Media Relations is Dying and We Should Let It Go
It's time to stop the madness and let technology do the heavy lifting
If I could take back all the time and money I spent over the last few decades on all the meetings, pitches, briefings, coordination, corrections, progress reports, and measurement acrobatics performed in the service of Media Relations, I’d end up with a significant amount of cash, months if not years worth of both work and family hours, and at least two fewer anti-anxiety prescriptions.
According to the Big Book of Conventional Comms Wisdom1 it should all have been worth it. Earned media placements are a typical KPI for our ilk, and securing interviews and bylines is a sure path to success. And I admit, I did get my CEO’s name in print on occasion, and I can’t tell you how many industry trade articles featured my employers and our executives (although, in fairness, it’s not that many).
But what did any of this mean to my employers? Being irritatingly inquisitive, I have to ask myself: A) What did any of it accomplish? B) Did the cumulative spending result in any sales? C) Can I honestly say that our awareness improved? D) Was our reputation strengthened? E) Would the activities we could have done instead have been more effective?
Well, A) Don’t know; B) Don’t think so; C) No; D) No; E) Yes.
Hmm. Strong business case so far. Add to that the undeniable fact that our audiences are running away from traditional media in droves, and for a variety of reasons:
An ever-expanding, fractured universe of media: Audiences have more channels and content to choose from than ever before, and competition for reader and viewer attention has never been as intense as it is today
Reporter and journalist turnover: Traditional media companies have been through the wringer and continue to be squeezed by declining profits and M&A trauma, and just like any corporation, they’ve cut salaries and staff, restructured, changed business models…the hits just keep coming. It’s no surprise that reporters don’t stay put for long or leave journalism altogether. The result is inconsistent reporting quality, lack of depth, and further fracturing of the landscape as veteran journalists go independent and flock to platforms like Substack.
Rise of independent media: One more point about the independent journalists. It’s not just that journalists and reporters have gone solo; writers, analysts, podcasters, and a growing number of “influencers” - YouTubers, TikTok-ers, Tweeters, and more - have organically become a replacement for reporters and media organizations, winning the trust and loyalty of millions of followers. Speaking of trust….
Trust in media is abysmal: This week, Gallup revealed that Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. This chart says it all:
Source: Brennan, Megan. “Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low.” GALLUP, October 14, 2024, https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx
The upshot seems clear to me: stop the madness. If we were doctors, and Media Relations were our patient, we’d prescribe palliative care. So why do companies and organizations continue to throw money at this? Why do job descriptions (and thus HR screeners) continue to require senior candidates to have cultivated a network of media contacts? Why, if you’re blazing a path through our profession, would you hitch your wagon to this dead horse?
Like I said, madness.
“But Dan,” you might be saying, “Media Relations is our stock in trade. Ignoring journalists and media is PR malpractice.” Maybe you’re saying or thinking something much more…colorful. So I’ll throw you a few bones. If you’re at an enterprise whose fortunes are inextricably tied to stock performance (Fortune 500, maybe) and your company has a consequential Investor Relations (IR) function, you need strong relationships with traditional and financial media. If you’re in a crisis-prone industry, you need the media to trust you. A traditional Media Relations program makes sense if you’re in a highly regulated industry with significant public interest. Without a doubt, and in my own experience, we still need traditional Media Relations in Japan, Europe, and parts of Asia.
But for the vast majority of businesses, from startups to small shops to mid-market and beyond, you don’t need the headache and can’t afford the medicine.
Instead, we all need to rethink the sanctity of Media Relations and rework our entire approach to earned media.
How We Earn Coverage Must Evolve
But here’s the rub: under no circumstances should we abandon earned media strategy. Investing time and budget in the earned media portion of any communications program is a must.
“But Dan,” you might rightly point out, “didn’t you just spend a few hundred words telling us to euthanize Media Relations?”
I sure did, and there’s a non-zero probability that I’ll meet my maker on the let's-end-traditional-media-relations hill. But we have to replace it with a more effective way to grow awareness, build and defend authority and reputation, inform and educate stakeholders, shape public narratives, attract talent, and accrue trust on the merits of our knowledge, opinions, offerings, products, and deeds. Earned media provides critical third-party validation and makes or breaks our credibility.
