Bulldog Reporter / TEKGROUP International

Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

October 2010

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

A broad survey of working journalists across all media was conducted for the fourth year running using Survey-
Monkey.com as the data collector, and generating valid responses from 1,404 journalists, of which approximately
46% were editors or editorial staff and some 35.6% were reporters, writers, columnists or freelance journalists. The
objective was to track year-over-year changes in journalist usage of the Internet and other resources, especially social
media, to research, follow and report news and features material.

1. Respondents again reported that the single greatest change in

journalism practices due to new Internet technology is that they
can now research corporate and other news online 24 hours a
day (75.4%) and they can now access media contact phone
numbers and e-mail addresses online (68.9%).

2. Nearly half of all journalists report visiting a corporate web-

site or online newsroom at least once a week (44.6%), and more
than 84% report visiting a corporate website or online newsroom
at least once a month. Ironically, despite such heavy traffic from
journalists, most corporate websites would seem inadequately
designed to accommodate them: More than half of journalists
generally agree that when they visit organizations’ websites, it’s
often difficult to find a) the organizations’ media representatives,
b) their contact information or c) press materials that address
their interests.

3. Journalists also report a steady increase in their usage of social media and RSS or e-mail feeds of blogs, podcasts
and videocasts, but, surprisingly, a slight decrease in overall reliance on blogs themselves to stay on top of and report
the news.

Some 73.4% of journalists report they read one or more blogs to keep up with the subject matter they cover, a mar-
ginal decrease (from 75.5%) compared with a year ago. Today more than 26% of journalists regularly read five or
more blogs to keep up with their beat, a drop compared with almost 32% last year.

The increase in journalists visiting social media sites to do their job has risen even more dramatically: For example,
last year, about 46.5% of journalists said they use Twitter to research stories. Today that number grew more than
19%—to 55.5% Even more journalists—fully 73.4%—use Facebook for such research. The use of social media by
journalists covering consumer technology, and entertainment and arts/culture is expectedly even higher.

A new question this year, which asked which social networks journalists personally belong to, revealed that Facebook
is the most popular by far among journalists, with more than 90% reporting membership, followed by LinkedIn, with
almost 70% reporting membership in that network.

While journalists may be using blogs less, they receive even more of them and their cousins—podcasts, videocasts
and digital news services—by subscribed RSS or e-mail feeds. This year, nearly 27% of journalists report that they
subscribe to five or more news services, blogs, podcasts or videocasts every week, a gain of about four percentage
points over last year, and nearly 59% receive at least one regular RSS or e-mail feed, up dramatically from 46%
last year.

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

4. The number of journalists reporting that they seek audio or video material from corporate websites rose
slightly this year—some 54.3% do so—and fully 21.5% say they seek such material at least once a month, very
slightly fewer than last year. Among journalists working in local and national radio, however, almost 66% seek
audio and video material from corporate sites, and fully 15% seek such material once a week or more.

5. This year an even larger majority (77.6%) of journalists report that they use their local newspapers to follow
the news (compared with 74.8% last year), followed by the New York Times, which lost 7% of its popularity,
sliding from 64.4% last year to 59.9% this year. Google News also lost ground, falling from usage by 51.8% of
journalists last year to 48.7% this year. Two cable stations, CNN and MSNBC, saw slight drops in their influence
among journalists this year, as did the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. However, NPR and Fox News gained
some popularity among respondents.

This year an even larger majority

(77.6%) of journalists report that
w s
they use their local newspapers to
N e
follow the news. a l
(Compared with 74.8% last year) o c
L

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #1: What is your title?

The overwhelming majority of respondents to this survey were frontline working journalists—
more than 85% reported titles of reporter/writer, correspondent/columnist or editor/editorial staff.
Fewer than 1% reported a non-editorial title.

Reporter/Writer 28.6%
Correspondent/Columnist 3.2%
Editor/Editorial Staff 45.9%
Blogger 1.1%
Producer 1.9%
On-Air Talent 4.6%
Media Outlet Manager (Non-Editorial) 0.7%
News Director 3.2%
Freelance Journalist 3.8%
Other 6.9%

QUESTION #2: For which type of medium do you work?

Nearly 42% of respondents work at newspapers; about 25% work at trade publications, just 9%
work at consumer magazines, more than 16% work at TV or radio outlets, and fully 4.5% work in
digital media, providing a reasonable representation of the journalist profession.

Weekly newspaper 9.5%

Daily newspaper 32.1%
Consumer magazine 9.3%
Trade magazine or newspaper 24.4%
Local television 10.7%
National television 0.9%
Local radio 4.7%
National radio 0.9%
Wire service/News syndicate 1.9%
Blog 1.0%
News website 2.6%
Other website 1.9%

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #3: Which beat do you primarily cover?

