Source of Sources
Free expert-finding email service for journalists, from the founder of HARO.
What should journalists know about Source of Sources?
SOS is the spiritual successor to HARO, built by Peter Shankman after he watched Cision turn HARO into what he called 'a wasteland of spam and AI-generated sludge.' The value proposition is simple: real queries from real journalists, delivered by email, with a zero-tolerance policy for AI-generated pitches and off-topic spam. Shankman personally monitors the platform and bans violators without appeal. The Muck Rack partnership (May 2024) adds journalist verification and profile links to each query, which helps sources vet reporters before responding. Compared to Qwoted (dashboard-based, freemium, profile-driven) or the revived HARO (now owned by Featured.com, plagued by quality issues), SOS is deliberately low-tech. That simplicity is a feature for deadline reporters who just want expert names in their inbox. The trade-off: no search, no filtering, no archive. If you miss an email, the opportunity is gone. For sensitive investigations, the same caveat applies as with any source-matching platform — your query topics are visible to the platform and its 30K subscribers.
Deadline-driven source finding, diversifying expert lists, quick turnaround stories where you need a quotable expert in hours not days.
Sensitive investigations where query topics could reveal unpublished stories. Also not ideal if you need to search for sources proactively — SOS is inbound-only (queries go out, sources respond). Use Qwoted or direct outreach for proactive expert discovery.
Security & Privacy
Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers
Data is scrambled when stored on their servers
Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data
Privacy policy summary
Collects name, email, IP address, browser info, search terms, query posts and responses, session analytics. Uses four cookie types including advertising and analytics cookies. Data shared with service providers, partners, and affiliates. Does not sell personal data for monetary gain, but disclosure to third parties lacks explicit use limitations. No journalist-specific protections — nothing prevents disclosure of journalist queries or search patterns to law enforcement. Data retention is vague: 'as long as necessary for business or legal reasons.' Privacy policy effective June 2025.
How to protect yourself:
SOS is low-risk for routine source finding. Practical steps: (1) Your query topics are broadcast to 30K subscribers — don't use SOS for stories where the topic itself is sensitive. (2) Use a work email, not personal, since the platform logs query posts and responses. (3) No journalist-specific legal protections exist in the privacy policy — if subpoenaed, your query history could be disclosed. (4) The platform uses advertising cookies; consider blocking them. (5) For sensitive investigations, use direct outreach or encrypted channels instead.
Standard HTTPS. Low-risk for routine source finding. But the privacy policy has no journalist-specific protections, uses advertising cookies, and data-sharing terms are vague. Your query topics are visible to 30K subscribers and logged by the platform. Adequate for everyday reporting; not suitable for sensitive investigations.
Who Owns This
Known issues
No search or filtering — you get every query regardless of beat or topic. No archive; missed emails are gone. Email-only format means deliverability matters — SOS emails can land in spam or promotions tabs. The zero-tolerance ban policy is enforced by Shankman personally, which is effective at current scale but creates key-person risk. No API, no integrations beyond Muck Rack. The platform's privacy policy includes advertising cookies and vague data-sharing language that doesn't meet the standard you'd expect from a journalism-focused tool. As a free, bootstrapped service with no paying customers, there's inherent longevity risk — the service depends on one person's willingness to keep running it.
Pricing
Free. No paid tiers for journalists or sources. Peter Shankman runs it lean and asks users to donate to animal rescue organizations instead of paying him. There is no premium tier — everyone gets the same emails.
N/A — completely free for all users.
This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-02, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.
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