Do you know why you aren’t seeing headlines like “PR Agencies Laying Off Record Numbers” or “PR Agencies Laid Off 10,000 Employees Last Year?”
Last year, it was actually reported that the PR Industry saw 60% growth in 2022. That isn’t a brag on Bear Icebox, or Edelman for that matter.
So, why are we seeing those headlines in journalism, but not public relations when the two are so closely related? I see it as PR being journalism’s younger, hipper sister.
PR has just been able to keep up with the trends far better than journalism has.
As the world transitioned into a digital media landscape, the PR industry flourished, where journalism struggled to keep print alive. Public relations accepted social media as a responsible form of brand management, among its many other benefits to the field. Now, as the world watches how Artificial Intelligence changes media once again, PR professionals are using AI to revolutionize the industry once again, while journalism has had documented failures attempting to implement AI.
How the Digital Landscape Killed Journalism and Aided PR
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. I’m not saying that journalism hasn’t transformed into a digital media landscape because it has, but it truly just didn’t do it fast enough. I might call it apprehension. Newspapers and magazines were such a core part of American history and culture that maybe journalism professionals just didn’t believe that would ever change. So, newspapers have held on.
As of May 2022, 58 of the largest daily newspapers in the U.S. were still printing daily, while the other 42 were printing less frequently and 11 of those are only operating once or twice a week. The news is still available digitally, but journalism has struggled in one key area – how to keep the lights on without the financial backing of mass print advertising.
A decade ago, print advertising was a $25 billion dollar industry, and now it’s just over $5 billion dollars. When internet users have so many options to choose from digitally, whether it’s online news or social media, journalism leaders can’t guarantee the readership that it once could.
In some cases, newsrooms have invested in SEO training to rank better on Google, they’ve turned to digital-based teams who create more content based on trending searches and they produce video content that can be monetized across social media channels. But, that trend is not industry-wide, and it definitely hasn’t reached the far corners of journalism education.
Meanwhile, the digital landscape gave public relations professionals direct access to their audiences and more control over the distribution of their messaging compared to traditional journalism. Moving into the digital landscape gave the PR industry a more enhanced tool for brand management, while also being more cost effective through the use of things like digital press releases versus traditionally printed ones.
The Age of Social Media and Smartphones Changed Everything
Social media is a big reason why I used the term trendier. Facebook and Twitter, now X, were huge resources for journalists to share their content. It’s the best example of journalism moving into the digital ages, as well as the age of social media.
But, unfortunately for journalism, the example ends there.
The iPhone was released in all markets by the end of 2009, and the iPhone 4s sold more than 50 million units in 2010, cementing the technology as the most popular smartphone.
Also in 2010, Instagram debuted, amassing 10 million users in a year.
And journalism never quite grasped the transition from written content to photo content. Instagram’s platform didn’t really help, you couldn’t share links in your captions, and even when stories first launched, you couldn’t share links.
Then, Facebook and eventually X, landed knockout punches with changes to their algorithm and policies that lessened visibility on journalism content.
Even more recently, and further down the path of photo and video content, TikTok might be putting journalism on a lifeline. Similar to Instagram, there’s no direct way to drive viewers from the video to a news site.
While TikTok is rooted in storytelling, newsrooms aren’t competing with more personality-based content creators. This is just one of the ways social media has benefitted public relations professionals, who can partner with creators to share branding in a way that journalism can’t.
But, TikTok is both a blessing and a curse for public relations.
Let’s take Kyte Baby for example. You have Marissa, a 26-year-old mom-to-be who shared a personal story after she was fired while staying in the NICU with the premature baby her and her husband adopted. The story went viral, with “mom-fluencers” and other content creators lashing out at the brand and threatening to boycott. The CEO of Kyte Baby responded with a scripted apology that only furthered the backlash, prompting a second apologetic upload. In the month since, Kyte Baby’s followers, views and interactions have significantly dropped to a fraction of what it was before the incident.
Then, you have the other side. Creator Keith Lee started posting content, particularly restaurant reviews in 2021. He built a platform, and uses it to promote black-owned businesses and smaller mom-and-pop restaurants. Not only did Keith Lee launch his own brand, but he’s elevating other brands in the process, so much so that it’s referred to as “the Keith Lee effect.” His 15.9 million followers then flock to the business, giving it a much needed boost.
It’s actually worth asking the question, what is a viral video worth to a brand? We’ll dive into that another time.
Because, journalism and PR are facing something else that will further change the way the industries function.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already challenging journalism, so how does PR avoid the same mistakes?
Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots took the world by storm in late 2022. It’s immediately been questioned on its impact from data and privacy, to the risks of job replacement.
But journalism was quick to jump on the new technology, and why not? Is AI the answer to all of journalism’s problems? Can AI write articles without fighting for higher wages?
It can, but should it? We’ve already seen it fail twice, in major publications.
In August 2023, Gannett came under fire for publishing AI-generated sports articles to cover local sports. The articles were formulaic at best, with comical language at its worst. And it wasn’t just one site. Gannett owns USA Today and hundreds of other papers. The AI-generated articles and their horrible “close encounter of an athletic kind” lingo showed up in dozens of articles from small sites all over the country. Sites that once had a reporter on the ground, interviewing winning high school football teams. Within days, Gannett announced they would be pausing the “local AI sports effort.”
Three months later, Sports Illustrated was accused of using AI to generate articles, as well as headshots and author biographies for writers that didn’t exist. As quickly as the report was published, SI’s owner The Arena Group denied it. They offered up an explanation, that they had contracted a third-party company to write e-commerce content like product reviews, and although all of the articles were written by humans, the third-party company AdVon allowed its writers to use pseudo names. The explanation was questioned, the site behind the report stood by it, and Sports Illustrated responded by removing all of the AdVon content, severing its partnership with AdVon, and firing their own CEO shortly after.
Journalism, as an industry, needs to tread carefully with its next venture into AI. And there will be a next one.
For PR, we’re back where we started, where those headlines just don’t exist. What both industries know is that content reigns supreme, but content creation aside, AI can assist PR in endless ways. Sure, it could write a press release, or draft an email response, but those are the basics.
AI can be used to generate ideas, create reports, create media lists, generate high quality videos, remove deep fake videos, analyze online conversations and media mentions, identify influencers who align with your brand’s audience, automating social media posts and replies, and even create entire budget proposals for a campaign.
What was overlooked by the journalism industry, but holds true for both industries is that utilizing AI still requires the human element. That’s why PR can still create jobs in an industry fueled by digital media, social media, and AI, where journalism hasn’t been able to do so.