Just doing some research for a seminar I'm going to give later this week, and one little bit of information jumped out at me.
The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism Study at the University of Technology in Sydney did a survey of different newspapers around Australia to assess the impact of PR companies in news.
They found nearly 55 per cent of all stories were triggered by public relations firms.
Ironically enough, the story the ABC reported on no doubt began it's life as a press release from the University or the Centre itself, adding another statistic on top of the pile.
Particularly troubling however, was this line:
"most journalists and editors refused to respond when asked about the
public relations element in their stories, and some later withdrew
comments out of fear they would be reprimanded or fired."
Clearly, commenting on the nature of this huge public relations spin on modern newsrooms has an unpleasant effect on a journalists career.
I can only surmise that criticizing the nature of news resourcing in modern times may make the proverbial well of information being fed to journalists daily from PR people dry up.
And if your sources aren't talking to you, what use are you to a news editor who needs new stories everyday?
In this way, there's an immense pressure on journalists to toe the line most of the time.
This isn't to say all PR people are evil and their impact is wholly negative, just an observation of some insightful statistics.
Loved that "most journalists and editors refused to respond when asked about the public relations element in their stories, and some later withdrew comments out of fear they would be reprimanded or fired". I feel there is a sense that these people think their editors or bosses don't know that they are using PR releases for their stories. Do they really think no one notices?
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