1. MEDIA
CONTENT
SURVEY 2011
Journalists and PR pros alike are adjusting to a reality where
legacy outlets and upstart online sites carry similar influence

2. Multiple
A shifting media makeup has led to portance on being first might seem surprising, but not to
their rank and file who spend much time curating perfect
the death of the scoop, the simultaneous online cornucopias of their audiences’ preferred interests.
They endeavor to be first, for certain, but it might be that
rise of punditry, and, in turn, a crop they are first to notice a video about to go viral, say Nancy
Grace’s nipple exposure on Dancing with the Stars, or first
of new influencers, finds the 2011 to connect the dots for their audience on a political speech.
PRWeek/Porter Novelli Media Content “A lot of online outlets are trying to find the right alchemy
between original reporting, enterprise reporting, and cura-
Survey. Rose Gordon reports tion of stories so that the combination of all three distinct
elements of Web reporting create its own narrative point
of view,” says Colby Hall, managing editor of online upstart
O
nly 38% of the media believe it’s extremely Mediaite, which covers the media industry with a heavy
important to be the first to report on a topic, dose of skepticism. “There’s a differentiation between a scoop
according to the 2011 PRWeek/Porter Novelli and getting ahead of the story. I would agree that actually
Media Content Survey. That has ticked down 6% from breaking news first is valuable, but it’s not critical. Getting
2008 when PRWeek began its annual Media Survey. ahead of the story, sometimes being second to report the
Perhaps more insightful is the fact that 42% of those in story, gives you more time to provide value and context.”
traditional media outlets (TV, newspapers, radio, wire ser- Hall, a former producer for VH1’s Best Week Ever, admits
vices), compared to 25% of those in online media (news sites the site’s stock and trade is dealing in “holy-shit moments,”
and bloggers), cherish the scoop as “extremely important,” such as Vice President Joe Biden’s accidental (perhaps?)
according to the survey, which polled 855 members of the F-bomb into a nearby mike while embracing President
media from a variety of industries. Obama prior to a speech on healthcare reform.
That’s not to say a leaked photo of the latest Apple “It’s not enough to just know the news,” Hall explains.
gadget or another tale of politicians’ indiscretions won’t
draw attention, or that The New York Times and The Wall Death of the scoop
Street Journal beat reporters don’t keep score of each Part of the reason for the diminishing returns of a scoop
other’s scoops. It simply reflects the reality of how informa- lies in the fact that “only one person can be first,” says
tion and content moves today, as well as the changing makeup Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor at The Atlantic who
of media. Information now moves in real time, not on 5pm oversees politics coverage on theatlantic.com. Using the
deadlines – and it’s harder to be first in real time. political speech example, she says, “Readers prefer being
Many bloggers could care less about breaking news (only presented with analysis and takes on aspects of a speech,
12% say it is extremely important). Online news sites also rather than a broader summary, because the transcript is
deem it lower priority (33% say it is extremely important). going to be online or you can rewatch it on video. You
That those working exclusively in the typically speed- want someone to help you think it through.
oriented online media – what’s more immediate than hit- “My general philosophy,” she adds, “is you have to be
ting “publish” in WordPress, or a CMS? – place less im- first or you have to be different.”
30/prweekus.com/November 2011

3. sources
Being different has often come in the form of openly
partisan coverage. The popularization of punditry has been Impact over scoop
used to explain Fox News’ meteoric rise as the top-rated Respondents who say it is extremely important to be the first to
cable news station and MSNBC’s first overtaking of CNN report on a topic via an exclusive or a scoop
in the number-two slot in 2009, as well as the popularity of
blogs, such as RedState. The losers, it seems, are those
that try to maintain that now seemingly quaint notion of
journalistic objectivity. At press time, though, recent
viewership figures showed CNN gaining on MSNBC.
68% 49% 33%
“It’s probably because we’re living in more partisan times
where some of the divides are deeper than they’ve been,” TV Newspaper Online news site
says Franke-Ruta. “It’s a reflection of our politics, rather
than a creator of it, though there is a feedback loop there.”
