier and PR-heavy outlets | wants fewer but more prominent requests |
| Source of Sources | Free | Up to 3 emails/day | Broad; top outlets plus a long tail | wants maximum free volume from HARO's original creator |
| HARO (by Featured) | Free | Up to 3 email digests/day, Mon–Fri | Broad; every beat, plus podcasts | wants the classic HARO workflow with modern spam controls |
Is HARO still around in 2026?
Yes. HARO is running again at helpareporter.com. It is no longer the same operation you may remember, though. HARO, short for Help a Reporter Out, began in 2008 under founder Peter Shankman. It was later sold, and eventually ran under Cision as a rebranded service called Connectively. Cision permanently discontinued that Connectively platform on December 9, 2024. What ended, then, was the Cision chapter, not the HARO name.
HARO came back under new ownership. Featured.com acquired the HARO brand from Cision, which had owned it since 2014. Featured is led by founder and CEO Brett Farmiloe. It relaunched HARO at the original address, helpareporter.com, in 2025. HARO's own About page now states plainly that "HARO is operated by Featured." It has returned to the model people liked. Registered experts receive up to three email digests per day, Monday through Friday, and pitch reporters directly by email. It is free for both journalists and sources, funded by newsletter advertising rather than subscriptions.
The relaunch also added guardrails the old version lacked. HARO now lists AI-generated content detection, masked email addresses, community reporting, and lifetime bans for policy violations. All of it aims at cutting the spam that plagued the platform in its later Cision years. Its queries span every beat, from business and health to technology, lifestyle, and finance. It now serves podcast hosts looking for expert guests, not just writers.
Running alongside HARO is a second, separate platform: Source of Sources. Peter Shankman built it. He is the person who created HARO in the first place, and he wanted to return to that original mission. So when a colleague tells you to "just use HARO," ask which one they mean. The name now points to a Featured-owned relaunch, while the original creator runs something else entirely. Both are worth using, and both are free.
How does an academic use Qwoted?
Qwoted works by having you build an expert profile, then pitch reporters who post requests that match your field. You sign up as a source, list your credentials and specialties, and browse a feed of journalist requests. When one fits, you send a pitch through the platform rather than by email. Reporters who like your profile can also reach out to you directly, which is why the profile is worth filling out properly.
Qwoted positions itself toward quality over volume. It vets contributors and skews toward well-known publications, which tends to attract public-relations professionals alongside independent experts. For an academic, that means fewer requests than the free tools send you, but often from more prominent outlets.
Pricing is the trade-off, and the numbers are concrete. Qwoted's own pricing page lists a free Basic plan capped at two pitches a month. It carries a two-hour delay before you can respond to a request, plus access to the expert database, real-time alerts, and a daily opportunities email. The Pro plan runs $149 per month for 35 pitches. It removes the delay and adds events, awards, and pitch-research tools. A Teams plan with unlimited pitches is custom-priced. Start on the free tier. It is enough to test whether Qwoted's requests match your field before you pay for anything.
How do you use Source of Sources and the relaunched HARO?
Both are free email tools, so the workflow is nearly identical: you sign up, you receive digests of reporter requests, and you reply directly to the ones you can answer well. Source of Sources, run by Peter Shankman, is entirely free. Its sign-up asks only for your name and email, and it sends up to three query emails a day. Shankman suggests that instead of paying a fee, users donate to an animal-welfare charity or share the platform. The relaunched HARO from Featured also runs on free email digests, up to three per day, Monday through Friday.
For a researcher, the practical move is to run both. Sign up for Source of Sources and HARO, skim the digests over morning coffee, and reply only when a request lands squarely in your expertise. Because both are free and email-based, the only cost is the few minutes it takes to write a good answer. And because both descend from the same original idea, a habit that works for one works for the other.
What other services like these should an academic know about?
Plenty. A few are built specifically for researchers, which makes them worth more of your time than the general tools. If your work is scientific or scholarly, start with the platforms that reporters already trust for exactly that.
Built for academics and researchers:
- SciLine. A free service that connects scientists with journalists. You provide brief, research-backed, quotable answers for on-the-record use, and reporters pull those attributed comments into stories. It is made for researchers, not marketers.
