unicornnews: PR poll shows media gloom

PR group Burson-Marsteller has published the results of a survey of 115 senior journalists from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and it reveals a gloomy mood in the news industry, where the recent advertising recession and continued challenges posed by the internet mean smaller teams have to produce more content than ever before, while working in an insecure market.

81% of those journalists surveyed said they’d experienced cost-cutting measures in their editorial teams, and most felt that that was having an impact on the quality of their publication’s output. 34% said cost-cutting was the biggest threat to high quality journalism, while 17% said the internet was a bigger threat.

There were mixed opinions among those surveyed about the digital domain, with the internet having both positive and negative impacts. Most agreed digital tools gave them access to unprecedented amounts of information, but many added that the rise of so called ‘citizen journalism’ and what they see as a de-professionalisation of their trade were courses for concern.

On the up side for the comms profession, most of those surveyed admitted that, because of the cuts, PR agencies played a more vital role in their work than ever before, as sources of information and providers of story leads. Nearly half said they dealt with PR people more frequently now than before, while over a quarter said they saw PR agencies as being good sources of information.

Commenting on the survey, PR Week quote Burson-Marsteller’s EMEA media practice boss Dennis Landsbert-Noon as saying: “As the media industry undergoes these tremendous changes, there is both an onus on us to ensure that our standards remain exemplary, as well as an opportunity for us to use new and exciting digital tools to communicate with traditional journalists as well as a whole new digital and social media landscape”.

Posted Sunday April 18 2010 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: Media Relations