Case Study: Knight Foundation achieves targeted media outreach and major national coverage with Muck Rack

The national foundation bolstering journalism leans on Muck Rack for building targeted media lists

Knight Foundation, a national funder that supports journalism, the arts, and informed communities, needed a more precise and efficient way to reach reporters for initiatives like its Gallup free speech report and niche research on online communities. Existing tools returned broad or irrelevant lists and required tedious one-by-one emails, making it hard to find journalists who actually write on the beats Knight needed.

By using Muck Rack’s journalist search, Topics feature, and in‑platform pitching, Knight Foundation built highly targeted media lists, sent personalized pitches at scale, and tracked opens to prioritize follow-up. The campaign achieved about a 50% open rate on a 300-person outreach, earned coverage in more than 50 outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post, saved substantial staff time, and produced reusable reporter lists for future stories.

Knight Foundation

Anusha Alikhan

Director of Communications