Thoughtful article, thanks for that. One of the major journalism texts decades ago stated that most news outlets use only 10 per cent of the copy that comes flowing in from wire services, PR pitches and its own reporters' copy. So to some extent it follows that if PR pitches make the news it is partly because of the sheer volume of them received by media outlets. Still, news outlets have the luxury of choosing, from among the vast number of pitches, the stories most likely to be interesting to their readers. Then if they have the staff they can apply a b.s. filter to the pitch, interview some third party observers and so on. Let's face it, Viagra was one hell of a story when it came out, even though it was a pitch from the drug company that owned it. (I remember thinking, "oh, great, just what we need, a bunch of horny old gaffers, it's bad enough when they're young." The thing is, it did signal a permanent shift in our culture.) At the same time, investigative journalism isn't totally dead. About 8 years ago a journalist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Record started looking into what he considered a rather iffy lease-back deal on a recreation centre that local politicians were being lured into (innocently, I think). He kept pecking away at it and eventually it blew up into what became known as the MFP scandal in the City of Toronto, which exposed a lot of corruption at Toronto City Hall and brought about a great deal of positive change. I just read what may be the final chapter in the news this week. No criminal charges, but numerous careers have been derailed, apparently for good cause. Sadly, the K-W Record reporter never got the credit he deserved, and I don't even remember his name. However, his work lives on, and I guess it sold a lot of advertising. That, of course, is now the difficulty for newspapers. Is it worth putting some public funding into print journalism just to preserve some variety in the organizations that apply the b.s. filter to PR pitches? Why not, when we see excellent journalism result from partly or fully funding broadcast outlets such as the BBC, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or public broadcasting in the U.S.?
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How Much Of That All Important Journalism Is Really PR?
Thoughtful article, thanks for that. One of the major journalism texts decades ago stated that most news outlets use only 10 per cent of the copy that comes flowing in from wire services, PR pitches and its own reporters' copy. So to some extent it follows that if PR pitches make the news it is partly because of the sheer volume of them received by media outlets. Still, news outlets have the luxury of choosing, from among the vast number of pitches, the stories most likely to be interesting to their readers. Then if they have the staff they can apply a b.s. filter to the pitch, interview some third party observers and so on. Let's face it, Viagra was one hell of a story when it came out, even though it was a pitch from the drug company that owned it. (I remember thinking, "oh, great, just what we need, a bunch of horny old gaffers, it's bad enough when they're young." The thing is, it did signal a permanent shift in our culture.) At the same time, investigative journalism isn't totally dead. About 8 years ago a journalist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Record started looking into what he considered a rather iffy lease-back deal on a recreation centre that local politicians were being lured into (innocently, I think). He kept pecking away at it and eventually it blew up into what became known as the MFP scandal in the City of Toronto, which exposed a lot of corruption at Toronto City Hall and brought about a great deal of positive change. I just read what may be the final chapter in the news this week. No criminal charges, but numerous careers have been derailed, apparently for good cause. Sadly, the K-W Record reporter never got the credit he deserved, and I don't even remember his name. However, his work lives on, and I guess it sold a lot of advertising. That, of course, is now the difficulty for newspapers. Is it worth putting some public funding into print journalism just to preserve some variety in the organizations that apply the b.s. filter to PR pitches? Why not, when we see excellent journalism result from partly or fully funding broadcast outlets such as the BBC, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or public broadcasting in the U.S.?