Wire eleven MCP connectors into Claude and you can research a story angle, find the journalists covering your beat, send and follow up on pitches, and measure what the coverage did - all in one window. Every connector on this list is free; you're connecting tools you already pay for. Here's the stack, in the order a real pitch actually flows.
The 30-second setup
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard Claude uses to talk to outside tools. Claude's connector directory passed 50+ integrations as of early 2026, and everything below is in it - no code required. You connect the tool once, and Claude can query it live from then on. Pasted context is frozen the moment you paste it; connected context reflects what's true right now.
The workflow order: research, find, context, send, amplify, track, measure.
1. Perplexity - research the angle
Before you write a word, you need the current state of the story: what's been said, what's saturated, where the gap is. Most weak pitches die here, not at the writing.
Before I pitch this, run a check: what's the fresh hook on [story],
who has already covered it, and where's the gap nobody has taken yet?
2. Medialyst - find the journalists
Claude writes a great pitch but has no idea who to send it to. Medialyst closes that gap: a live journalist database Claude queries directly over MCP, so it targets reporters covering your beat this month instead of a media list built in 2019. It's the only connector on this list purpose-built for PR - the rest are general tools doing PR work.
Find reporters who have covered [beat] in the last month and would be
a fit for this story. Rank them by relevance and tell me why each one.
3. Granola - pull real quotes from calls
Granola shipped an official MCP connector, so your meeting notes are searchable from inside Claude. The quote in your pitch is the quote from the call - no scrubbing recordings, no "I think they said something like."
What did the client actually say about the raise on our last call?
Give me the exact quote from the transcript.
4. Google Drive - press kit as standing context
Connect Drive and your boilerplate, executive bios, and past coverage become the starting point for every draft. Output sounds like your brand instead of generic AI register someone has to rewrite.
Draft the announcement using our boilerplate and the CEO bio from the
press kit folder. Match the tone of our last two releases.
5. Gmail - the follow-up sweep
The classic two-hour job: open the sent folder, cross-reference who replied, draft individual nudges. It's one prompt now. Claude does the cross-referencing and drafting; you review and send.
Find every reporter I emailed about the launch who didn't reply,
and draft a personalized follow-up for each.
6. X API - newsjack before the cycle moves
The journalists you're pitching are on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn. The bottleneck in newsjacking was never the writing - it was noticing in time and knowing who to call. This closes both.
What's trending in [industry] right now, who's writing about it
at this moment, and what's our angle into it?
7. Canva - story to visual, no designer round-trip
Claude writes the copy, Canva builds the asset, you approve. The brief-wait-revise-wait loop disappears for routine assets: announcement graphic, quote card, one-pager. Your designer's time goes to work that needs a designer.
Turn the three key stats from this announcement into a quote card
and a launch graphic.
8. Notion - media list and coverage tracker
One workspace Claude can both read and update: contacts, embargo dates, coverage wins. Claude checks the embargo before drafting and logs the placement when it lands. The tracker becomes the thing that's just always right, instead of the thing you update at month-end.
Check the embargo date for [announcement] before drafting anything,
and log today's placement in the coverage tracker.
9. Slack - retrieve institutional knowledge
That reporter's contact someone dropped in the PR channel six months ago? Found in seconds. "Ask whoever's been here longest" becomes something the agent retrieves.
Search our Slack for the contact info someone shared for the
[outlet] reporter - it was in #pr sometime in the last year.
10. Google Calendar - book the briefings
Claude finds the open slot and schedules the reporter call. The six-email "does Thursday work?" exchange gets deleted. Small on its own, real in aggregate - briefings are where the relationship gets built.
Find a 30-minute slot next week that works for a reporter briefing
and send the invite.
11. Google Search Console - prove the coverage did something
Everyone tracks "did we get coverage." Almost nobody tracks whether it moved anything. This is the connector that turns "we got a hit" into "here's what the hit did" - the difference between reporting activity and proving ROI.
The [outlet] piece went live on [date]. What happened to our search
impressions and clicks in the two weeks after?
Does this replace the PR person?
No. It deletes the 80% that was never the job - the list-building, the formatting, the "wait, who covers this again?" What's left is what was always the job: judgment about which story matters, relationships with the reporters who cover it, and the call on what your company should say.
Setup order
Starting fresh, work the list as a checklist:
- [ ] Research: Perplexity
- [ ] Targeting: Medialyst
- [ ] Context: Granola, Google Drive
- [ ] Outreach: Gmail
- [ ] Speed: X API
- [ ] Assets: Canva
- [ ] Tracking: Notion, Slack
- [ ] Scheduling: Google Calendar
- [ ] Measurement: Google Search Console
Or start with whichever pain is loudest this week. For most teams that's targeting - a great pitch to the wrong list is still a miss.
Plug them in this week. Thank me later.
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