# The Publications That Matter to Your Audience Might Not Have a Dot-Com: Featured CEO Brett Farmiloe on cogcast

- Show: cogcast
- Guest: Brett Farmiloe
- Published: March 6, 2026


Brett Farmiloe, founder and CEO of Featured and owner of HARO, joined Larissa Padden on Cognito Media's cogcast to argue that AI has raised the quality bar for every pitch and that media influence is moving from publications to people, with journalists now running businesses of their own.

## Listen

- [Apple](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brett-farmiloe-the-media-matchmaker-who-says-ai-will/id1540281196?i=1000754395025)
- [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1uIhLwvXU1TezjdMM24J5k)
- [Cogcast](https://www.cognitomedia.com/brett-farmiloe-why-the-publications-that-matter-to-your-audience-might-not-have-a-dot-com/)

## Key takeaways

- AI has set a new quality threshold for pitches. A submission now has to go above and beyond what a current model like ChatGPT can generate on its own, which is why HARO scores every pitch for AI authorship and surfaces the score to journalists.
- Journalists are now entrepreneurs. When Farmiloe asks journalists how many sources of income they have, they hold up two hands and eight fingers: five clients, a Substack, consultations, and a course or book, which is why a pitch has to respect their time.
- The publications that matter to your audience might not have a dot-com. Media influence is fragmenting toward personal brands and independent newsletters, and those brands are people.
- HARO subscribers get upwards of 20 journalist requests three times a day. The service has connected sources with reporters since 2008, and the HARO acronym (Helpful, Authentic, Relevant, On time) describes what journalists select for.

> “AI has set a new quality threshold. You have to go above and beyond what ChatGPT can generate independently.”
>
> — Brett Farmiloe · Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Featured

Source: https://featured.com/press/podcast/cogcast-media-matchmaker (episode notes and full transcript).

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Brett Farmiloe · Founder & CEO, Featured · CEO, HARO & Connectively · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettfarmiloe/) · [X](https://x.com/brettfarmiloe)
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