Respondents cover a wide range of beats, with the greatest number (14.9%) covering city/metro, followed by govern-
ment/politics (9.5%), business, general (7.7%), health care/hospitals medicine (7.6%) and sports/recreation (6.9%).
About 8.0% represent the combined beat category of entertainment/arts/culture, while 5.6% cover the combined cat-
egory of business and consumer technology.

Accounting 0.1%
Advertising/Marketing 0.8%
Agriculture/Farming 2.3%
Architecture/Design 0.7%
Arts/Culture 4.2%
Automotive 1.6%
Banking 0.3%
Beauty 0.7%
Biotechnology 0.2%
Books 0.3%
Business, General 7.7%
City/Metro 14.9%
Education 4.4%
Electronics, industrial 1.0%
Energy/utilities 2.2%
Entertainment 3.8%
Environment 1.6%
Family/Parenting 1.3%
Fashion/Apparel 0.6%
Financial Services 2.2%
Food/Beverage/Restaurants 3.0%
Government/Politics 9.5%
Health care/Hospitals/Medicine 7.6%
Home/Garden 1.3%
International News 1.3%
Law 2.9%
Personal Finance 0.4%
Professional Services 0.1%
Pharmaceuticals 0.4%
Publishing/Media 1.0%
Real Estate/Housing 1.4%
Retail 1.1%
Science 1.5%
Social Policy 1.3%
Sports/Recreation 6.9%
Technology (business) 3.9%
Technology (consumer) 1.7%
Travel/Hospitality 2.2%
Transportation 1.5%
Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter
 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #4: Please indicate your level of agreement with the

following frustrations sometimes expressed by working journalists
about public relations professionals.

Respondents rated their agreement on a one-through-five scale, with “one” indicating lack of agreement and “five”
indicating full agreement. For purposes of this report, we have combined scores of one and two to indicate general
disagreement and scores of four and five to indicate general agreement.

Journalists most fully agreed with the proposition that PR professionals often try to shade or “spin” a story to their
advantage, with 60.2% in general agreement, about a half a percentage point increase compared with last year. While
a PR person may legitimately argue that one person’s “spin” is another person’s “glass half full” version of a client’s
story, PR practitioners might take more seriously another prominent and perennial journalist complaint: PR profession-
als do not understand which subjects journalists or their media cover, propositions with which almost half of journalists
generally agreed, in fact discouragingly, by slightly higher percentages than last year.

Likewise, PR professionals may do well to recognize that nearly half of journalists (46.5%) generally believe PR
people interrupt their work flow and waste their time with phone calls—presumably those guilty of the lack of knowl-
edge cited above, and bespeaking a greater need for media research before pitching.

Nor is it surprising that some 39.3% of journalists—an increased number from last year—report general agreement
with the statement that “I cannot easily find information I need on corporate websites” (with only 6.3% strongly dis-
agreeing).

On the positive side, journalists disagreed strongly with the notion that PR professionals “do not respond quickly
enough when I call them,” with 54% indicating general disagreement and only 5.8% agreeing whole heartedly. Anoth-
er relative positive was the fact that journalists generally disagree that PR professionals often do not tell the truth, with
55.4% dissenting from that proposition.

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #5: How do you prefer to receive information about

corporate, not-for-profit or government news?
An overwhelming majority of journalists—79.4%—prefer to receive information about corporate, not-for-profit and
government news by e-mail—a slight increase compared with last year. A distant second choice of delivery method
was targeted emails from a corporate online newsroom (6.9%), indicating a preference for targeted, requested in-
formation, as opposed to “shot-gunned” messages. Commercial newswires were the third choice, with only 5.5% of
respondents indicating that preference, a decrease of more than 1.5 percentage points compared with last year. Some
5.9% of respondents indicated that they don’t want to receive such information from any source, a significant increase
from 4.4% last year.

Via commercial newswires (such as PR Newswire or Business Wire) 5.5%

Via press releases sent to me through the U.S. Postal Service 1.4%
Via press releases sent to me by e-mail 79.4%
Via official alerts sent to me from a corporate online newsroom 6.9%
Via press releases sent to me by fax 0.6%
Via press releases sent to me by express delivery (such as FedEx or UPS) 0.4%
I do not wish to receive such information from any source 5.9%

QUESTION #6: Which of the following social networks do you

personally belong to?
Clearly Facebook is the favored personal social network of journalists—as it is by most people on the planet. What
might be somewhat surprising is the number-two position held by LinkedIn, significantly above Twitter. As might be
expected, online journalists and consumer technology journalists embrace the top social networks even more enthusi-
astically: Consumer tech journalists report 100% membership in LinkedIn and 95.2% membership in both Facebook
and Twitter; online journalists claim 94.1% membership in Facebook and 84.5% membership in Twitter.

