Reading · The Assignment Desk, by Jill Schildhouse

Hello, everyone! I’m back from my fabulous cruise around Iceland, Greenland, Canada and New York and I brought a nasty cold home with me … it’s not my favorite souvenir, but here we are. If you have any tips on how to unclog your ears after a long flight with a head cold, let me know … I can’t hear a thing and feel like I live underwater now. Chewing gum, yawning, hot steamy showers … nothing has worked yet.

One of the questions I get asked most during my PR consulting sessions is, “What tools do you actually recommend?”

So today I’m introducing The Resource Desk—a permanent feature in The Assignment Desk where I’ll highlight platforms, AI tools, services, and other resources that can genuinely help journalists, publicists, freelancers, marketers, brands, and creators work smarter.

The companies below are Founding Resource Partners helping support this newsletter. They aren’t here because they bought a generic ad—they’re here because I believe they offer something useful to this audience, I’ve tested/vetted them personally, and I’ve received great feedback about them from many of you.

If you’d like your relevant brand featured in a future issue, just reply to this email. A limited number of Resource Partner spots are available.

I’ve tested a lot of media databases over the years, and Medialyst is one of the few that genuinely approaches media relations differently. Instead of assigning journalists to broad beats, it actually analyzes what they’ve been writing lately. When I tested it, it suggested PR people should pitch me for a solo cruise story—not just “travel.” That’s exactly the level of specificity PR pros have been asking for.

Simply describe your story idea, and Medialyst recommends journalists likely to care, complete with contact information and AI-generated pitch angles based on their recent coverage.

➡️ Get your first media list FREE (no credit card required): https://medialyst.ai/jill

Still bouncing between HARO, Featured, LinkedIn, Reddit, X, and half a dozen other places looking for media opportunities? Newshook brings journalist requests from 12+ platforms into one searchable feed, then uses AI to surface the opportunities that actually match your expertise.

Instead of spending your day hunting for requests, you can spend it responding to the ones that matter. Since launching, Newshook has generated more than 476,000 journalist matches.

➡️ Try it free for 3 days (no credit card required): https://newshook.io

If you’ve ever struggled to coordinate product samples, press kits, affiliate links, and media outreach across multiple systems, Press Hook was built to simplify that process.

The platform connects journalists with thousands of media-ready consumer brands while helping founders and publicists manage product discovery, sampling, and modern digital press kits—all in one place. It’s a smarter, more streamlined approach to lifestyle PR that saves time on both sides of the inbox.

➡️ Learn more: https://www.presshook.com/

Podcast interviews continue to be one of the most underutilized earned media opportunities, but researching relevant shows can take hours.

PodPitch searches more than 3.8 million podcasts, identifies the shows most relevant to your expertise, then helps draft personalized outreach and follow-up emails in your own voice. Whether you’re pitching clients or yourself, it dramatically cuts down the time spent building podcast media lists.

➡️ Book a demo: https://www.podpitch.com/

Read on to discover my latest assignments and story links.

Have a great rest of your week,

Jill

PS: If you haven’t yet taken the time to follow me on Yahoo, I’d REALLY appreciate the support … plus, it’ll give you a better idea of the types of stories you can pitch for! 👉 Follow me on Yahoo here: https://creators.yahoo.com/brands/jill-schildhouse/. And then send me some pitches!

PS: Always looking for pitches for my Forbes stories, too. I cover all things travel here.

Introducing The Resource Desk: 4 PR Tools Worth Bookmarking

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