Photo source: Freepik
In the public relations industry, it has almost been a rule for years that success is measured by the number of placements. How many media outlets published the release? What was the “reach”? How many times was the article opened, read or shared? But increasingly, the question arises: are these numbers truly a measure of impact or merely a measure of fleeting visibility?
Crisis of newsrooms and content inflation
Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in the region, have for years been operating under very complex and exhausting conditions. Newsrooms are getting smaller, journalists are covering more and more topics, and the need for continuous production of articles and information has never been greater.
At one of the panels at the 23rd PRO PR conference dedicated to the relationship between PR and journalism, Katarina Dimitrijević Hrnjkaš, editor at RTL in Croatia, openly stated that “One journalist in a digital newsroom often publishes up to 30 news pieces a day.” In such a system, a logical question arises: where is the space for serious journalistic processing of all topics and press releases that arrive in the newsroom that day?
If we momentarily set aside the issue of overload itself, we witness that journalists do have the ability to recognize a good story and most often do not publish it as PR. They take it as a starting point, verify additional sources and create their own version of the story. This is most often the case when dealing with releases coming from state institutions, the non-governmental sector and similar organizations, but what about releases coming from corporations? Is there space there for additional processing and unpaid publication? And even more importantly: what actually makes a story worth attention in that case?
In theory, we all still believe that a topic with real public value, social importance, innovation, crisis, relevant data or a strong human dimension can earn organic coverage. However, even in those situations, practice has begun to show otherwise.
PR between client pressure and media reality
PR agencies today operate between two realities that are difficult to reconcile. On one side are clients who want visibility, results and measurable return on investment. On the other are media outlets overwhelmed with content and lacking the capacity for everything that is being sent to them.
As noted by communications expert Michael Schorder, a participant of the PRO PR conference: “There are fewer journalists, deadlines are shorter, and trust is thinner than ever. Digital noise is stronger than any other channel. Yet our inboxes are still full of press releases that sound like they were written behind closed doors.”
In such an environment, he says, the problem is not only technical but also emotional. “Journalists don’t need more content. They need context. They don’t want to be pitched, they want to be understood.”
In other words, media relations cannot be reduced to an Excel sheet with contacts and a count of placements at the end of the month. Precisely because of this, more and more communications professionals are advocating for a shift in perspective. Instead of focusing on output, we need to look at outcomes.
As Schorder emphasizes: “Let’s stop counting placements. Let’s start measuring consequences. The question should not be how many media placements we got today, but whether we changed perception, built trust and moved people to act.”
One good story can sometimes have greater impact than a hundred placements that no one remembers.
When one story triggers a campaign
This is exactly illustrated by an example from Montenegro. The telecom company ONE received a simple email from mountaineers and scouts asking which network to use in mountains such as Durmitor, Prokletije or Hajla. The answers were almost unanimous: ONE had the most reliable signal.
From that simple inquiry, the campaign “Count on us” was created. Without invented scenarios, without marketing hyperbole, relying exclusively on real experiences of people who spend time in nature, for whom better signal in the mountains also meant greater safety when moving through remote areas, all from just one email.
The company continued to collaborate with mountaineers and expanded the partnership into the “Forest of Heroes” project, in which all firefighters who fight fires every year received one year of free network services as a sign of gratitude for their work. Then the initiative moved on to restoring burned forests, planting 15 thousand trees, with a plan to plant a total of 30 thousand young trees across Montenegro by the end of this year. Through this effort, which represents the largest corporate reforestation project in Montenegro, their “Forest of Heroes” was created, paying tribute to Montenegrin firefighters. The entire story achieved significant resonance and is built on a very clear message:
Technology connects us, but moments are what make us human.
And this is where we arrive at a key lesson for the PR industry. Great campaigns do not emerge from the need for placements. They emerge from real insights, authentic stories and emotions that people truly recognize as their own.
The future of the relationship between PR and journalism
PR and journalism will never be fully satisfied with each other, and that is actually a healthy state. One side wants to present the story, the other wants to verify it.
If PR loses faith in stories, and journalism loses the capacity to investigate them, the entire public loses.
That is why perhaps the biggest change the industry needs is not technological, but human.
We need fewer templated emails and more understanding of newsrooms. Less counting of placements, and more real stories. Because good communication has never been just a matter of visibility, it has always been a matter of trust.
