For Journalists
Opt out of the Medialyst journalist database
If your byline appears in Medialyst, you can have it removed. This page explains what we hold, where it came from, and how to ask us to delete it.
Submit a request
Email [email protected]The link opens a message with the subject line Journalist Opt-Out Request. If your mail client does not open, send the request manually to [email protected] using that same subject line.
Include your name, your professional email address(es), and your publication affiliations, so we can find every record that belongs to you.
What we hold about you
Medialyst keeps professional records on journalists so that the people using it can work out who actually covers a story. A record can contain the following.
| Category | What that means |
|---|---|
| Identity | Full name, professional aliases, pen names |
| Contact | Professional email address(es), work phone (if public) |
| Employment | Publication affiliations, job title, staff/freelance status |
| Expertise | Beat/coverage areas, topics, industry focus |
| Published work | Article headlines, publication dates, article URLs |
| Social presence | LinkedIn URL, Twitter handle, professional website |
| Geographic | Publication location, bureau assignment |
What we do not collect:
- Personal home addresses or personal email addresses
- Sensitive personal data (race, religion, health, etc.)
- Financial information
- Information about private lives or family members
Where it comes from
These are the only sources Medialyst uses to build a journalist record.
Publicly available information
- Published articles, bylines, and author biographies
- Official author pages on publication websites
- Professional biographies on personal websites
- Press releases attributing authorship
- Public speaking engagements and conference appearances
Professional social media
- LinkedIn profiles designated as public
- Twitter/X accounts used for professional purposes
- Other professional networking platforms
Third-party data providers
- Hunter.io — business contact enrichment platform
Email validation services
- DeBounce — email verification services
- Instantly — email deliverability verification
User-contributed data
- Media lists uploaded by users
- Profile corrections submitted by users or journalists
We process this data on the basis of legitimate interest under GDPR Article 6(1)(f), for business communications. The full reasoning, including our legitimate interests assessment, is in Section 6 of our Privacy Policy.
Your rights
If your data is in our database, you have all of the following rights. You do not need to be a Medialyst customer to exercise any of them.
- Right to access: Confirm whether we process your data and obtain a copy
- Right to correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
- Right to deletion: Request removal from our database
- Right to object: Object to processing of your data
- Right to restriction: Request restriction of processing in certain circumstances
- Right to complain: Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
What happens after you send the request
This is the commitment in Section 6.5 of our Privacy Policy. Upon receiving your request, we will:
- Acknowledge within 5 business days
- Verify your identity
- Process within 30 calendar days
- Confirm completion
- Add you to our permanent suppression list
The suppression list is permanent. It means we hold enough information to recognise you and keep you out of the database, rather than re-adding your byline the next time it is published.
If you would rather correct it than remove it
Some journalists want the record fixed rather than deleted — a wrong beat, an old publication, an address you no longer use. Email [email protected] with the subject line Profile Claim Request. Once verified, you may review, correct, or update your information.
What this page does not do
We would rather be plain about the limits than let you discover them. There is no self-serve lookup and no button that deletes your record on the spot. Every request is handled by a person on the timeline above, because we have to verify that the request is really coming from you before we act on it.