Where did all of Australia’s technology journalists go? Hint: mostly into public relations
As some of the world’s biggest tech stories break, Ben Grubb has a worrying feeling that there’s no journalists left to cover them.
It’s often joked among the remaining technology journalists in Australia that the ratio of technology public relations (PR) professionals to journalists is wildly unbalanced, with PR professionals far outnumbering journalists.
“Public relations professionals?”, I hear some of you ask who aren’t in media circles. They’re the people who “spin” (they’d say “create”) stories about technology companies and “spam” (they’d say “pitch”) them to journalists (I’d know; I had a go at it). They’re paid to do this by those they represent.
Far from a joke though, it’s true that they do in fact outnumber reporters. The same can be said about the journalism sector more broadly versus PR.
A big part of the problem as I have said before, is that independent tech magazines have been bled dry of revenue by PR. That is, PR is paid huge amounts of $ to push stories to us that we are expected to run for nothing.
What tickles me is that PR companies continue to deny this, but I am sure that the mountain of press releases I get are not done for a pittance or (gasp) for free.
So why don’t the vendors get wise to this, divert some of this revenue back to the publishers so journos CAN be paid to write proper stories about their products and services? Much better value for money.
Because then who controls the narrative?
Agree with both. Brands need to support the publications with ad spend so journos can survive to write their stories, but if a brand is paying for the coverage (as so many of these ‘native’ examples show), then they do indeed control the narrative. And it’s usually rubbish.
Ultimately, brands need to let go a little bit and trust the creators of an audience as to what makes *good* content. PR tends to understand this better than most parts of a brand’s marketing machine and are best place to take advantage, but only when they give up on the idea of ‘earned’ media (or at least evolve what that means).
Because readers have a low tolerance for sponsored content. There’s more choice online than ever before, resulting a decline in paid media and an incline in earned media avenues. It may not be fair, but that’s just how the system works! You shouldn’t be pinning the blame on the PRs – it’s the consumer creating this shift.
Journalists are finding good jobs in communications so I don’t really see what the point of contention is.
The point of contention is that we are expected to sort of “complete” the PR’s job by getting the info to the public. For nothing. If they get paid to get it to us, why cannot we also get paid to get it into the hands of where it is ultimately intended?
I guess you could say that – but equally, PR’s are also making journalists jobs easier by sending them news they would otherwise have to proactively seek out. Journalists are under no obligation to cover a story pitched out by a PR – 9 out of 10 times they don’t. But somehow PR is still able to generate ROI for its clients. It may not be fair, but I think it’s better than the pay to play media landscape you’ve suggested.
Do any Australian tech journos write sites like TechCrunch, Recode, The Information, CNET etc, and even sites that end up being tech focused like The Verge? Those sites have kind of replaced traditional news sites that cover tech…sort of.
It’s super simple. Tech companies need to support publishers and then us publishers can afford to pay more tech journalists. My sites WomenLoveTech.com and TheCarousel.com are small but they have a healthy following and we at least have a track record of paying for Aussie journalists. But we need more support as most publishers are bleeding. Plus we need more young Aussie journalists coming up through the system, not starting life writing press releases.
Spot on Robyn.
Ben’s assertion that former scribes one can only do journalism or PR is how a child thinks. The list has no nuance and completely skips the idea that communication skills are transferrable outside of these very specific industries.
I don’t assert this.