- The Conversation. A nonprofit newsroom where academics write short articles with a professional editor, published free for anyone to republish. You write the piece rather than pitch a quote, and a single article can be picked up by dozens of outlets under your byline.
- ProfNet and Newswise. Expert networks that route reporter queries to registered academics and institutions. Access often runs through your university's communications or press office, so ask whether your institution already subscribes.
General-purpose, useful across fields:
- SourceBottle. Free, with particular strength in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.
- Help a B2B Writer. Free daily requests aimed at business and B2B topics.
- Featured. The company that now operates HARO also runs its own platform. It gathers expert answers that publishers draw on, weighted toward business and software.
- Social listening. Reporters still post open requests on X and Bluesky under the tag #journorequest. It is free to watch and needs no sign-up, but it is noisier and unfiltered.
You do not need all of these. Pick the one or two that match where your expertise and your target outlets actually overlap.
What makes a pitch a journalist actually uses?
A journalist uses the pitch that is fast, specific, and ready to quote. Reporters work on deadlines measured in hours, so a same-day reply beats a brilliant one that arrives tomorrow. Lead with your answer, not your biography. Give them one or two sentences they could drop into the article verbatim, then a single line establishing why you are qualified to say it.
Academics tend to lose these on two habits. The first is hedging, the careful, caveat-laden style that serves peer review but reads as evasive to a reporter who needs a clear line. The second is jargon (MY problem!). A quote a general reader cannot follow is a quote an editor will cut. Say the plain version first; save the nuance for the follow-up interview.
Here is the difference in practice. Suppose this request lands in your digest:
Summary: Seeking a researcher to explain why capable people delay financial decisions
Category: Business & Finance · Deadline: Today, 4:00 p.m. ET
Query: I'm writing about why smart people put off decisions like retirement enrollment. Looking for an academic in behavioral economics or decision science. Need 2–3 quotable sentences on the psychology, plus one practical tip. Please include your title and institution.
A reply that gets used looks like this:
Subject: Behavioral economist — why capable people delay money decisions
Hi [Reporter],
The short version: people don't delay financial decisions because they're lazy. They delay because the payoff is invisible and far away, while the effort is concrete and right now. Our brains discount distant rewards steeply, so "enroll in the 401(k)" loses to almost any task in front of us.
One fix that works: shrink the decision to a single default action with a deadline. "Pick a contribution rate by Friday" beats "plan for retirement," because removing choices removes the friction that causes the delay.
I'm Dr. [Name], [title] in [department] at [University], where I study decision-making and behavioral economics. Happy to expand or share a data point on automatic enrollment.
[Direct email · phone]
Notice the structure: a quotable claim, a sentence of evidence, a practical tip, then the credential and an offer to give more, all under 200 words, sent the same day. That is four short parts a reporter can lift straight into a draft. If they want more, they will ask.
What should an academic watch out for before pitching?
Watch three things academics get wrong: publication embargoes, your institution's media rules, and how your name gets linked. Each one is easy to handle once you know it is there, and each can cost you a placement — or worse — if you do not.
First, embargoes. Do not comment publicly on findings that are under embargo or not yet published, and be careful discussing work that is under review. Some journals treat prior media coverage as grounds for rejection. Speak to your published work and your general expertise, not to results the world has not seen yet.
Second, your media office. Many universities ask faculty to route press inquiries through their communications team, and some appointments limit when you can speak as an institutional representative. Check your institution's policy before you pitch. In most cases you can still respond as an independent expert. Just make clear you are speaking in your own capacity, not for the university.
Third, the link itself. When a reporter names you, decide in advance where you want that link to point. A university faculty page can vanish when you change jobs; a personal hub on a domain you control does not. For building a durable expert identity, ask that your name link to your own site, and describe yourself the same way every time — same name, same title, same field. Consistency is what makes the mentions add up.
How do you stop the query emails from burying your inbox?
Set up one Gmail filter that catches every query email by sender domain, labels it, and keeps it out of spam. This way the digests arrive in a tidy stack you skim once a day instead of scattered through your inbox. Because these are free tools, most of them arrive as daily bulk email, which is exactly what a filter is built to tame.
