PWR Archives | SURVEY RESULTS: What we learned about news release preferences

Published in the Winter 2009 issue of Powerlines


2009 SURVEY RESULTS: What we learned about news release preferences
Once again, PWR has conducted our annual survey of journalists to learn more about their news release preferences, how they’re using new media and the state of the newsroom. Two-hundred and fifteen journalists participated from all media types (although with a very high percentage from print). We asked about how they wanted to receive releases and what they wanted with them. We also included an open-ended question about news release preferences. Once again, email ranked the highest by far with 89% of journalists saying that email is their preferred method of receiving releases. In the words of one respondent:
	The best way to ensure that your story is covered is to send the release electronically. Sending a fax or mailed release puts the story outside of the computer desktop and outside of mind and harder to reuse your language as it would have to be transcribed.
Snail mail came in second place, earning 6%, while social media, which has garnered some attention in PR circles recently, earned less than 1%, as did RSS, fax and in-person delivery. About 2% said they prefer traditional wire releases. Images continue to be the most important asset with 85% of journalists saying they are (very) important. The importance of images in releases was also a popular topic in our open ended questions (you can view all unedited responses here) with comments like:
	The absolute, most important supplement to a press release is editorial-quality, hi-resolution photographs to illustrate the story. Good art is always an incentive to continuing with a story; if a good pitch comes along but there isn't any art available, nine times out of 10, we pass on the story.
Easily downloadable verbiage and backgrounders, bios and other information also ranked high, 72% and 78% respectively. Although video and audio still don’t seem exceptionally important to our respondents, the percentage of journalists who label them (very) important has grown over the years we’ve conducted the survey. This year, 35% said downloadable video/audio was (very) important, versus only 20% in last year’s survey, and 29% said embed codes with video/audio was (very) important, speaking to the growing desire to get easily usable web-content in releases. When asked specifically if web content was important to them in a release, 30% said it was (very) important. Similar to what we’ve seen in the past, 33% said a downloadable logo was (very) important. Finally, we once again asked journalists to tell us anything they wanted PR professionals to know about their news release preferences. They had a lot to say about how they wanted to receive releases, what they did, and did not, want with releases, and what PR pros should, and should not, do to get better pick-up. You can view all the unedited responses here. And, for charts of all the survey questions go here.