Results of a study have just destroyed the myth that journalists shun news from PR agencies and found that some publications source as much as 80% of their content from PR practitioners.
Research by the Australian Centre for Public Communication at the University of Sydney analysed the results of local and international studies published over the last 80 years and revealed just how important PR was to the news industry.
The study found that the amount of content sourced from or influenced by PR varied from 30% to 80%, depending on the publication, with the majority of media using between 45% and 75%.
It also found that smaller publications, such as local newspapers and trade magazines, relied the most on PR material. And in the case of travel magazines, nearly all of their content came from PR sources, using the material virtually word for word.
The report also highlighted one of the basic tenets of PR, namely just how important it is to establish personal relationships with journalists.
It suggested that journalists saw PR people differently once they had built up a relationship with them.
The researchers said that journalists seemed to move people mentally out of the PR category as they developed those relationships and started to consider them a reliable news source.
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