How journalists use these social media professionally, however, is a different story, as we see by the an-
swers to the next question, which asks which social media journalists use to research stories.

Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Myspace Digg

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #7: How often do you regularly use these social media
as a source of story ideas or to research stories you’re working on?
Answers to this question confirm what PR professionals know empirically—that journalists use social
media extensively to research stories—but they also add a sense of scale and comparison among various
networks. First, clearly, Facebook is the most used network for professional purposes, with some 37.8%
of respondents saying that they use it once a week or more frequently. Also not unexpectedly, Twitter
follows in journalistic utility, with almost 35% saying they use it once a week or more frequently. Other
social media are “also rans,” but perhaps most surprising is LinkedIn, which enjoys so much popularity
in journalists’ personal lives, but turns out not to be very useful journalistically, with only 15% using it
weekly or more frequently for this purpose. YouTube also enjoys solid usage by journalists, with 25.5%
employing the channel to research story ideas once a week or more frequently.

Not surprisingly, journalists in online media and those covering consumer technology use these social
networks twice as often as the average journalist. Fully 39.1% of bloggers and journalists working on
websites use Twitter daily in their work; likewise, 36.4% of journalists on the consumer tech beat use
Twitter daily in their work.

Several Several Less

Times / Once Times / Once Frequently /
Daily Week Weekly Month Monthly Never

Digg 0.6% 1.7% 0.7% 1.9% 2.3% 93.0%

Facebook 19.4% 11.9% 6.5% 12.7% 13.0% 36.6%

Flickr 0.9% 1.8% 2.7% 4.3% 6.9% 83.3%

LinkedIn 2.5% 5.1% 7.4% 10.7% 14.7% 59.5%

MySpace 0.5% 1.0% 1.0% 3.6% 6.0% 87.9%

Twitter 17.3% 11.0% 6.3% 10.7% 10.2% 44.5%

YouTube 5.9% 12.1% 7.5% 13.4% 15.8% 45.3%

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #8: How many blogs do you read regularly in order to

keep up with the subject matter you cover as a journalist?
(Please check one best answer.)
After seeing blogs gain popularity over the last two years, it’s a bit surprising to see them lose a bit of popular-
ity this year. A slightly smaller percentage of journalists reported using blogs to keep up with their beats than in
the past—75.5% last year, compared with 73.4% this year— and fewer journalists reported following five or more
blogs—31.9% last year and only 26.1% this year. Of course, not unexpectedly, nearly 61% of consumer technology
journalists and 42.7% of online journalists report following more than five blogs to keep up. Entertainment and arts/
culture journalists and business technology journalists also report high blog usage.

None 26.6%
1 blog 6.8%
2 blogs 17.0%
3 blogs 17.8%
4 blogs 5.8%
5 or more blogs 26.1%

QUESTION #9. How many blogs, podcasts, videocasts or other news

services do you regularly receive via an RSS feed or via e-mail?
By broadening the question to include other forms of subscription digital services in addition to blogs, we
see a sustained professional reliance on blogs, podcasts, videocasts and online news services. Whereas last
year’s survey showed that only 45.8% of journalists subscribed to such services, this year’s survey shows
a marked increase—to 58.8%. Whereas last year only 22.9% of journalists reported receiving five or more
such dispatches, this year more than 27% so reported. Among business technology journalists, more than
44% say they receive five or more such feeds, and nearly 43% of online journalists report subscribing to that
many.

None 41.2%
1 5.3%
2 12.8%
3 8.8%
4 4.7%
5 or more 27.2.%

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #10: How often do you visit a corporate website or online

newsroom to research subject matter you cover as a journalist?
The importance of corporate website and online
newsroom as a preferred source of information for
journalists continues over the past year, with nearly
97% of journalists indicating that they use such sites
in their work. Nearly 45% of respondents report
visits more frequently than once a week, and more
than 84% report a visit at least once a month. Busi-
ness journalists make greatest regular use of corporate
websites and online newsrooms, with 59.2% report-
ing visits more than once a week; and fully 87.4% of
business technology journalists report such visits once
a month or more. The most avid users of corporate
websites are online journalists, almost 75% of whom
visit corporate websites or online newsrooms once a
week or more frequently

97% of Journalists
Use Online Newrooms
as well as corporate websites as a source of information
Never 3.3%
About once a year 1.9%
About once every six months 3.4%
About once every three months 7.1%
About once a month 17.5%
About once a week 22.2%
More often than once a week 44.6%

Again, this growing reliance of journalists on the corporate website must be juxtaposed with the fact that
more than a half of all journalists report significant difficulties in getting specific information they seek from
those sites (see question #11 below).