Start with a single catch-all filter. In Gmail, click the filter icon in the search bar ("Show search options"), put this in the From field, and click Create filter:
from:(helpareporter.com OR featured.com OR sourceofsources.com OR qwoted.com)Then choose the actions: apply a label like Media Queries (create it in the same step), tick Never send it to Spam (bulk digests get flagged otherwise). If you want them batched, tick Skip the Inbox (Archive it) so they collect under the label. Keep the label pinned in your sidebar so you remember to read it. The exact sending address can change, so filtering by whole domain catches every message the platform sends.
Add a second, sharper filter to surface the ones you can answer. Repeat the steps, but add your beats to the Has the words field so only on-topic requests get starred:
from:(helpareporter.com OR sourceofsources.com OR qwoted.com) ("behavioral economics" OR "decision making" OR your-topic)Give that one a ★ My beats label and tick Mark it as important. Now the requests worth your time rise to the top, and the rest wait quietly under the first label.
One honest note on "AI" filtering: Gmail's filters are rule-based, not a natural-language AI filter. As of mid 2026, there is no setting where you describe in plain English which emails to catch. You match on sender and keywords, as above. Two AI features sit nearby, though. Gmail's category tabs (Primary, Promotions, Updates) are sorted by AI, which is often why these digests get buried in Promotions. Your filter overrides that. And if you have Gemini in Gmail, it can summarize a long digest or search your Media Queries label on request, but it does not build filter rules. Check your own settings, since these features change often.
Why is getting quoted worth an academic's time?
Getting quoted is worth it because each reputable mention strengthens your public record as a recognized expert. That record is what search engines and AI systems now read to decide whom to trust. When a credible outlet names you, describes your expertise, and links to your page, it adds a verifiable data point that you are who you claim to be. Do that repeatedly across outlets, and you build a consistent, corroborated identity across the web.
This is the core of Entity Engineering: the web does not rank a person it cannot confirm exists. A cluster of independent, editorial mentions (each naming you the same way and pointing to the same profile) is exactly the kind of evidence that makes you legible to a knowledge graph and quotable by an AI assistant. A single press hit is a nice line for your CV. A steady pattern of them is infrastructure.
For an academic, the compounding effect is the real prize. The citations feed your authority, the authority earns you more requests, and the requests earn more citations. That loop is why getting quoted is not vanity. It is the groundwork for how you get found.
Which platform should you start with, and how?
Start free, and start this week. Sign up for Source of Sources and HARO first (both FREE) and add Qwoted's free tier for a shot at higher-profile outlets. If your work is scientific, add SciLine too. Pay for Qwoted's $149 Pro plan only once the requests you are seeing justify 35 pitches a month, not before. That kind of volume is for PR professionals.
A simple week-one routine turns those accounts into placements. On day one, create your profiles and write two reusable building blocks: a 60-word expert bio and two credential lines you can paste into any pitch. Set up the Gmail filters above so the digests do not bury your inbox. Then, each morning, skim the label once, reply to only the one or two requests that land squarely in your expertise, and keep every reply under 200 words and same-day.
Track what happens in a plain list: pitches sent, replies received, placements landed. After two or three weeks you will know your hit rate and whether a paid tier is worth it. The academics who win at this are not the most famous ones. They are the consistent ones who answer fast, write clearly, and show up every week.
Sources: HARO, "About" (helpareporter.com/about, stating "HARO is operated by Featured," plus the platform model, verification features, and free access); Cision, "Connectively has been discontinued" (discontinuation date December 9, 2024); PR Newswire, "Featured.com Acquires Help A Reporter Out (HARO) from Cision" (acquisition; Cision had owned HARO since 2014); Source of Sources, sourceofsources.com (Peter Shankman; free; up to three emails daily); Qwoted, qwoted.com pricing (Basic free with 2 pitches, Pro $149 with 35 pitches, Teams custom); SciLine, sciline.org (free expert-quote service for scientists and journalists); additional platforms per BuzzStream's 2026 HARO-alternatives roundup (SourceBottle, Help a B2B Writer, Featured, ProfNet, social-media requests). All pages checked September 8, 2026.
Quantum Quill Digital helps personal brands, SMBs and marketing teams build entity-first visibility across search and AI. Authority, engineered.