“Those driving the conversation today are also who people
trust,” says Nick Charles, EVP, global director of content 23% 17% 12%
for Porter Novelli. “People used to trust Walter Cronkite.
Now they trust Jon Stewart, who doesn’t even do news Radio Magazine Blog
– that leaves a big vacuum. Politicians try to fill it, pop Scoops in traditional media vs. online media
culture tries to fill it, and then you have bloggers, too.” of traditional media
Let’s not forget that Stewart’s The Daily Show audience
figures, though running in a different time slot, outpace
42% find it “extremely
important”
25% of online media do
Base: 855
cable news leader Fox by a long shot.
“There’s a recognition that the day of the scoop is now
over,” says Jim Romenesko, who gained notoriety covering
the business of media in blog format on Poynter since the The survey sample
early days of 1999. “If you can retweet someone else’s scoop,
that suffices for a lot of people. It’s the real-time nature.” Type of outlet: Of the respondents, 41% identified as working
No one can scoop Twitter. It scoops us all. Moreover, at a newspaper; 20% for a magazine; 13% an online news site;
as Franke-Ruta points out, we’re already drowning in 9% TV; 8% blog; 5% radio; 4% other; and 1% for a wire service
information sources, so what readers, viewers, or listeners
might prefer is a little perspective. Target audience: The majority of respondents, 73%, char-
In his own coverage, Romenesko admits he still likes to acterize their audience as consumer; 16% as b-to-b or trade;
break a juicy memo. This summer, he announced he would and 10% as other
be leaving his full-time role on the Poynter blog to start
a new online site. His decision was impacted in part by experience and age: The median number of years of
this shift in how news is reported. “One reason I’m reduc- experience for respondents is 13 years; the median age is 48
ing my role is because what I used to do – aggregating
November 2011/prweekus.com/31

4. – now everyone’s doing it on Twitter. It seems that I need
to move on to something else.”
MEDIA IN PROFILE
While less interested in a news scoop, a growing em-
phasis on original content shows the blogosphere’s matu-
ration. Fifty-five percent of bloggers do not include aggre-
As more media moves online, those in traditional media gated content, according to the survey.
(newspapers, TV, magazines, radio, wires) are finding they “Some bloggers like to be the first ones on announce-
too spend more time on Web activities, just as their online ments of, say, a product,” says Heather Lopez, a prolific
media brethren (bloggers and online news sites). mommy blogger and founder of Super Mom Entrepreneur
Conference and Cruise. “But they’re more interested in
building relationships with their community. It doesn’t
Different TRADITIONAL
MEDIA
ONLINE
MEDIA
matter if I put up content two hours later than someone
else. As long as I put out content that my readers like, they’ll
priorities? read it. They know me, they like me, and they trust me.”
Elise Jones, social media director and blog editor at Baby-
It is extremely important to Bites, a support group for New York moms, concurs, say-
be first to report on a topic ing that “being first” isn’t necessarily her priority, but origi-
nality is. “Our community comes to us to learn more about
Primary goal is to parenting topics from a different perspective,” she notes.
educate and inform For legacy media outlets, such as CNN and the dominant
daily papers and their respective websites – The New
Consume most media online
York Times, The Wall Street Journal, et al – as well as local
news reporters interviewed by PRWeek, getting there before
competitors remains part of their core value proposition.
Sixty-eight percent of those in TV and 49% in newspapers
No.1 way media judges agree it’s extremely important to be first. These reports
success of their work might appear as a breaking news banner on NYTimes.
com, for example, and later as a paragraph, then a column’s
Subscribers/ worth, before a story is fleshed out for a print edition.
followers contact Increase in
me to praise piece Web traffic
“there’S A reCogNitioN
NEWSPAPER TV BLOGGERS ONLINE NEWS thAt the dAy of the
SCooP iS Now over“
SITE
Editor/colleague Increase in
praises piece Web traffic – Jim romenesko
Matthew Daneman, a business reporter and 13-year vet-
eran of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, NY, notes
Traditional media that since online news’ advent, “When I get in each morning,
one of my first jobs is to make sure nothing major hap-
pened overnight that I need to get on the Web tout suite.”
