The media landscape continues to change. My top 5 insights on how PR can adapt to journalists' challenges.

The Medianet Media Landscape Report 2023 was launched today with a wealth of really interesting findings on the opinions and experiences of both journalists and PR professionals in Australia. It is clear that as every year passes by, the Media Landscape and the challenges that journalists face continue to change. So how can PR adapt and help journalists overcome their own challenges to max their PR efforts?

Journalists are facing challenges on multiple fronts.?The stand out figure for me was definitely the one around defamation laws in Australia and Public Interest journalism which 98% of respondents said to have been threatened in 2022. With almost half of journalists (49%) saying they had withheld from publishing information that they knew to be true because of fear of defamation, it is undoubtedly a topic of debate and of great importance for our media industry.

The report also found that, as many of us are facing nowadays, the cost of living is a challenge for journalists too. The percentage of respondents who reported money to be one of their greatest challenges of the year doubled in 2022 (36% in 2022 compared to 18% in 2021). It might not come as a surprise then that more than 35% of PR respondents said they had a journalism background and moved to PR seeking a better lifestyle and pay.?

There is still a gender pay gap although it seems to be getting smaller with now almost a third of all male respondents (31%) who disclosed their pay said they earn more than $100,000 p.a., compared to 20% of females and 13% of non-binary journalists.

When it comes to communicating with Journalists, these other findings can be of great value to PR professionals:

• When it comes to how they source and hunt for stories, journalists are feeling increasingly under pressure and under-resourced. Maybe that is why Industry and professional contacts are still the top story source for journalists (used by 90% of respondents), followed by press releases (used by 86% of respondents).??
• When you send a press release, journalists don't read the whole thing to consider its newsworthiness. Most (70%) of journalists said they read less than a paragraph of a press release before deciding if the story is worth pursuing.
• When pitching to them, make sure you are getting the right contacts because our report has found that 45% of journalist respondents said their role had changed in some way in 2022.
• Email is not the only way to reach journalists. Their professional use of LinkedIn has been increasing for the past three years, and Instagram and Facebook also both saw a slight increase in usage since the 2021 survey. Professional use of Reddit and TikTok saw the most significant increase compared to 2021.

So, what does this all mean for?those like me working in the PR, communications and media intelligence fields:?

1. It remains incredibly important to build strong journalist relationships/contacts and continue to use press releases to achieve that all important earned media.
2. In an increasingly resource crunched environment use a high quality, updated daily, media contacts database service and save yourself and your teams the significant effort that it takes to keep your own contacts accurate.
3. Adopt the inverted pyramid method for press releases: make sure the most important, eye-catching information is at the top.
4. Leverage social media to further enhance your media connections and expand the reach of your story. Find ways to repurpose the press release content into formats suitable for social.
5. Media data, metrics and graphs are just that... and the true value comes from understanding the context and key learnings. Brands should increasingly embrace true insights such as sentiment and share of voice as measures of earned media success.?

How can you learn more:

Join me and three incredibly talented PR experts Nic Hayes , Deb Camden and Mercedes Carrin for a live webinar on March 9, 2023 as we discuss these and other key learning?from the Medianet 2023 Media Landscape Report.?