Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is an

online service An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, ...

for

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

s to obtain feedback from the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

. It enables journalists to connect with

expert An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field or area of study. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized ...

s in issues relevant to their reporting.

History

HARO was founded as a

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

group in 2008 by Peter Shankman and was later turned into a mailing list claiming over 800,000 sources and 55,000 journalists and bloggers. In June 2010, HARO was acquired by Vocus, Inc. In 2014, Vocus merged wit
Cision Inc.
ref name="Cision" /> and HARO was one of Cision's brands until it was retired in 2024. The service previously known as HARO continued on through most of 2024 under Cision's Connectively brand. On November 8, 2024, Cision emailed users "that as of December 9, 2024, the Connectively platform – formerly known as HARO - will be permanently discontinued. ... This decision has been made so that we can concentrate our efforts on enhancing our core offering, CisionOne, where we see significant opportunities to accelerate innovation and deliver more impactful tools for PR and communications professionals." On April 15, 2025, Cision announced that it was selling the HARO platform to Featured.com. On April 16, Featured announced that it was reviving the HARO service, with backing by a group of investors, including Great North Ventures . In an email to former users that same day, Featured.com indicated that HARO's website had been relaunched and that users would start receiving emails on April 22, 2025.

References

External links

* Online journalism Online companies of the United States 2010 mergers and acquisitions Internet properties established in 2008 {{news-website-stub