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Overview

As a leading Sacramento public affairs firm, Paschal Roth Public Affairs is a values-driven communications firm known for forward-thinking strategies and detailed execution.

With nearly two decades of experience in the trenches of politics, policy and media, the 11-person team builds strong coalitions, razor-sharp messaging and winning campaigns for a broad range of clients throughout California.

The challenge

Before using Muck Rack in 2025, Paschal Roth Public Affairs cycled through several public relations platforms in search of one that could help them build stronger relationships with more reporters.

“We have used a million different platforms,” says associate director Maya Polon, who joined the team in 2019. “I feel like we always switched the day our contract was up because we were just not quite finding the right spot for us.”

Their most recent tool, Agility PR Solutions, missed the mark.

“We got on a call with someone who was much more globally focused,” Maya explains, noting that Paschal Roth serves clients in California. “They didn’t understand what we were looking for, and it was really not helpful. It felt like we were just kind of thrown into the platform.”

They soon discovered the media database came up short. Even members of California’s Capitol press corps were missing. Attempting to get a contact added or updated was a whole process.

Incomplete and inaccurate information led to frequent bouncebacks, and what felt like constant platform updates made it difficult to find key features.

“It was just not working for us, so we were excited to find an easy-to-use and easy-to-update platform,” Maya says.

The solution

Maya connected with Mauricio Torres, a former Paschal Roth colleague now at the California Budget & Policy Center. Mauricio, a Muck Rack user himself, explained that Muck Rack’s database already included contacts for Capitol press corps members and state-level reporters—the exact network her team had been wanting to reach.

Mauricio spent half a day at Paschal Roth’s office, showing them various Muck Rack use cases. For Maya, Muck Rack’s ease of use immediately stood out.

How Muck Rack helps this public affairs firm find and connect with niche California reporters

Muck Rack’s onboarding process was "unbelievably helpful,” Maya says. Her team worked closely with Kayla Pretzer, a former PR pro and now customer onboarding strategist at Muck Rack. Kayla spent time understanding the individual needs of Paschal Roth’s clients and refining the firm’s internal workflows.

“It felt like a very warm introduction versus a cold hand-off,” Maya says.

Within a day or two, the team started feeling more confident with the platform. Today, whenever a question arises, they can get a quick response from Lexi Sohaney, their dedicated customer support manager.

Here are three key ways Muck Rack has transformed how Paschal Roth manages media relations.

Building robust media lists with up-to-date contact information

Muck Rack’s media database quickly became the team’s most valuable tool. It helps them find relevant journalists—even those missing from other platforms—and ensures their contact information is accurate and up to date.

If they ever run into a missing or outdated email, Maya’s team can flag it, and Muck Rack will fix it ASAP.

Muck Rack’s media database has not only made it easier to maintain relationships, but it also helps the Paschal Roth team foster new ones.

For example, if pitching a story about Latino health care, the team can use Muck Rack’s database filters to find journalists in California who cover that specific topic. From there, they can click into the journalist’s profile to scroll their recently published work and ensure the topic and publication align with the client’s goals.

Then, Muck Rack’s AI-powered Recommended Journalists feature aggregates similar journalists, making it simple to discover new, relevant contacts.

Sending press releases—and limiting bouncebacks

For Maya, the biggest benefit of Muck Rack has been the ability to send press releases directly through the platform.

In the past, they’d looked into wire services, but for some of their smaller clients, the cost was prohibitive.

The team sends anywhere from two press releases in a month to 30 depending on the client or campaign and Muck Rack has made it easy to scale without worrying about email limits or deliverability issues. They can also track clicks on specific links in press releases, helping them follow up with reporters accordingly.

“This is all stuff we didn’t know we were looking for that has really been a game changer for us in using Muck Rack,” Maya says.

For example, a prominent health care specialty association wanted to target industry trade publications. Maya’s team created media lists that met specific criteria and distributed the press releases through Muck Rack. They then reported open and click-through rates back to the client.

Setting up Alerts to stay in tune with the latest media mentions

Recently, the team began using Muck Rack Alerts to monitor coverage for clients and track news.

For a labor union client, they set up daily keyword-based Alerts via email, making it easy to forward relevant mentions to their client.

Another client wanted to specifically track gubernatorial candidates who address the government shutdown or health care, so the team set up Alerts to capture those mentions in real time.

If any mention isn’t relevant, it’s easy to flag, and Muck Rack’s algorithm quickly refines future results.

Final thoughts from Maya and her team

If Paschal Roth Public Affairs didn’t have Muck Rack, Maya suspects her team would spend their entire day on Google.

“A huge percentage of the work we do is interacting with reporters,” she says. “We have [reporters] we can just shoot over a text and now, with Muck Rack, we have the ability to scale that out. It absolutely changes the way we’re able to do work.”

Maya explains that after using multiple platforms, Muck Rack has been the only one that makes it easy to find specific reporters covering niche issues. The fact that they can then send press releases and monitor media from the same platform is a cherry on top.