In an industry built on agility, speed, and client demands, the line between ambition and exhaustion can be razor-thin. For PR and communications professionals, being constantly "on" has long been framed as a marker of success. But a growing discourse is pushing back, advocating for a shift from toxic hustle to an intentional and sustainable "healthy" hustle, with the focus on clarity, energy, and systems that enable professionals to thrive without burning out.
Telum Media spoke with Rebecca Jarvie-Gibbs, Co-Founder and COO of Example, on what it means to reject performative busyness and embrace balance as a badge of honour. Rebecca recently launched her own podcast, Fine Form, which explores the realities of hustle culture and shares candid insights from her journey through burnout and recovery.
From redefining productivity and reducing friction to modelling sustainable leadership, her reflections provide a roadmap for PR and comms professionals eager to reclaim personal time, protect their energy, and pursue success on their own terms.
What did your own experience with overwork teach you, and when did you first start rethinking what success should look like?
I believe work often reflects what we haven't yet resolved in ourselves. When you're unclear about who you are, the job quickly steps in to define it - offering validation, identity, a sense of worth. That's when ambition shifts.
Instead of being yours to guide you forward, it becomes tethered to external markers - titles, client counts, or how busy you look. On the surface, it may appear impressive, but inside it feels very different.
My turning point came when full-blown burnout collided with the birth of my son - I felt utterly trapped in a cage of my own making. From a dark and uncertain place, I began to rebuild by doing two things. First, I got really clear on how I wanted my work to feel, not just how it looked. And second, I confronted the toxic behaviours I'd adopted around work and made big changes in how I showed up for myself each day.
You've spoken about rejecting toxic hustle. How would you define a "healthy hustle," and what might that balance look like for someone working in PR?
For me, it all comes down to energy - something either gives it to you or takes it away. I still believe in hard work; building a career or life you want takes discipline and focus. But there's a difference between feeling tired yet satisfied, and feeling constantly tired and empty. One feels like effort with momentum, the other feels like effort slammed up against a wall.
My idea of balance may not be the same as someone else's, but the key is clarity. As you move through a period of work, ask yourself: is this exciting me, expanding me, or just exhausting me? A simple way to check is by keeping a "drain vs gain" tracker for a week. If something consistently drains you, it's probably a good time to stop chasing it.
I also think of work in terms of spikes and stretches. There are spikes of intensity - a big pitch, launch, or campaign - that can be energising and exhilarating. But they have to be balanced with stretches of recovery, reflection and recalibration. When the spikes start to feel like the rule instead of the exception, that's when burnout creeps in.
Ultimately, I believe that a healthy hustle is rooted in what I like to call 'professional resonance' - when your ambition is grounded in clear values and sustained by simple, energising habits.
When you look at the PR and communications industry today, do you see a shift in working styles - particularly with younger professionals prioritising wellness, balance, and flexibility - or are we still a long way from breaking free of hustle culture?
I think a lot of people talk about wellness and balance, but don't really know what that actually looks like in practice. And so without realising it, they build habits that actively prevent those things from happening and allow huge amounts of friction into their day - unclear priorities, reactive communication, SO many meetings - and wonder why they feel overwhelmed.
I then see it play out in two main ways. On one side, people disconnect completely. They play it safe, avoid pushing themselves, and end up struggling with a lack of purpose. On the other, they fall into martyrdom, become addicted to the stress and exhaustion and justify doing a lot as if it's the only way to succeed. I've been there, and it's a dangerous place to stay.
For me, the real shift comes when you take ownership of the friction. Burnout doesn’t just "happen" to us - it's the accumulation of habits and systems that we tolerate. Without clarity on how you're working and what you're working toward, it's easy to get swept into a cycle where busyness replaces progress, and wellness remains a buzz word rather than a lived practice.
PR often rewards being busy - but busyness doesn’t always equal progress. How do you personally tell the difference, and what habits or approaches have helped you shift towards real productivity?
I think PR actually rewards agility and creativity, but too often people conflate that with being busy and stretched. One of the great things about our industry is the speed at which you can influence news and culture, and the energy that comes from delivering impactful work and building strong relationships. But you can't be agile when your diary is crammed with back-to-back meetings, and you can't be creative when you're stuck in a perpetual loop of clearing your inbox.