Piling it on
Those working in traditional media outlets, however, con-
tinue to be hamstrung by their legacy of old models that no
Have a heavier Tightened Expected Expected to longer work, while simultaneously reinventing themselves.
workload this budgets are to contribute contribute The same enormous payrolls and geographic footprints
year, compared impacting to a social to an app or
to 2010 their jobs media page digital edition
that allowed these institutions to run investigative series on
the goings-on at City Hall or in war zones – and to out-
scoop the competition – cannot produce the same margins
of profitability their investors came to expect as print ad
All media Social media declines and online models fail to match those profits.
The top three situations affecting the job of those in
traditional media in the last year are tightening budgets
Prefer to receive PR (37%); increased volume of content to produce (29%);
pitches via social networks and more responsibilities outside of official duties (18%).
“Media is in survival mode,” says Porter Novelli’s Charles.
Use social Sheila Gray, co-anchor for Fox 19 Morning News in the
Social media has networks to source
increased readership,
Cincinnati area, used to have two employees who booked
background material talent for the program, which ran 6am to 9am. Now she
viewership, or listeners
books her own segments and the show’s hours expanded
to 4:30am to 10am. If she does a cooking segment, she also
32/prweekus.com/November 2011

5. Traditional media
Those working at newspapers, in TV, radio, wire services, and magazines have had to contend with new, and
often more nimble, online competitors in recent years. That competition has eaten away at their employers’
profits. Outlets are fighting back with online ventures, including digital editions, apps, and blogs.
heavy workloads Which of the following situations has What media are you expected to
most affected your job in the past year? contribute to outside your typical duties?
37% Tightening
budgets
56% Social media page
71% 42% Blogs
Have more work, compared to last year
40% Events
Increased volume of
29%
37% App/digital edition
24% content to produce
About the same 30% Video
18% More responsibilities
6%
outside official duties
5% Podcasting
Have less work
Base: 642 (Respondents part of traditional media)
must ensure the recipe is posted to the channel’s website. “Sometimes you just don’t know what to do first,” she
Her and the other leading personalities on the program relates. “Do I send a text alert? Do I continue to report this
each blog weekly and regularly post updates to their indi- story? How soon do I put it on the website?”
vidual Facebook pages. Gray says she enjoys the oppor- Either way, Chufo says the newspaper values speed. “I
tunity to write again, but admits “it’s a lot of juggling.” try to have it up [online] faster than the next guy, even
“We all know that’s what we have to do if we want to be if that means working through lunch,” she says. “It’s a
in this business,” she says. “We don’t complain about it.” matter of getting up there faster than the neighboring
According to the survey, 71% of those in traditional newspaper. Our editors have made it a priority.”
media said they have more work than the prior year. As the economy softens again, many expect more layoffs
Veronica Chufo, a health and business reporter with the among traditional media. Thirty-three percent of those
Daily Press in Newport News, VA, writes three to five news working in magazines or newspapers expect more staff
stories a week, but she also sends out breaking news SMS reductions this year, according to the survey.
alerts directly to subscribers herself, ensures her stories make “I’ve noticed the pace of layoffs seems to have picked up
it to the mobile-optimized website, and uses Hoot-Suite in the last couple of months,” says Romenesko. “As news-
to push out her articles, as well as those from some of her rooms get smaller, the workload gets greater for those who
colleagues, through Twitter and Facebook. survive. There’s no promise that it’s going to change.”
Yet legacy media continues to be the dominant news
source for Americans – online and off. TV is the number-
purpose one source of news for the country, and although hybrid
What is your primary goal as a journalist, blogger, or news sites that rely heavily on aggregation, such as AOL
content creator? News and Google News, rank in the top 10 in terms of
Educate
website traffic, legacy news organizations (CNN, The New
York Times, The Washington Post) make up two-thirds of
and inform 46%
the most-trafficked 25 news sites, Pew Research Center
points out in its annual State of the News Media report.
