For anyone who cares about journalism, the news came in like two punches to the gut.
First, Crain’s Detroit Business reported that the Detroit News, just one year after buying out many of its most seasoned reporters and editors, is offering buyouts to its entire editorial staff. Then later in the week, Crain’s reported that the Detroit Free Press, just one year after buying out many of its trusted veterans, seeks to eliminate more than a dozen newsroom positions. Speculation continues that at least one of those news outlets will have to fold. All of this follows a decade of steady downsizing.
Neither of the newspapers (or online news sources, depending on how you want to look at them) reported their own news or said anything publicly to inform the community of facts or provide reassurance. That’s another topic for another blog post. And if you think this phenomenon is just happening in Detroit, then you don’t pay attention to the media scene nationally. Even the Wall Street Journal is offering buyouts this holiday season. And if you think the “mainstream media” doesn’t matter anymore, then please click off this post and read some fake news on Facebook linked to a website you’ve never heard of and won’t see again.
Many of us got into the PR business because we love news and this is an opportunity to work with news in a different way. When news shrinks, it can hurt us. It absolutely challenges us, especially those of us who entered the field when it felt like there was a beat reporter at a daily newspaper for just about everything resembling news.
We have been heeding this call for nearly 10 years: If you’re a customer of the PR firm business, work in-house at communications for a company or just think you have a story, it’s long past time for you to approach things differently. There simply isn’t as much news being reported with now far fewer journalists to report it. Chances are what was a news story ten years ago, five years ago, a year ago, maybe even six months ago, is no longer a news story. You can’t clutter reporter and editor in-boxes with press releases as if it was still 1996. You can’t expect the same volume of coverage you once received.
We believe we are adding value to clients’ communications strategies by counseling them about what will or won’t be a news item before even writing a release or advisory, let along sending it to anyone. We remind them that the world has changed and it keeps changing. We do not want to represent them or us poorly by throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks, soiling our important and sometimes fleeting relationships with journalists along the way. If a “good story,” isn’t news, it’s up to us to counsel clients on the other viable, compelling and credible ways to get it front of their audiences. The best clients let us do that and trust us when we tell them things have changed dramatically. But it’s time, now, for everyone connected to the business of news to finally get it.