«Some PR people sin by not doing enough research into the media profile and particular journalist they approach with story proposals and ideas or send press releases to. As a result, all their work becomes a meaningless mailing to the ‘wrong people’. Journalists, on the other hand, end up prejudiced against PR professionals in general», - explains Ksenia Alekseeva, managing partner of Fresh Russian Communications.
Fresh Russian Communications conducted a study to identify the main problems of interaction between journalists and PR professionals and to identify the principles of effective cooperation. More than 50 Russian journalists took part in the survey.
1. Most journalists work with PR specialists on a regular basis, but not all find it necessary
According to the survey, 57% of journalists regularly work with PR specialists when preparing editorial materials, 36% work with PR specialists occasionally, and 7% do not work with them at all. At the same time, 43% of respondents felt that they could do without the help of PR specialists in their work. 30% responded that they could not.
2. OK to work e-mail, but not to social media
Journalists cited work e-mail as the most preferred method of communication, with Telegram and WhatsApp the second most popular messengers. The most undesirable means of communication were identified by respondents as messages on VKontakte, calls to their mobile phone and messages to their personal e-mail. Journalists don’t like it when their personal boundaries are violated and their mobile phone is called unannounced.
3. Relevance, brevity, and informativeness are the three rules of a good e-mail to a journalist
Among the key features of a message that they were more likely to read, journalists named the relevance of the subject line to the journalist’s profile (68%), the brevity and informative nature of the subject line (60%) and the presence of concise information in the first paragraph of the e-mail (55%).
Previous communication experience also plays a role – 30% of respondents will read a message from a PR professional they already know, and 21% will definitely open one if the PR professional has been useful to them before.
4. Numbers, exclusivity and profile relevance add value to the news hook
For the majority of journalists, the most important things in a news item are the topic relevance to their job profile (79%), the presence of interesting figures/indicators (66%), and exclusivity (60%).
62% of journalists said that they regularly work with embargoed information. 28% do so very rarely and 10% do not work with this type of information at all.
At the moment, journalists are quite successful in interacting with PR people, but they want them to pay more attention to their needs and offer the kind of information that fits their profile. What journalists value most in PR specialists is responsiveness (77%), understanding of their job profile (66%) and accessibility (62%). The main sins of PR professionals, according to journalists, are intrusiveness, spamming and a lack of understanding of the media profile and individual journalist.
The study was conducted in December 2021 by Fresh Russian Communications. 53 Russian journalists took part in the survey.