Break news and chronicle “Newspapers are still an important part of the media
events as they happen 26%
Be part of the checks and balances on
economy in America – big-city editions still sell hundreds
of thousands of Sunday editions,” says Sree Sreenivasan,
business and government activity 5% professor of digital media at Columbia University. “They
Base: 855 set the political and business agenda in many commu-
nities, if not nationally.”
34/prweekus.com/November 2011

6. In Virginia, Chufo points out the role local papers con-
tinue to play in their communities where they have survived.
When Hurricane Irene shut off locals’ TVs, “Our news-
paper was still being delivered at their footstep every
day telling them where they could get ice for the freezer to
preserve their food. We’ve received a lot of feedback from
our readers saying ‘Thank you.’
“Newspapers are still around,” she adds. “We’re just
trying to find the best ways to deliver content to meet our
readers’ needs. Not every venture is going to work.”
New content models
While everyone recognizes TV’s dominance, its share has
been steadily falling over the years, though not as quickly as
print newspapers, in favor of the Internet. New models of
news producing are appearing, from nonprofit investigative
organizations to AOL’s expansion of the unapologetically
low-budget local site network Patch. Not to mention that
Huffington Post is nipping on the heels of NYTimes.com Modern day news
is epitomized by
in terms of traffic. sites like Mediaite,
The media, too, is reading more online: 95% of those work- which highlight
ing in online media say they consume most media through ‘holy shit’ events,
online sources; 58% of those working in traditional media and the rising
say they consume most media through online sources. trust placed in Jon
The move toward online, combined with the scrap of on- Stewart, who isn’t
even a reporter
line startups, has allowed sites such as Politico and Mash-
able to enter the mainstream lexicon and challenge older
players in their respective fields. Mediaite, only two years Less than half of respondents said their primary goal as a
old, enjoyed a record number of 3 million unique visitors media member is to “educate and inform,” a figure Charles
in June, thanks in large part to its popular Twitter feed, says finds dispiriting. “That’s very surprising to me. It should
Hall. Josh Marshall, who founded Talking Points Memo be higher,” he says. “Who is watching the government for
in a Starbucks nine years ago, is now a “media mogul,” as you? Who will call the President to account? Who will
Franke-Ruta says, with two bureaus, more than a dozen find the corruption? It used to be the media.”
reporters and editors, not to mention sales staff. Part of these technological advances, though, will benefit
Online sites are attracting the talent away, too. Big names legacy media, which still has more resources than upstarts.
moved to Huffington Post after its cash infusion from
AOL, while others hopped ship for The Daily, the first ‘Raise’ the game
iPad newspaper, which debuted in February 2011. Bloggers learned early on to cultivate audiences in a
“It’s clearly a more mixed media ecosystem than it was way traditional media often did not. They are wary of
five years ago,” remarks Jim Rainey, the Los Angeles Times’ upsetting their audience and spend a good chunk of their
media columnist. day interacting with readers.
“When I first got into television, we were competing “I told myself as soon as I wasn’t passionate about it any-
with TV, radio, and newspapers. It was very easy to know more, I was going to stop,” says Jacin Fitzgerald, who runs
who your competitors were,” says Gray. “I don’t know if we a relatively popular wedding blog, Lovely Little Details,
even know who we’re competing with anymore. It’s TV, which enjoys about 3,000 uniques each day. “I love put-
and cable news, newspaper, radio, and the Internet, but ting things out there and getting feedback from readers. It
they all cross paths because newspaper reporters now have feels like even if I am touching one person a day, it’s cool
to shoot video and TV reporters write online.” to have a way to reach out to people. I like to put things
Since the last PRWeek Media Survey, there has also been together that help people and reassure them.”
a higher adoption of paywalls as legacy media works to That is a far different sentiment than you might get from
defend its turf – and its margins. a newspaper reporter. After all, as Sreenivasan says, “Journal-
“You’re going to see more sites trying to charge for con- ism is a calling. People want to do big, important things.”
