Who newsjack is for#
Founders doing PR without an agency
Newsjack covers the full cycle: scan the news for angles you have standing on, draft the pitch, fact-check the claims, identify the right journalist, and get a cold read on newsworthiness before sending. The /pr-strategist skill provides an opinionated walkthrough for founders who are not PR-fluent: audience first, positioning second, news pegs third.
Skip if:
You already have a PR agency or a dedicated communications staff member. Newsjack's value is giving one person the throughput of a team; if you have the team, you need a collaboration layer, not more skills for one agent.
PR agencies running more accounts than their team can handle
The monitoring, triage, and output skills run per-account: each client gets its own profile (company standing, spokespeople, beat topics), and the agent routes stories and drafts angles against that profile. /same-outlet-ranker prevents the agency mistake of spraying the same masthead for multiple clients on the same story.
Skip if:
You are a solo practitioner with two or three clients. The setup complexity of per-account profiles may exceed the time savings at that scale.
Marketers measuring and building AI answer visibility
The AI visibility lane covers auditing, panel design, and evidence-preserving copy revision. /build-ai-visibility-panel turns a company URL and description into a versioned prompt tracking panel. /ai-visibility-writing revises supplied copy so AI answers can cite it, covering Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) without paid tooling.
Skip if:
You have no public-facing content and no brand presence yet. The visibility skills measure and improve existing signal; there is nothing to measure if you have no indexed pages.
The problem it solves#
Running PR without agency support means stitching together Google Alerts, spreadsheets, manual news searches, pitch templates, and guesswork about whether a reporter will care. Each piece is a separate tab, a separate login, and a separate mental context switch. The workflow breaks down under time pressure: newsjacking windows close in hours, and by the time you have assembled the signal, drafted the angle, verified the claims, and found the right journalist, the story has moved on.
For agencies and founders doing their own PR, the harder problem is repeatability. A good PR person carries a framework in their head. When that person leaves, or when you need to scale the work across more accounts, the framework does not transfer. Commercial PR tools are priced for teams with dedicated media relations staff, not for a founder running PR part-time or a small marketing team stretched across a dozen functions.
How it solves it#
Newsjacking detector with standing validation
The /newsjack-detector skill finds fresh news stories you have the credibility to comment on before the coverage window closes. It runs against your monitoring profile (configured once with /newsjack-monitor-setup) with optional Slack delivery of finished reports. A /newsjack-triage step routes surviving stories by whether you actually have standing: pitch now, watch, or flag as big news.
30+ named skills across four lanes
Skills cover Detect (news monitoring, triage), Act (angle generation, pitching, editing, journalist targeting), Strategize (story framing, calendar, newsworthiness), and AI visibility (AEO/GEO auditing and panel design). Invoke a skill by name (/angle-generator, /fact-check) or describe what you want and the agent picks the right one.
Journalist fit-check and outlet ranker
The /journalist-fit-check skill evaluates whether a specific reporter will care about a pitch based on their beat coverage. The /same-outlet-ranker prevents spray-the-masthead mistakes by ranking colleagues at one publication and identifying the single best fit. The /find-journalists skill builds a fit-checked media list, optionally through Medialyst's approval-gated research workflow.
AI visibility auditing and panel design
The /build-ai-visibility-panel skill turns any public URL into an evidence-bound prompt list across intent, journey, proximity, aided status, roles, locales, and tracking partitions. The /ai-visibility-writing skill audits or revises copy so AI answers can cite it, without inventing evidence or promising rankings. The panel-design skill produces a versioned tracking panel gated on a human reviewer.
Voice extractor to remove AI tells
The /voice-extractor skill fingerprints your real writing patterns from existing copy and applies them to agent-generated content to remove the tells that mark text as AI-written. It requires a local agent (Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, or OpenClaw) because it saves the fingerprint between sessions; chat-only agents run a one-shot pass with nothing saved.
Crisis holding with legal-counsel gate
The /crisis-holding skill generates holding statements, journalist Q&A posture guidance, and a list of what not to say when a story goes negative. A hard legal-counsel gate is built into the skill, flagging claims that should go to counsel before publication. Available on Claude.ai, Cowork, and all local agent environments.
Strengths and trade-offs#
Strengths
- MIT license with no subscriptionThe entire skill library and CLI are MIT licensed, so you can run them on your own infrastructure, fork and modify the skills, and use them commercially without paying a per-seat or per-use fee. Unlike proprietary PR platforms that bundle access behind a subscription, Newsjack's ongoing cost is what you already pay for your agent and hosting.
- Runs where your agent runsSkills are plain Markdown files, not a plugin locked to one platform. Most of the 30+ capabilities run out of the box on Claude.ai, Cowork, ChatGPT Work, Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, and OpenClaw. The compatibility matrix in the README shows exactly which skills are full, limited, or external-connection-required on each platform, with no hidden gaps.
- Auto-updates from GitHub ReleasesCurl-installed Newsjack checks for a new GitHub Release before each CLI invocation and updates itself automatically. Teams always run the latest skill versions without a manual update step. Set NEWSJACK_AUTO_UPDATE=0 to disable if you need a pinned version for reproducible runs.
