Search

There is widespread concern about the growing tide of “churnalism” in the news. Commonly, such accounts are written from within and about journalism studies. But this overlooks another story that we examine in this paper: that of the public relations (PR) practitioner. Based on interviews with 28 UK PR practitioners, we document their media relations practices, their perspectives on power relations with journalists, and their normative evaluations of churnalism. We find a number of PR professionals who understand news in depth, and whose media relations practice goes beyond the classic information subsidy, to what we call an editorial subsidy: targeted, tailored, page-ready news copy that contains key client messages. PR practitioners see power relationships in complex and contradictory ways, though. Despite many circumstances working in their favour, this does not mean they necessary feel emboldened in their everyday encounters with journalists. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, for the vast majority of practitioners, there were either professional or personal concerns about increasing churnalism. At least on the surface, very few observe journalists' recent travails with glee: most want to see a robust and independent journalism where PR input is balanced with other sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The suggestion that the activities of public relations professionals and news agencies help to shape news content in national and local news media is increasingly commonplace among journalists, academics and public relations professionals. The findings from this study provide substantive empirical evidence to support such claims. The study analyses the domestic news content of UK national "quality" newspapers (2207 items in the Guardian, The Times, Independent, Daily Telegraph and the mid-market Daily Mail) and radio and television news reports (402 items broadcast by BBC Radio 4, BBC News, ITV News and SkyNews), across two week-long sample periods in 2006, to identify the influence of specific public relations materials and news agency copy (especially reports provided by the UK Press Association) in published and broadcast news contents. The findings illustrate that journalists' reliance on these news sources is extensive and raises significant questions concerning claims to journalistic independence in UK news media and journalists' role as a fourth estate. A political economy analysis suggests that the factors which have created this editorial reliance on these 'information subsidies' seems set to continue, if not increase, in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]