Introduction
Muck Rack aggregates information about people and organizations producing news and other relevant content around the world. We provide free tools that help journalists show and qualify the impact of their work, analyze news and trends, discover industry peers and grow in their careers. We also curate a maintained database of profiles to provide a platform that helps media professionals conduct better research and more thoughtful outreach.
Below you’ll find more information about profile pages, how they’re created, which profiles are included in our maintained database, and our requirements for verified profiles.
What is a Muck Rack profile?
A profile is a page on Muck Rack dedicated to providing the most up-to-date publicly available information about a person or organization producing news and other content. Muck Rack profiles are created and maintained through a series of automatic processes, manually by our team of experts, and directly by people who have claimed their profiles.
A Muck Rack profile may exist for a person or organization even if they did not create it. For example, our technology creates a new profile when we detect that the author of an article does not already have a Muck Rack profile.
Have more questions about profiles on Muck Rack? Visit our journalist help center.
How do I claim a profile created for me?
If you find that Muck Rack has created a profile for you, we encourage you to claim and customize it. Claiming your profile is completely free and it gives you control over what information exists on Muck Rack.
To claim your existing Muck Rack profile, create a Muck Rack account and link your X (Twitter) handle and/or email address.
For security purposes, you may be asked to provide information about your current and past employment, verify you have access to a separate social media account or share additional information during the profile claiming process. Learn more about claiming your profile.
Organizations cannot claim profiles for media outlets or their journalists, but they can request edits.
About profiles maintained by Muck Rack
While anyone is able to create a new or claim an existing profile, our Editorial team (of real humans) curates profiles to be included in Muck Rack’s maintained database of journalists and media organizations. Profiles included in Muck Rack’s maintained database represent those that are responsible for the consistent production and/or distribution of newsworthy content. These profiles can also be automatically updated by our technology and will be maintained by our team of experts.
Muck Rack’s Editorial team verifies select people among those listed in the maintained database. The green verified badge on a profile signifies that a person or media outlet meets Muck Rack’s verification criteria. It does not imply an endorsement by Muck Rack.
Verified people on Muck Rack receive free access to our suite of tools for journalists including unlimited access to our news search engine, alerts for monitoring news, and the Who Shared and Trends tools.
Verification is frequently reviewed, can be removed if a profile no longer meets our criteria and is always at the discretion of Muck Rack’s team of experts. We may update these criteria from time to time in order to support our goal of helping journalists and public relations professionals communicate effectively.
Verification criteria for people
The following criteria apply to people producing print, digital, photo, video, audio or other multimedia content. All criteria must be met to obtain verification:
- You clearly and primarily identify as a full-time journalist, producer or freelancer.
- You are employed by an organization that meets Muck Rack’s verification criteria for organizations.
- You engage in journalism, defined by the American Press Institute as the process of “gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information” at an organization verified by Muck Rack.
While any of the following may be listed on Muck Rack, we do not verify profiles/provide checkmarks for part-time journalists, non-news multimedia producers, research analysts, business executives, interns, fellows, researchers, fact-checkers, undergrads, journalism students, librarians, non-practicing professors, instructors, academics, independent bloggers or newsletter writers, non-news podcasters, public relations or marketing professionals, media consultants, salespeople, or anyone appearing to be largely producing A.I. generated content.
To request verification
To support your request for verification, we may ask you to provide examples of professional, journalistic work you’ve produced or been credited in within the past 30 days.
- Self-published work or content produced for unverified outlets can be added to Muck Rack profiles, but is not considered in a request for verification.
- If you'd like to be listed as a contributor at a particular outlet, evidence of consistent contributions over the past three months must be available. Proof via long-term contracts or relationships can help further legitimize your standing in our verification process.
If your verification request is denied, feel free to submit a new request after 30 days.
If your profile doesn't meet our verification criteria, there are other ways to let people know it's authentic. For example, you can link to it from your website or social networks.
Verification criteria for organizations
The following criteria applies to organizations producing print, digital, photo, video, audio or other multimedia content. All criteria must be met to obtain verification:
- Recent or consistent publication of original and accurate content
- Content that follows journalistic ethics and professional journalism standards
- Content that is editorial-led as opposed to press releases, aggregation, advertorial, or A.I. generated
- Independently verifiable people responsible for creating and/or managing content
- Clearly labeled advertising and branded content (or lack thereof)
- Disclosure of ownership and financing and general transparency
By default, we do not verify media/publishing companies, research companies, think tanks, independently produced blogs/podcasts/web shows, press-release distribution services, financial news services, vanity publications, shopping sites, marketing ploys, corporate/university newsrooms, company blogs or podcasts, “pay-for-play” operations, conspiracy sites, automated story generation or “pink slime”, media produced by political groups, or news aggregators.