For me, the two biggest habit shifts came down to reducing friction and changing how I communicate. Reducing friction means designing your day so fewer things feel unnecessarily hard - cutting out recurring stress points like clunky processes, mismatched meeting rhythms and unrealistic schedules.
Changing communication meant breaking the cycle of urgency and reactivity. For years, I thought being constantly available and instantly responsive was proof of competence. In reality, it kept me in a constant state of distraction. Now, I don't reply to emails on my phone and I avoid responding in the heat of the moment - because rushed replies made in a heightened state are almost always the ones I regret.
As an agency leader yourself, how do you put these ideas into practice within your own team? And what lessons could other senior leaders take from your approach to building a productive but sustainable culture?
First and foremost, I live it. There's no point talking about balance if you’re still leading from a place of urgency. Panic breeds panic. If you show up constantly spinning plates and stretched thin, the team will think that's what leadership looks like.
It is absolutely crazy to me now that I once thought being a busy leader with a crammed diary and no time to think was inspiring. In reality, it only modelled unsustainable behaviour.
I also used to take on my team's stress, going into overdrive to solve their problems or take work off them. Of course, some things are mine to manage - the resourcing we have, the clients we work with, the timelines we commit to. But how someone chooses to work is ultimately on them. Being clear on what sits in their control and what doesn't has been an important shift.
Ultimately as a leader, you set the tone, so if you remove constant friction, protect energy and model alignment, you give your team permission to do the same.
You might also enjoy
.jpg)
Every few years, someone declares the death of the media release.
Today, the arguments sound familiar. Journalists don't read them anymore. Everything is social-first. AI is replacing traditional media outreach. It's all about the pitch. Press releases are becoming little more than AI-generated filler.
And yet, when we speak with journalists across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, a different picture emerges.
Media releases aren't dead, but expectations around them have changed significantly.
We've analysed more than 10,000 Journalist Interest Survey responses in the Telum Media platform collected over the past five years, alongside insights gathered from conversations with editors, reporters, and producers across the region.
Key takeaways:
- Journalists still value useful PR content
- Relevance matters more than reach
- The pitch and the release serve different roles
- The best releases reduce friction for journalists
- Modern releases need to support multiple platforms
The conclusion is clear: journalists still value media releases, but they value them for different reasons than they once did.
The media release has evolved from a distribution tool into something far more strategic.
The media release is no longer the story
For decades, many PR professionals treated the media release as the centrepiece of media relations activity.
Write the release. Send it widely. Hope for coverage - “spray and pray”.
That approach was far from perfect, but you could get away with it in an era when newsrooms were larger, competition for attention was lower, and journalists had more time to evaluate incoming information.
Today's reality is very different.
Journalists are producing content across multiple platforms, often with smaller teams and tighter deadlines. Their inboxes are flooded with pitches, announcements, thought leadership submissions, and increasingly, AI-generated content.
As a result, journalists have become far more selective about what earns their attention.
The modern media release is no longer just about news stories. It has become a source-of-truth asset, a newsroom resource, and a content hub that supports broader communications activity.
The best PR teams understand this shift.
“The strongest message from journalists can be summarised in a single phrase: ‘Understand what I cover’. Relevance remains the most important factor in successful media engagement.”
What journalists are actually rejecting
One of the most revealing findings from our analysis is that journalists are not rejecting PR content altogether.
What they're rejecting is low-value outreach.
Across thousands of responses, the same frustrations appeared repeatedly:
- Irrelevant pitches
- Generic outreach
- Mass distribution
- Weak story angles
- Excessive follow-ups
In other words, this is less a rejection of media releases and more a rejection of poor media relations practice.
The strongest message from journalists can be summarised in a single phrase:
"Understand what I cover."
Relevance remains the most important factor in successful media engagement. In fact, our journalist surveys over the past two years have seen a sharp increase in a desire for both relevance and personalisation in pitches.
Journalists increasingly assess pitches within seconds. If the connection to their beat, audience, or current priorities isn't immediately obvious, the opportunity is often lost before the email is even opened.
The pitch and the release have different jobs
One of the biggest misconceptions in modern media relations is treating the pitch and the release as the same thing.
