AI has made it easier than ever to write a press release, and harder than ever to get one read. Newsrooms are smaller, deadlines are tighter, and journalist inboxes are filling with a tsunami of LLM-written pitches that sound polished but say nothing.
This week, journalists from the Financial Times, Bloomberg, NY Times, Reuters, The Economist, CNN Fortune and many more leading media sit down with business school communicators at BlueSky Media Connect in London. They don’t need more stories, they need fewer, better ones from people they can trust.
The numbers make sober reading. Cision’s 2026 State of the Media report, a survey of almost 1,900 journalists, found that 72% say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant to them. Over half (53%) object to AI-generated pitches, mainly because of accuracy and the lack of a personal touch. Nearly half point to shrinking budgets, staff cuts and heavier workloads as their biggest obstacle. And what do they rank as their single biggest challenge? Accuracy, fact-checking and fighting misinformation.
Muck Rack’s State of Journalism 2026 report tells a similar story. 88% of journalists delete pitches that miss their beat. What they value most is a clear link to the stories they cover, access to relevant sources, and original research or data.
Journalists are short of time, and short of people they can trust. That is exactly where business schools come in.
Looking beyond whatever Taylor Swift is “hiding in plain sight” or the return to the UK of Harry and Megan, for many of the the stories in the news there is a business school academic who has researched the subject for years. Mortgage rates, oil prices, AI and the job market, or falling fashion sales in China as luxury demand cools.
They can even weigh in with real insight on sports news about Manchester City and inflated revenues, and say something worthwhile about whether you should bring an iced coffee to a job interview.
Business and the economy. Tariffs are being cut, reimposed and renegotiated. Political leaders are promising growth within tight fiscal rules. Economists, finance professors and strategy scholars can explain what this means for companies and households, rather than simply reacting to it.
AI and technology. Every day brings another product launch and another claim about AI changing everything. Business school researchers study how companies actually adopt technology, what it does to productivity and jobs, and where the hype runs ahead of the evidence. That kind of independent view is rare, and increasingly valuable.
Climate and sustainability. Another summer of heatwaves and drought pushed climate up the news agenda. The story is no longer only about science. It is about energy bills, supply chains, insurance, finance and how companies turn net zero pledges into action. That is business school territory.
Work and careers. AI is reshaping entry-level jobs, offices are still arguing about hybrid working, and employers say skills matter more than degrees. Business schools see these shifts from both sides, through their research and through the employers who hire their graduates.
Then there are the students and alumni. Founders building start-ups, executives leading change inside large companies, career-changers testing what an MBA or Masters is worth. Journalists are always looking for real people who bring a trend to life, and business schools have thousands of them.
At the Brussels Media Connect conference in June, and at the first London edition last year, which together brought together more than 90 business schools and over 50 journalists, the message from the media was strikingly consistent.
They are overwhelmed by AI-generated press releases that say very little. And they are wary of self-styled experts who are better at promoting themselves on LinkedIn than at knowing their subject. It is no accident that social media influencers came bottom of the latest Ipsos Veracity Index, trusted to tell the truth by just 6% of the British public.
What journalists want is simple. They want an expert who knows the research, speaks in plain language, and is available to bring depth and credibility to a story. They want original data, not a survey dressed up as news. And they want comms teams who understand their beat before they hit send.
Orianna Rosa Royle, Editor of Fortune Success was a former inbox-zero person, but shared at the London Media Connect conference that she had just hit 80,000 unread emails. “I check my emails daily, but the flood never stops. I get roughly one email per minute.”
Again and again, journalists said they welcome business schools as sources, because the expertise is real, independent and backed by evidence.
The opportunity is there, but it isn’t automatic. The schools that do best with the media share a few habits.
Lead with the insight, not the institution. Journalists care about what the research found and why it matters to their readers. The name of the school comes later.
Make experts easy to understand. Media training and a short list of experts on topical issues make all the difference.
Know the journalist. A reporter covering energy markets for Reuters needs something quite different from a careers writer at Forbes. A tailored note to the right person beats a press release sent to a thousand.
Think long term. The best media relationships are built over years, not single stories. A school that becomes a trusted source on one subject will be called again and again.
Over two days in London, journalists across climate, business, higher education, work and careers, and AI and technology will share what they need, what they ignore, and how schools can work with them better.
Business schools have never had more to offer the news, and journalists have rarely needed it more.
Considered one of the foremost experts in business and higher education, Matt has co-founded some of the most respected and successful business school and university initiatives and media companies of the last 25 years.
He launched BlueSky Education after co-founding and directing QS Quacquarelli Symonds (the S of QS), publishers of the QS World University Rankings and organisers of global MBA, Masters and undergraduate events. Responsible for many of the global media partnerships with Bloomberg, CNN and leading national publications across North America, Europe and Asia it was then a natural next step to build an internationally-focused communications and consulting agency dedicated to business and higher education.