When I started out in journalism about a half a century ago, press handouts were scanned for potential newsworthy items, then spiked. Nothing new here. But those who lifted entire sections verbatim felt the full force of the chief reporter’s displeasure. Not only considered lazy, it was an indelible blot on the copy book.
Those were the days when journalists did the leg work themselves, balancing stories with different opinions, much of which unfolded outside the newsroom. As a cadet, the obligatory grunt work, such as council meetings and shipping news, intermingled with the taste of meatier rounds fortified by murder and mayhem. It was all in a day’s training. The press release was a mere adjunct.
That PR material is powering mainstream media is a given under harsh budget and staff cuts. No surprise journalist numbers are surpassed by PR professionals who, according to a 2021 ABS Labour survey, total about 23,000.
Where gatekeepers once protected the integrity and independence of content, PR’s influence in various guises, targeting media weaknesses and financially insecure jobs, is flourishing. It’s inevitable but is it progress?
With the 24-hour news cycle, digitised news and social media, old-style journalism — where, incidentally, errors would rarely see the light of day under the watch of pedantic sub editors — is dead.
As reconfigured, cash-strapped media models struggle for survival, the convergence of public relations and journalism — including churnalism and stealth advertorials — has increasingly blurred the lines of impartiality and trusted information.
The intrinsic job of journalists to investigate issues many would prefer hidden is being stripped by time and resource constraints while the drive to generate web traffic assumes omnipotence.
Not so much happy bedfellows as symbiotic, public relations has seen countless retrenched and underpaid journalists migrate to PR to get by in the past decade. Of major concern is that independent journalism, at the core of civil society, is not compromised. Much is working against it, including the proliferation of misinformation on social media.
To return to the humble press release, Wikipedia defines it thus: “Due to the material being pre-packaged, press releases save journalists time, not only in writing a story, but also the time and money it would have taken to capture the news firsthand.”
In a recent experience, I tried to interview the head of a major social welfare organisation to augment its news handout. The chief refused to take my calls but finally insisted on written questions to which he replied on my deadline, stipulating what I should write. Do people even understand a journalist’s role anymore?
Firsthand witnesses and accounts, integral to ethical practice and transparency, can be cobbled together quickly but it’s far quicker to use a press release with ready-to-go quotes. One cost is duplication, similar to any other mass-produced, hastily assembled commodity. How many times can you bear to hear or read the same “news”?
Meltwater, a global media monitoring platform, offers a bleak assessment of the landscape: “Trust in the media continues to erode, and many people no longer trust regular news sources. However, press releases may be the exception. According to Cision data (a PR firm offering social media monitoring), 42 per cent of respondents rank press releases as the most trustworthy type of content, ahead of spokespeople (29 per cent) and company websites (21 per cent).”
Research by Jim Macnamara, from Sydney’s University of Technology, reinforces the trajectory indicating 50 to 75 per cent of mass media content is provided, or significantly influenced, by PR.
PR companies owe much of their power to the media crisis. Irrespective of that, interdependent relationships between journalism and PR are not always easy, a former newspaper editor turned communications consultant said.
“Each side has a job to do and, in many cases, each side will need the cooperation of the other to do their job effectively. The journalist wants information and their questions answered quickly and accurately. The PR person wants the best possible coverage but will accept fair and balanced coverage with appropriate context.
“Like all relationships, the best ones are built on trust. The greater the understanding and trust, the more valuable the interactions for both sides.”
Trust is generally built via long-term association and news is often fleeting. The prospect of forging trust between the two may be tenuous, especially when historically it has not been the case: journalists used to have the upper hand; not anymore.
As someone who is au fait with both sides of the spectrum, the now-communications consultant said good journalists don’t let the presence or actions of PR people influence their ethics.
“In terms of transparency there are challenges. At times, the role of communications teams is to withhold information.”
And there are simply not enough working journalists to cover information that should be reported. Information that is hiding in plain sight like council deliberations, committee hearings and reports, court cases, ASX announcements.