They are not.
The pitch exists to earn attention; the release exists to support the story.
The best pitches are:
- Brief
- Human
- Relevant
- Contextual
- Conversational
The best releases are:
- Structured
- Factual
- Complete
- Reusable
- Easy to reference
At a recent Telum Media event, a senior journalist described the fastest way to kill a pitch with a single word: “Respect”. Or a lack thereof.
A generic greeting. A story unrelated to their beat. A mass-produced email that demonstrates no understanding of their audience.
All signal a lack of respect for the journalist's time and expertise.
High-performing PR teams increasingly write pitches and releases for different audiences. The pitch is written for the journalist. The release is written for the journalist's audience.
That distinction matters.
Why journalists still value media releases
Despite predictions of their demise, journalists continue to actively request media releases.
But they want releases that help them work more efficiently.
The most common requests include concise writing, clear headlines, strong news angles, supporting data (with downloadable images and assets), spokesperson access, and easy-to-use formats.
These preferences reveal the modern role of the release: it functions as a workflow tool.
A strong release helps journalists:
- Understand the story quickly
- Verify information
- Access supporting materials
- Build content efficiently
The best releases reduce friction. And in today's newsroom environment, reducing friction is often more valuable than generating hype.
Think beyond media coverage
Another major shift is that media releases are increasingly serving multiple audiences.
A modern release doesn’t just support journalists; it might also support clients and prospects, employees, investors and analysts, partners, and search visibility.
Rather than creating a single-use document, leading communications teams are building content ecosystems.
The release becomes the foundation for:
- Media outreach
- Newsroom content
- Executive communications
- Social media content
- Email campaigns
- Sales collateral
- Thought leadership activity
This approach not only improves consistency but also increases the return on investment from every announcement.
The role of the modern media release
Not every story needs a release
Perhaps one of the most important lessons is recognising when a media release is the wrong tool.
Releases tend to perform best when there is:
- Genuine news value
- Multiple stakeholder audiences
- A need for factual consistency
- Strong supporting assets
- Broader business significance
They are often less effective for internal milestones framed as major news (or self-congratulatory announcements), generic thought leadership, and untargeted mass outreach.
In some situations, a targeted pitch, LinkedIn strategy, executive commentary programme, or direct relationship-based outreach may be more effective.
Good communications strategy isn't about defaulting to a media release; it's about choosing the right tool for the objective.
A framework for modern media releases
If there is one word that captures what journalists are asking for today, it is respect.
At Telum Media, we summarise this through the RESPECT framework:
R – Relevance
Make it relevant to the journalist, their audience and the moment.
E – Efficiency
Help journalists work faster through clear, concise, and usable content.
S – Substance
Provide genuine value through expertise, data, insight, or access.
P – Personalisation
Demonstrate that you've done your homework.
E – Ecosystem
Think beyond the release and consider how it supports broader communications goals.
C – Clarity
Make the key message immediately obvious.
T – Timing
Reach out at the right time, not simply any time.
What journalists are asking for in a pitch / media release: RESPECT
The future of the media release
The debate over whether media releases are dead misses the point.
The more useful question is how do we make releases work better in today’s media environment?
Journalists still value relevant information, credible sources, strong story angles, and efficient communication. Media releases continue to play an important role in delivering those things.
But success today depends less on the existence of the release itself and more on how strategically it is used.
The media release remains a valuable communications tool.
Just not in the way many of us were taught to use it.
FAQs
Are media releases still useful in 2026?
Yes. Journalists still value media releases, but these days want targeted outreach, relevance to their beat, alignment with their audience, and contextual pitching.
What makes a media release useful to journalists?
Journalists are looking for releases in a format that helps them work efficiently. Which means releases that are concise, factual, with a clear angle, contain usable quotes, and come with downloadable assets and supporting data.
What is the difference between a pitch and a media release?
A pitch earns the journalist’s attention in their cluttered Inbox. A media release supports the story by providing structured, factual, and reusable information relevant to their audience.
With more than 30 years’ experience spanning journalism, corporate communications and media intelligence, Reuben Aitchison is Telum Media’s Head of Insights and Communications.
Explore Telum Media tools that help PR teams pitch with precision.
.jpg)