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #11: Please indicate your level of agreement with the

following difficulties sometimes identified by working journalists when
visiting a corporate website.
For every year of this survey, journalists have lamented their inability to get the information they seek from
corporate websites—not inside financial information or the CEO’s home phone, but the basic block-and-
tackle information that comprises professional media relations. Journalists want a user-friendly website that
gives them a) access to media spokesperson’s names and b) the means to contact them. Yet in this year’s
survey, again more than half of journalists generally agree that it’s difficult to find the identities of organiza-
tions’ media contacts or the contact information for those representatives—similar to last year’s assessment.
More than 57% of journalists generally agree that it’s difficult to find press materials that address their
interests. What’s more, almost 42% of respondents generally agree that it’s difficult even to find organi-
zations’ online newsrooms. Given the fact that journalists so frequently use the corporate website to gain
information about organizations and since organizing the corporate website for ease of use by journalists
(and other publics) is relatively simple and inexpensive, it would seem that increasing online newsroom
friendliness and functionality presents a major opportunity for media relations professionals.

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #12: How often do you seek audio or video material

from corporate websites for use in your reporting?
More than half of journalists indicated they use online audio or video from corporate websites in their reporting—
up slightly from last year, which was in turn up three percentage points from the previous year. While almost 10%
of respondents report using such material once a week or more, that number jumps to about 15% for journalists at
local and national radio outlets, and 13.7% for online journalists.

Never 45.7%
About once a year 11.8%
About once every six months 10.2%
About once every three months 10.9%
About once a month 11.8%
About once a week 6.5%
More often than once a week 3.2%

QUESTION #13: Which general-interest media outlets do you use

regularly to follow the news?
Journalists overwhelmingly use local newspapers to stay on top of the news—serving almost 78% of respondents-
--up marginally from last year’s results. The New York Times remained journalists’ second choice (and the first
branded choice) for following the news, but the Times’ popularity dropped significantly from 64.4% to 59.9%; and
USA Today dropped from being the choice of 22% of journalists last year to 20.3% this year. NPR remains the
second-favorite branded news source of journalists, increasing its popularity from 50.8% last year to 52.3% this
year. Online news services—Google News and Yahoo! News—both dropped in popularity, Google from 51.8% to
48.7% and Yahoo from 31.3% last year to 28.6% this year. CNN dropped three percentage points, but Fox in-
creased its standing by almost a percentage point, and CBS TV increased its score by three full percentage points.

Local television 56.6%

Local radio 49.1%
Local newspaper 77.6%
New York Times 59.9%
USA Today 20.3%
Wall Street Journal 40.1%
National Public Radio 52.3%
ABC TV national news program(s) 23.3%
CBS TV national news program(s) 20.5%
NBC TV national news program(s) 25.2%
Fox News national news program(s) 17.2%
CNN national news program(s) 42.8%
MSNBC national news program(s) 22.9%
Google News 48.7%
Yahoo News 28.6%

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter

 Bulldog Reporter /
TEKGROUP International
October 2010 2010 JOURNALIST SURVEY ON
DETAILED SUMMARY OF RESULTS MEDIA RELATIONS PRACTICES

QUESTION #14: What has been the greatest change in the way you
practice journalism due to new Internet technology?
As in previous years, journalists report that the single greatest impact the Internet has had on how
journalists practice their craft is the ability to research corporate and other news online 24/7, with about
75% indicating this improvement. Almost 69% of journalists indicated that the ability to access media
contact phone numbers and e-mail addresses online was significant—an increase from last year—de-
spite the fact that this information was also deemed difficult to find on many corporate websites. Other
advantages brought about by the Internet also pertained to corporate information, such as the ability to
search corporate news archives, receive corporate news alerts targeted to their beats (up a more than a
percentage point from last year), and access electronic press kits online (also up more than a percentage
point from last year). Again, it would appear that the use of current technology and design best prac-
tices on corporate websites lags behind journalist demand for information about organizations.

I can now research corporate and other news online 24 hours a day........................................ 75.41%

I can now search corporate news archives online...................................................................... 39.9%

I can now receive corporate and other news via e-mail alerts targeted
specifically to my particular beat..................................................................................................41.2%

I can now get story leads and conduct research via Twitter........................................................ 22.9%

I can now receive blogs and corporate news via RSS. ................................................................20.4%

I can now search for and download high-resolution photographs................................................43.1%

I can now access social media and corporate audio and video online..........................................27.0%

I can now access electronic press kits online. ..............................................................................47.3%

I can now access media contact phone numbers and e-mail addresses online..............................68.9%

Copyright © 2010 TEKGROUP and Bulldog Reporter