Bridge or Burn? Deciding Whether to Seek Digital PR Coverage in Opposing Outlets

by James Roach
9 min read

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, a number of companies and organisations have exited the platform – and not just because he changed the name to X. In the main, it’s been driven by concerns over the channel’s propagation of far-right conspiracy theories and racism.

This misalignment between the political leanings of platforms and brands got me thinking about how this might be affecting the Digital PR industry. Is a link from the Daily Mail (even though it has a Domain Rating of 92) something to shout about? How about GBN (Domain Rating 73)? 

Here, I’ll weigh up whether it’s worth brands putting aside their values for the sake of authoritative backlinks or not.

Moral vs Commercial

Not to oversimplify the process, but Digital PR seeks to gain links from websites online (usually journalistic and editorial in nature). The usual definition of success is gaining as many follow links from as many relevant websites with as high a Domain Rating (DR) as possible. 

However, though some of these sites could be useful to a brand from a commercial perspective (with more links boosting organic search results, etc), they may also sit at the opposite of a moral or political spectrum. 

This leaves brands with a decision to make: 

  • Do we actively seek to be featured on a website that could bring us commercial value, even if our values and views are not aligned? 

For ethically out-there brands that champion certain causes, it can be clear cut. For others, not so much. 

I mean…

  • What if your target audience is an avid reader of a publication your company does not ‘agree’ with? 
  • Should the decision be based on the company’s overall viewpoint or an individual within it?
  • Who even is totally clear on what their company’s political leanings are anyway?

How should agencies tackle it with clients?

From my experience, we would always ask the client:

  • What are your dream publications to be featured in? 

And

  • What publications do you not want to be featured in?

Fast forward to 2025, I think it’s prudent to be specific and ask: 

  • Are there any publications that do not align with your company values or political leanings that we should not approach?

The obvious downside is that a client may limit your available outreach opportunities. This will undoubtedly impact the reach and performance of your campaign. So this also needs to be addressed and realigned, with expectations appropriately managed.

However, it’s no different to when a client might take ownership of all top tier publication outreach, whilst also expecting you to deliver top tier placements, but you have none left to reach out to.

Shannon McGuirk, Digital PR director at Re:Signal says:

“You have to have an open conversation about KPIs and link/coverage volume metrics – they come hand in hand.

The sites we’re talking about not going to can often kick start an extra pick up, or a mini-coverage wave of syndicated links and so you’re risking that coverage not being attainable as a result”.

Should agencies have a stance?

We’ve spoken about brands having a stance on where they want to be featured, but how about agencies? We’re real people with morals and values too; what if we don’t want to outreach or collaborate with certain publications for the same reasons?

First and foremost, if an agency is going to take a stance like this, they need to be aware of the business impact.

Stephen Kenwright, Director of Strategy and Digital Marketing at Ride Shotgun says:

“A principle isn’t a principle unless it costs you something. 

As an agency, it’s going to cost you if you say “we don’t work with [publications that do X] (which are Y% of the market) and as a result, we always lower our [link/traffic/other metric] targets by Y%” – you’re passing all that risk on to the client. 

YOU have to take that risk if YOU are making that judgement, unless you have a frank conversation with a client upfront and agree that your forecasts aren’t going to be as aggressive as some competitors for ethical reasons. 

Again, that’s a policy and process thing, not a moral judgement against such a stance!”

For agencies, the risk is obvious. Holding a certain position on this subject could lead to a smaller client pool to work with and less outlets for you to outreach to. This, in turn, will impact the results you can offer clients compared to other agencies.

If it’s truly what you believe is right, then none of these factors will bother you. But you need to be aware of the risks and what the real world impact on your agency’s bottom line could be.

How should brands and agencies play this in 2025?

There is no right or wrong answer to this, it will all depend on your brand or agency views.

However, it isn’t always easy to know the political leanings of certain online publications, and views on where they sit on that spectrum can differ from person to person.

To help make an informed decision not just based on gut feeling, but wider popular opinion, Olivia Lott, Senior Digital PR and Freelancer recommends referencing AllSides as well as the YouGov (How left or right-wing are the UK’s newspapers) article. 

Like anything that might limit your reach, there could be a real world impact to your revenue if you do take a stance on where you want to be featured. So bear that in mind and ask yourself:

  • Are we willing to lose money by following our values?

It isn’t all doom and gloom though. Your position, if communicated correctly to the right audience might just win you some loyal repeat customers or clients.

Bridge or Burn? Deciding Whether to Seek Digital PR Coverage in Opposing Outlets
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