AT&T Tech Support 360Taking the measure of PR versus 'real news'
How should one measure the value of corporate PR against the coverage it subsequently engenders? A few years ago, that question never would have merited more than a moment's consideration. Here was the way things worked: Flacks sent out releases, the press decided what was important, and readers read what was deemed newsworthy. End of "story."
That's ancient history. During the course of any 24-hour news cycle, PR releases often rank higher on news aggregation pages like TechMeme than do professionally reported articles or blog items. I began noticing the shift about a year ago, and it's only becoming more pronounced.
The value of news is never going to go away, but the definition has changed. Laura Sturaitis, a senior vice president over at Business Wire, told me that in the last couple of years, her firm has pushed its clients to gussy up their press releases by including video or photos with text. It also has encouraged the use of bolding and bullet points, with an eye toward helping releases compete more successfully against other Web pages, when it comes to readers' attention.
"This is stuff that people like to read online," she said. "We're not talking about the content, but the format...so the page becomes a portal or mini Web page to other kinds of information. This is a new way to tell a story."
Maybe it's not a question screaming to get put on the docket of the Oxford Union, but let's not kid ourselves. Definitions are morphing, and there's a risk of blurring the line between press releases and news. Or, I should add, a theoretical risk.
With people getting more information from more different sources than ever before, the reading public is smart enough to discern the difference. The company is not the final word. Instead, it's the start of an ongoing conversation. I can't speak for most of you, but I think we can agree that the more voices, the better.
Charles is an executive editor with CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. A graduate of Queens College and Columbia University, Cooper began his career in journalism at the Associated Press before moving to technology coverage. Before joining CNET News, he worked at Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. He received the Excellence in Journalism award from the Northern California branch of the Society for Professional Journalists for column writing. In addition to his blogging and podcast appearances, he is a co-host of the CNET News Daily Debrief. E-mail Charlie.
One of the reasons you see press releases ranked higher in web measurement surveys is that an increasing number of releases are written not for the press, or even for consumers, but for search engines. Instead of focusing on the news value of the content, the writers are focusing on keyword density. Writers who focus on actual news don't really have that luxury.
Secondly, after being frustrated for so long by being excluded from media coverage by writers who deemed their stories "unworthy," many PR pros just decided to leverage the internet medium and disintermediate the journalist entirely - the intersection of direct marketing and PR, if you will. This approach lacks the credibility given by a third party - always a benefit of good press coverage - but at least ensures that the message gets out.
And finally, a lot of your fellow journalists are making the transition entirely too easy. Take a look at what passes for "news reporting" on a lot of sites - and in a lot of publications - and decide for yourself how much of what you're reading has been taken verbatim from the press releases themselves. Intelligent readers who can now find exactly the same content on a "legitimate" publication site, a blog and on a search engine figure this out pretty quickly.
You're right that the lines between what's news and what's hype (or at least what's corporate-speak) are blurring pretty rapidly. Journalists now have the duel challenge of actually competing with the press release, and staying relevent enough that readers will value their perspective more than the company-issued draft.
Interesting times, indeed.
Combine the decline of traditional media with the rise of bloggers lacking anything resembling journalism skills and we seriously have a new ballgame. Better in some ways I guess because we marketers have even more direct avenues to our audiences. But certainly more confusing for everyone as well.
Personally, the dissolution of our news media feels like a real tragedy.