The numerous gaps left to PR companies — disseminating particular spiels — put traditional journalistic practices at obvious risk.
Lamenting the demise of quality journalism, Emeritus Professor Graeme Turner from the School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, said it is important to regard the use, or recycling, of press releases as something other than journalism.
“It’s publicity and promotion. Where journalism comes in is when the journalist is able to independently examine the content of a press release and determine its accuracy and provenance.
“As the workload of journalists increases — through the need to deliver across multiple platforms and to multiple deadlines — and as the number of journalists employed decreases, then more and more journalists find they have to rely on press releases rather than spend time generating their own stories independently. So, what this does is replace journalism with PR.”
Despite investment and perseverance in successful media business models, journalism continues to be devalued and eroded, as Meltwater asserted, particularly as media platforms proliferate and media management becomes a central component of the structure of many corporations.
It’s no secret that journalism has sailed dangerously close to entertainment rather than information for some years as commercial support for public interest journalism dries up. You need only read an increasing list of derisive online comments beneath mainstream Australian news reports. The message: “How is this journalism?”
“The changes in the industry — towards entertainment and opinion rather than information and facts — have weakened the role of the journalist and changed the character of much journalism. If the current trends continue, then we are looking at a very compromised future for traditional conceptions of journalism,” Turner said.
Telum Media, a type of one-stop online shop operating across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific, has carved a niche catering to time and resource-poor journalists. But it is by no means alone in this market.
Established in 2013, it’s marketed as the go-to reference for journalists and PRs and provides weekly updates on journalists’ moves, media updates and job opportunities. As a business product, its PR subscribers provide journalists with free access to case studies and expert commentary. It’s a clever strategy in the depleted mediascape.
But it sits uneasily with those who bemoan the PR industry taking up the media slack and the lines blurring when sources are unclear. The result looks like news but is generated by those seeking to benefit from, and monetise, its publication.
Demand for Telum’s PR services has grown exponentially since its inception, with scores of journalists putting out weekly calls for case studies and expert commentary to paying PR subscribers.
Staffed by former journalists and PR professionals, its pitch for deadline-strapped journalists asks: “Are you working on a story that requires case studies? Do you produce a column or segment that needs products to showcase or spokespeople to interview? Telum can publish a call-out to PR professionals in our newsletter to help with your story.
“Access thousands of expert sources from across the Telum Media Network by submitting a media request.”
As the communications consultant noted, there are circumstances where pre-packaged case studies, views, quotes and so on are useful for time-poor journalists, provided the source of the information is identified and some level of journalistic rigour is applied.
“Recently, I’ve seen some regional publications running entire press releases as news but they are clearly identifying the sources and noting they are media releases. Audiences aren’t being tricked and can make up their own minds about the value of the information.
“Time- and cash-poor elements of the media are often grateful for the delivery of packaged content. But the best quality journalism would never rely on anything prepared by the subjects of their story.”
Telum’s major Australian competitor is SourceBottle, but Telum promotes itself as having a greater product sweep.
It portrays itself as a useful, convenient media service no different from digital tools such as Twitter, where journalists also reach out to sources for stories.
SourceBottle encourages journalists and bloggers to “post an online call out for sources for interview subjects or expert commentary (it’s free).”
Perhaps the last word goes to the communications consultant, comfortable in both worlds, but contends it is a natural step for journalists to consider communications roles as newsrooms shrink and there are fewer opportunities for long careers in journalism.
“The skills learned in journalism — working fast, writing cleanly, collaboration, gathering and weighing information — are valuable in many corporate settings. As well as greater job security, there are other benefits, including greater flexibility, work-life balance and, generally, a bigger pay cheque.”
How can journalism compete with that?
Deborah Cassrels was The Australian’s first Bali-based correspondent and has written extensively on refugees, politics, terrorism, crime and social justice. She was nominated for a Walkley Award in 2016 for her work on terrorism in Indonesia. Her first book, a memoir about her journalism in Indonesia, titled “Gods and Demons”, was published in 2020.