Claims in a new book by Guardian hack Nick Davies that 80 per cent of national newspapers’ home news pages consist of recycled wire and PR copy are way off the mark. So-called ‘churnalism’ cited by Davies was uncovered in a study by Wire copy produced by regional and national new agencies has always been a staple of national media. So what? Agencies exist to fill gaps in reporting that editorial teams can’t cover. But it's never been any different.
The PR community for its part is insatiable in pitching stories to national news desks. The genesis of many stories may lie in a pitch from a PR agency (maybe even as high as 80 per cent) but hacks on the nationals don’t cut and paste copy from press releases onto their news pages.
Rainier PR’s clients appear in the national newspapers most days of the week. In more than 75 per cent of instances it is because we’ve offered comment from clients in response to an off diary news story. To suggest that PR agencies drive newsroom agendas is wrong.
In fact in the current news climate driving a story onto the national news agenda is bloody tough.
Tim Dyson, CEO of Next Fifteen observed last week that given the number of big news stories at the moment it would seem almost impossible for any company to get on the front pages or be a lead story.
Technology PR is a niche of course but I don’t think any other agency in any other sector has it much different. Mr Davies and the research team at
Update: more churnalism blog postings from Colin Byrne and Mark Borkowski following Nick Davies’ leader in The Guardian yesterday.
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