- Skills are plain text, fork and modify freelyEach skill is a plain-text instruction file your agent reads. You can inspect what any skill does, modify it for your company's tone or approval process, or write new ones using the same format. A closed PR automation tool gives you no visibility into the prompts it runs; Newsjack gives you the full source.
Trade-offs
- -Full capabilities require a local agentChat-based agents (Claude.ai, ChatGPT) run most skills but in limited mode: no stored voice fingerprint, no saved monitoring profile, no scheduled coverage tracking, no persistent state between sessions. The two setup skills (newsjack-monitor-setup, coverage-tracker-setup) and press-clip require Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, or OpenClaw running locally. Teams using only browser-based chat get a meaningfully reduced experience.
- -Journalist enrichment requires a Medialyst accountSkills that need a live journalist database (/find-journalists, story-origin-check, news-search in some environments) reach the Medialyst API. A free Medialyst account unlocks them, but it is an extra sign-up and OAuth step. Teams that need a fully self-contained toolkit will find a gap here compared to Muck Rack or Cision, which bundle their media database into the product.
newsjack vs alternatives#
Newsjack vs Muck Rack
Both cover PR monitoring and journalist targeting, but they are built for different operating models. Muck Rack is a proprietary product with a journalist database, media monitoring, and pitch tracking built into a subscription. Newsjack is an open-source skill library that adds PR capabilities to an AI agent you already use.
| Feature | Newsjack | Muck Rack |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | Yes (no server required) | No |
| Journalist database | Via Medialyst (free tier) | Included |
| Media monitoring | Via skills and agent | Built-in dashboard |
| Angle generation | Yes (/angle-generator) | No |
| Fact-checking | Yes (/fact-check) | No |
Newsjack is the better choice when you need agent-native PR capabilities, want to read and modify your own prompt workflows, or cannot justify a Muck Rack subscription for the volume of media work you do. Muck Rack is the stronger choice when you need a journalist database out of the box, a team-shared monitoring dashboard, and formal pitch tracking.
Newsjack vs Cision
Cision is an enterprise PR product covering media monitoring, press release distribution, journalist intelligence, and reporting, built for agencies and corporate communications teams with dedicated media relations staff.
| Feature | Newsjack | Cision |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | Yes | No |
| Press release distribution | No | Yes |
| Agent-native skills | Yes | No |
| AI visibility (AEO/GEO) | Yes | No |
| Pricing | Free (MIT) | Enterprise subscription |
Newsjack covers drafting, research, and targeting skills that Cision does not include. Cision covers press release wire distribution and brand monitoring at enterprise scale, which Newsjack does not. For a small company, Newsjack plus a free Medialyst account covers most of the day-to-day PR workflow; Cision is worth considering when press release distribution and enterprise-scale monitoring are requirements.
Quick start#
Install Newsjack via curl on macOS or Linux, or use npm for a cross-platform setup.
```bash
curl -fsSL newsjack.sh | bash
npm i -g newsjack@latest
```What it's built on#
- Languages
- GoJavaScriptPythonTypeScript
- Frameworks
- Next.jsReact
FAQ#
Is Newsjack free to use?
Yes. The entire skill library and CLI are MIT licensed and free to run. A free Medialyst account unlocks the skills that need a journalist database or live news index; a paid Medialyst tier is only needed if you exceed the free tier's limits. You do not need any paid account to use the majority of Newsjack's 30+ skills.
Which AI agents does Newsjack support?
Newsjack runs on Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, and OpenClaw (local agents with full capabilities), Claude.ai and Cowork (via the Newsjack plugin, most skills), ChatGPT Work (via Skills beta, most skills), and ChatGPT consumer accounts (limited mode, no persistent state). Local agents get the full toolkit including scheduled monitoring and the press-clip skill.
What is newsjacking, and how does the /newsjack-detector skill work?
Newsjacking is the practice of inserting a brand or spokesperson into a breaking news story before the coverage window closes. The /newsjack-detector skill scans for fresh stories relevant to your topics and competitors, then checks whether you have credible standing to comment. It filters results through /relevance-coarse-filter and /newsjack-triage before surfacing them as actionable opportunities, with optional Slack delivery.
Do I need a Medialyst account to use Newsjack?
No. Most of the 30+ skills run without any external account. A free Medialyst account unlocks the skills that reach a live news index or journalist database: /news-search (in some environments), /find-journalists, /story-origin-check, and /pr-calendar. The monitoring and newsjacking skills work best with it connected, but many skills run without it.
Can Newsjack replace a PR agency for a small team?
For the specific tasks it covers (monitoring, angle generation, pitching, journalist targeting, fact-checking), Newsjack covers the work of a PR function without requiring agency fees. It does not address strategic positioning, media relationship building, or crisis management beyond holding statement drafts (which include a legal-counsel gate). Teams doing high-volume outreach or running accounts with active media relationships will still benefit from a dedicated PR person; Newsjack handles the structured, repeatable work that person would otherwise do.
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