Mar
Media will survive stronger . . . and that’s good for PR
Andrew Berthoff
Anyone who works for or closely with media outlets will be well aware of the onslaught of bad news about . . . the news business. As organizations cut their advertising budgets, newspapers, magazines and electronic media outlets suffer. It seems that every day there’s yet another story about a publisher or network cutting stuff, eliminating publications or outright shutting its doors for good. It’s actually not a new development.
If you work in public relations you have journalist-friends who have suffered the consequences of the current downturn. It’s unpleasant. The newsroom often seems to be the area that management looks to make the first and deepest cuts. But all is not gloom; there is a bright side to all of this.
I’ve often said to colleagues and clients that PR professionals need to keep the media strong and viable by resisting the temptation to add to the problem. The more an outlet is objective and thorough, the more valuable its content is to the audience reading it, thus the more valuable is the piece that discusses the issue, industry, product or service that matters.
I’ve often said to colleagues that we should not celebrate when an outlet republishes a news release verbatim or fails to weigh all sides of the story – far from it. Every time they do that it diminishes the outlet’s credibility, and incrementally diminishes the public’s perception of “journalism.”
Similarly, PR agencies should not actively recruit journalists. It simply does not make sense to dilute a talent pool that needs to be kept strong for the PR profession to promote meaningful results.
So, if there’s a bright side to all these sad cuts it might just be that better quality news content emerges. The media that will weather this storm well will do so because their content is superior. Better content begets more interest; more interest draws more readers and viewers; a bigger audience brings in more advertising dollars.
It’s really not that complicated: build excellent quality and they will come. If a network needs to make cuts, they should start with the ad department, not editorial.
This ongoing media shake-down will put more pressure on outlets to be even better, to provide quality content not available elsewhere. Consequently public relations professionals will be challenged to be better as journalists become more selective.
It will continue to be a rough ride, but ultimately good journalism and good public relations will be stronger for it.
This is debate is, in fact, disputable. I agree that the talent pool is being forced to shrink due to the tightening belt of the economy. But will this really increase the quality of journalism?
“Better content begets more interest; more interest draws more readers and viewers; a bigger audience brings in more advertising dollars.” Is this really how it works? In my opinion, journalists are forced to attain the ‘better’ content, such that they may increase their propensity to inflate a story, or perhaps to release story facts early in order to break it before their competition.
The decreasing need for journalists in this country may not necessarily increase the quality, but I agree that we do need quality journalism for PR. Perhaps if their readership could determine the difference between ‘quality’ and ‘inflated’ news, the top journalists would emerge.
I think there are two sides to this story.
I hope you’re right when you say that “there’s a bright side to all these sad cuts …that better quality news content emerges. The media that will weather this storm well will do so because their content is superior.”
Just because we’re in a trying economic time, people aren’t going to put a full stop on media consumption. They are going to continue to connect with the media outlets they trust most, which means that the limited ad dollars that corporations have to spend will go to those outlets who do their job well.
However, we can’t ignore the fact that as newsrooms shrink, the journalists who have kept their jobs are feeling more and more strapped for time (sometimes being expected to take on the job of someone who was just cut). This is quite the conundrum for the man or woman left standing: do they work their tails off around the clock to bring objective stories to their audience or do they cover what’s easiest to fill their pages so that they can still have a life outside of work?
I agree with Lorna – media consumption will never stop. People will always turn to the media they trust and respect most for information. However, a shrinking news staff can also mean an added workload and less time to focus on ‘quality’ journalism over ‘quantity’ or whatever is easiest to produce.
A few of my good friends are hardworking, determined, smart and talented journalists. Unfortunately, they are also very junior and as a result, have all felt the effect of the changing media landscape through layoffs or job reshuffling.
But something interesting has started to happen with a few of them. Many are working as freelance journalists and are pitching timely stories they are passionate about to major publications. And they’ve been having success! Now, instead of trudging down to cover a local crime scene or following a beat they have no interest in, they are spending more time working on stories they care about.
Maybe it’s this emerging group of hardworking freelance journalists who will help create a new form of quality journalism for the future?
All really smart observations. I like to think / hope that newspapers will return to the business of real news — the stuff I *need* to know. Over the last 50 years newspapers have become more like feature magazines. Improve and focus on excellent online news reporting, and charge for it. Vertical outlets can be left to handle features and non-essential-news.
There are some pretty top notch newspapers out there that are giving us real news, not just feature stories. I have come to rely on them to tell me what is going on and most importantly, through their editorial and op-eds, to give me context.
Call me a newspaper junky, but I hope they continue to fight tooth and nail to be our fifth estate.
[...] has been said lately about the decline of newsrooms due to the decline of advertising spending. My last post commented on that subject, and I continue to ponder [...]