Meredith in the Media: What Happens When a PR Veteran Flips the Model and Interviews the Journalists w/ Meredith Klein, Head of Consumer & Product Communications at Pinterest

About this episode

Meredith Klein discusses how PR professionals can adapt to the evolving media landscape by directly engaging with journalists and building a recognizable personal brand.

Former Walmart and Pinterest comms leader Meredith Klein joins Perry Hedrick and Becca Chambers to break down how PR professionals can adapt to a fragmented media landscape where Substacks, podcasts, and independent journalists carry real influence. Klein shares how she built "Meredith & The Media" into a 3,500-subscriber resource by interviewing journalists directly, why visual brand consistency drives recognition, and how shareability and findability now matter more than legacy masthead placements. In this episode, we explore: • Why a recognizable personal brand, down to a signature hat, separates you from a sea of sameness [00:02] • How journalists actually source stories through LinkedIn comments, social posts, and independent media [00:29] • The integrated media mix: treating newsletters and podcasts as core channels, not extras [00:15] • What PR professionals need to tell executives who still measure success by Wall Street Journal hits alone [00:20] • Building a distribution flywheel by repurposing even small media appearances across every channel [00:30] Meredith Klein is a 20-year PR veteran, founder of the Meredith in the Media Substack, and a contributor to Inc…

People in this episode

Hosts: Perry Hedrick, Becca Chambers

Guest: Meredith Klein

Topics covered

• public relations
• media landscape
• journalism
• branding
• content strategy
• communication

Keywords

• PR strategy
• media influence
• journalist interviews
• brand consistency
• content distribution
• Substack
• podcasts
• visibility

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pinterest, Walmart, Inc. Magazine

Books & works: Meredith & The Media

More episodes of Under Embargo Podcast

• AI-For-Comms: Trading Grunt Work for Real Strategy with AI w/Jessen Gibbs, CEO & Co-Founder at Shadow, Inc and Dalyan Parker , Co-Founder at Shadow, Inc · June 10, 2026 · 53 min
• Build the Infrastructure Now: How to Win LLM Visibility with Sarah Evans · May 27, 2026 · 51 min
• You Are Not Running a Daycare: Meg Scheding on Treating Professionals Like Adults and Pricing Like It Matters w/ Meg Scheding · May 13, 2026 · 47 min
• Nobody Builds Tools for Us: Michelle Masek on Why Comms Deserved Its Own AI Platform w/ Michelle Masek, Founder & CEO at Honeyjar · April 29, 2026 · 56 min
• The R in PR Still Wins: Why Relationship-Led Media Matters More in an AI-Saturated World w/ Joseph Gallo, Director of Communications at PayPal · April 15, 2026 · 58 min
• Your Humanity Is the Strategy: Why AI Averages Everything Out and Communicators Are the Differentiator w/ Keith Berman, Director Internal Comms @ Vertafore · April 1, 2026 · 52 min