If we need non-affiliated people and organizations to agree that we’re the bee’s knees, and traditional Media Relations isn’t doing the job, then what will?
I’ve been playing around with a few ideas, and here’s where I landed.
Earned Attention
That’s it. Anticlimactic? Perhaps. But think about it:
Earned Attention reflects the current landscape.
Media Relations is problematic in part because it’s focused on an increasingly undefinable, fractured, and dying category. Shifting to a broader attention-based approach brings multiple forms and formats of earned content into account.
Earned Attention is audience-centric.
Media Relations success is too often defined in terms of generic reach (how many eyeballs might, potentially, see the coverage), subjective quality (a New York Times hit is better than an Industry Week hit), vanity (at long last, the CEO’s dream of a Wall Street Journal piece has come true), and the dreaded AVE - Advertising Value Equivalent (how much it would cost to run an ad that’s the same size as the article). None of these can tell us anything about the impact of the placement, if we changed any minds or won any hearts, or if there’s any return on the time and money we spent to secure the placement. Attention, however, is about the audience's response and behavior. If we focus on attention, we would measure engagement (clicks, shares, comments, etc.), dwell time (how long someone lingers on the article, watches a video, listens to a podcast, and so on), downloads, and other behavioral metrics. We would do a far better job of connecting placements to outcomes, gain valuable insights, and gauge impact on our business.
Earned Attention is more adaptable to strategy.
Sometimes (I’d argue most of the time), pursuing a traditional Media Relations approach simply doesn’t align with business strategy. I think I’ve overexplained this one above, but I want to re-emphasize the time and cost associated with activities that yield questionable, fleeting, and often disconnected results. With an audience-centric, attention-driven approach, we would choose a variety of high-relevance, high-resonance channels, secure more earned opportunities with less time and money, and make changes on the fly to adjust to changing business needs.
Earned Attention subsumes Media Relations anyway.
Media Relations is just one part of the broader Earned Attention category. And now, generative AI and AI-powered tools such as PRofit, Muck Rack, Qwoted, and Agility PR can cover the entire Media Relations process, from press release to pitch creation to placement and measurement. While this doesn’t bode well for PR professionals who live and die by the media pitch, it’s good news for the able and agile communicator following an Earned Attention approach. Less time spent spinning your Media Relations wheels means more time to move up the value chain and focus on audience knowledge and insights, strategic direction, program and campaign management, and continuous alignment with the business.
Where do we go from here?
Whether you share my soapbox or not, there’s no doubt that we have to evolve as a profession and accept that Media Relations today isn’t what it used to be. Could it bounce back? Could traditional media regain its footing and authority? Long odds, if you ask me.
Clearly, I’m anticipating a sea change in our profession, and I believe the Media Relations pedestal is collapsing. How long will it take for brands, organizations, and agencies to move on? The proliferation of AI and technology-enhanced solutions tells me, not very long.
But I have an inkling that enterprise-level corporate communications will hang on to Media Relations long past its expiration date. And herein lies a conundrum. Or a paradox: Executives and Boards will question the ROI of investing in traditional media coverage, but will continue to use media coverage as a KPI for evaluating their communications teams. They will wonder why the Wall Street Journal isn’t interested in their CEO, and demand that the communications team “do something about that.” As long as the pressure is on from above, Media Relations will maintain its place in communications plans, agency scopes, and job descriptions.
It’s going to be up to us to effect change from within. And that will require building trust, putting the business first, and lots and lots of data. We can do it.
Notes
This post is almost 100% human-created.
The only AI tool I used in writing this post was Grammarly.
Images were generated using Midjourney.
In the coming weeks, I’ll return to this topic and share what I’m hearing from Trending Communicators. In the meantime, I’m sure many of you have strong opinions about the future of Media Relations. Tell me what you think. Drop a comment below or hit me up on LinkedIn. And don't forget to subscribe to The Trending Communicator podcast for more insights on navigating this wild, AI-powered world.
Not a real thing, don’t try to find it, I made it up.
refreshing perspective.
Fantastic article Dan. I'm currently doing a review of my teams owned and earned channels, and this piece has really got me thinking our relationship with the media and how many we've done in the past have been beneficial. This is something I'm going to be referring back to!