How Newspapers Work

28th Oct

Two and a bit years ago I took the plunge and moved from a job on a national newspaper newsdesk to the fluffy world of PR - or 'the dark side' as it is known in the world of print media.

I'm not the first journo to do so. Many before me have sought to duck out of the editor's cross-hairs to tread the well-worn path to the world of public relations

Some of the biggest names in Fleet Street have made the transformation from poacher to gamekeeper - and made a lot of money to boot.

But despite the infiltration of the PR world by news-hardened hacks it still seems there is a lack of knowledge within PR of exactly how newspapers actually operate.

There remains a blinkered ignorance of exactly how stories are sourced, who in the newsroom foodchain makes that all-important decision to run a PR story and even how to ensure the 'release' has the best possible chance of avoiding the dreaded spike.

For example did you know that the tabloids source 90 per cent of their content from news agencies. And I'm not talking about PA here.

A quick flick through The Sun today revealed that of 96 news stories crammed into the paper before 'the turn' - or the centre pages to the uninitiated - only a handful were exclusive.

Admittedly a handful would have come from staff men sitting in court listening to proceedings whilst furiously scribbling short-hand notes or pounding pavements following up leads on tales of death and destruction from good old fashioned 'ring-ins'.

But the other 80 per cent or so would have been pulled off 'the wire' into which news agencies file all their copy. And I'm not talking about the edgy Baltimore-based crime drama.

The fact that most people in PR do not understand the wire or how it works, have never seen it in action and as a consequence hugely underestimate its importance is a massive bug-bear of mine.

On a newsdesk the wire is your windscreen to the world. Your shift can be anything from 10 hours to 12 - or even 15 hours if you're the unlucky one.

And for all but about 20 minutes of that time, when if you're clever and you can get away with it you can dash to the canteen and grab a bite to eat, you watch the wire.

And you watch it like a hawk, because the wire holds your job, career, reputation, house and even your life in its hands.

As stories drop from news agencies in every town, city and back street in the country - as well as from Associated Press, Reuters and PA, it is your job to make sure the news editor knows exactly what is going on in the world.

Miss a belter and you're toast. There is no escape. I only missed one once. And the mere mention of it brings me out in a cold sweat.

That is how important the wire is.

Why then do PR people, of which I am now one of course, continue to email in press releases in the form of annoying attachments, PDFs, Word documents or Spread Sheets?

Not only that but they always feature more logos than your average London bus.

And they still pepper these 'releases' with the company's name in bold print and still they persist with Notes To Editors.

Can I just say that I don't know anyone who has ever read these tedious tit-bits on how many eggs the company sell from their Norwich market stall every week.

Isn't it about time universities which teach PR, of which there are many, realised that they need to give newspapers what they require.

I know of no other industry in which the customer - namely the national newspaper - isn't provided with content or in retail terms, a product, in a ready to use format.

If I were to design a state-of-the-art electronic workbench and wanted to get it onto the shelves of B&Q would I call them, fudge my explanation of the product, then send it to them in bits hoping that an already over-worked employee would have the time and inclination to build my workbench into a product suitable for sale?

No, of course I wouldn't. And yet the mentality of the over-branded press release, complete with logos etc etc still remains.

And this is despite the current climate, in which newspapers are shedding jobs left right and centre and when the country's biggest independent news agency SWNS now employs more staff than the Daily Star and Daily Express put together.

The mind boggles...

Written by Doug Shields