The Press Release Is Now the Story
Institutions have larger communications staffs than the newsrooms covering them. The output ratio shows up in what gets published.
Count the communications professionals at a large agency, university, or corporation, then count the reporters who cover that institution full time. In most cases the first number exceeds the second by a wide margin.
This asymmetry determines what gets published. A well written release arrives formatted, quoted, and timed for a deadline. Independently reported material requires a reporter to obtain the same information from someone who is not paid to provide it, which takes days the newsroom does not have.
The result is not fabrication. It is selection. Stories that an institution wants told get told, accurately, with the framing intact, and stories that require someone to dig do not get told at all.
The outlets that resist this share one characteristic: they assign a reporter to a beat for long enough to develop sources who are not in the communications office. That is expensive, it takes years to pay off, and it is the first thing cut.
Helen Straiton writes for The 13th Bell on media. This piece was edited and fact checked before publication.
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