tent because the ad revenues for print and online will Fitzgerald isn’t a novice, though, just passionate. She
level off or go down,” says Rainey. “The stuff you’re going writes all of her posts for the week on Sunday, so that they
to get for free will continue to diminish in value.” are prescheduled. She dedicates part of each day to com-
The decline of the big-budgeted multi-city, multi- menting on other blogs and chatting with her fans on Face-
country news gathering operation is perhaps equally book and Twitter. Her full-time job is running her events
as mourned as the local news organization. and wedding consulting business, which draws 65% of its
“Ultimately, you’re going to end up with a lot of referrals from her blog. Not a bad ROI.
communities getting anemic coverage if much coverage Journalists are not supposed to care about their audience’s
at all,” predicts the Democrat and Chronicle’s Daneman. feelings as Fitzgerald does, but they are learning to embrace
“I have the same worries about the longevity of my job digital trends in order to protect their leading role in the in-
that probably everyone does.” formation and content business in the face of new rivals.
November 2011/prweekus.com/35

7. “It shouldn’t be a threat,” says Charles. “[Traditional viewers, listeners, or readers, while 39% said it has impacted
media] should be motivated to raise its game. Some of sourcing. In comparison, 78% of online journalists said it has
these blogs or YouTube pages, they’re good, they have a increased their audience, and 37% see an impact on sourcing.
point of view, they can write, and they’re well sourced. Franke-Ruta says social media can act as an “amplifier”
You have to raise your game to match them.” for legacy media as others link back to them or they try
Search, Facebook, Twitter, and links from other media, in- to reach new audiences that might not be arriving through
cluding blogs, are driving traffic to the the homepage. “Anyone who is doing valuable original
legacy sites, giving traditional media reporting has more power, rather than less,” she says.
even more reason to pay attention.
Witness The Wall Street Journal ’s Don’t be boring
reading app within Facebook, and The Whether a wedding blog, a general interest news-
New York Times’ aggressive blogging paper, or a brand looking to break into the news cycle,
and social media format, or its recent Hall’s comment that “the first rule of media is don’t be
collaboration with YouTube for cover- boring” has more meaning today. Those looking to create
age of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. a commercially viable journalism must find new ways to
“Social media is forcing journalists support the types of long-form, public serving pieces that
to pay attention to a lot more sources are vital to a healthy society. Sometimes that might be a
of information,” says Sreenivasan. Kindle Single or a metered paywall, but it also means learn-
“It’s also helping them build better ing more about the audience and engaging them with new
connections with their audiences.” types of exciting content and, occasionally, strong opinion.
Traditional media reacted positively “There are so many sources of news today that you have
when asked how social media net- to somehow build loyalty because there are so many other
works impacted their coverage. Fifty- sites that people can go to,” summarizes Gray. l
four percent said it has increased their
the 2011 PRWeek/Porter Novelli Media Content Survey
was conducted by PRWeek and CA walker. email notifica-
“yoU hAve to bUild loyAlty tion was sent to 83,883 US media professionals with 855
beCAUSe there Are So MANy completing the survey online between July 11 and August
2, 2011. results were not weighted and are statistically
other SiteS PeoPle CAN go to“ tested at a confidence level of 90%. this article offers only
Sheila gray, Fox 19 Morning News, Cincinnati a summary of findings. A premium version of the survey is
available for purchase at prweekus.com.
Bloggers
Blogger respondents include those writing on business (22%), food (18%), technology (17%), other consumer
$
issues (17%), media (11%), and other topics. The median for unique monthly visitors was 38,000.
revenue
Considering the mix of content you produce,
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Do not make Advertising Corporate Appearances Do not intend
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Do you include aggregated content? 80
62%
60
55% No
31%
Occasionally
40
20
37%
2%
0
14%
Frequently
Expect revenue from their Expect revenue to stay
blog to increase next year the same
Expect a decrease in
blog revenue
Base: 65
36/prweekus.com/November 2011