DO JOURNALISTS TELL THE TRUTH? THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SAYS NO.
With over half of the Australian public (59%) agreeing that they don’t trust journalists to tell the truth, it’s no wonder that nearly three quarters of the population don’t believe the media are objective enough.
To understand why Australian’s don’t trust the media, it is important to take a step back and consider what exactly it is that the media does. Are media organisations here to inform society or are they more interested in making money? Contrary to what you might like to believe, the majority of Australians (74%) think media organisations are here to make money.
From a public relations perspective, we need to make sure that a journalist is receiving enough quality, community-based information that is accurate, interesting and topical, so they don’t become reliant on advertisers for information. From a journalist’s perspective (in a short-staffed high pressure environment), it may be far easier to ring an advertising contact and ask for a quote for a story rather than seek out and contact a source with whom they or their organisation has never dealt with before.
So if you don’t fancy advertising or don’t wish to partake in advertorial, your best bet is to engage in an ongoing PR campaign that will build your business profile and reputation within target media. Consequently, the media has a better chance of becoming more localised, diverse and trusted as more objective sources and information are used.
A good PR campaign is one that stimulates a journalist to do their own research and one that contains good topic starters- perhaps using your company sales statistics to raise awareness of the popularity of a product or brand. The release of this information will prompt a journalist into researching the topic in general and ideally, your company will be quoted in the article for being an industry leader in trend recognition.
Remember, while in an ideal PR world, a journalist would cut and paste your media release into a published article, we prefer our media contacts to do their own research and write a balanced and interesting article. After all, a reader would be far more interested in reading an article that is objective, doesn’t appear salesy and isn’t followed by a two page colour advertisement for one of the products/services mentioned. Hopefully then, the trust in media will rise because lets face it, media is the only organisation that has the power to reach, inform and persuade so many people.
