With the sad news of more journalism cuts across the industry, PR Week turned to media experts to understand how newsroom staff reductions are changing the day-to-day work of communications professionals.
Among the experts asked was Guy Marturano, Smarts’ Media Director. Check out Guy’s thoughts below and read the full article on PR Week here.
“As the number of journalists in newsrooms sadly continues to fall, the ones who remain will become increasingly time-poor – with an inevitable increase in email traffic to boot. It will therefore be more important than ever for comms professionals to respect their time by making sure they’re targeting the right journalists in the right way, building compelling pitches that get all the information over in a clear and simple manner.
The other side of these cuts means a rise in freelance journalists. Working with this cohort to build and pitch stories to editors will become more common for PRs, as newsrooms look to tap into external resources to help turn articles around.
Building freelance journalist relationships is something we feel really passionate about at Smarts, and indeed it’s why we set up a programme that brings different journalists into the office for workshops with our team on a fortnightly basis. Not only does it allow our team to build their book of contacts, it helps everyone truly understand the nuances in the way individual journalists operate, to help build better working relations.”