The number of PR people now outstrip journalists six to one. And it appears journalists are not happy.
This story - from Bloomberg in the US, but I am sure the picture is very similar here in the UK - is nothing new.
Journalists paint the decline of the media - particularly printed media - and the rise of the PR professional in gloomy terms. We should all be worried that the news agenda is being driven by PRs (rather than media owners?)
Mainstream reporting of the PR industry repeatedly falls into the trap that all PRs do is hassle journalists into speaking/reporting/profiling their own clients.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Twenty or more years ago when I, ahem, started my career, media relations was the mainstay of the job.
Today, it is a very small, but important part.
PR is a catch-all label for what is a broad communications role - internal comms, social and digital media, content creation, thought leadership, comms strategy, management consulting, reputation management, crisis communications, investor relations. The list is almost endless.
The rise of the communications professional isn't the villain in this story.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is pessimistic on the newspaper industry at a time when public relations specialists are increasingly outnumbering journalists. Public relations jobs exceeded those of reporters by more than six-to-one last year, up from less than two-to-one 20 years ago, according to data from the U.S. Census. With six public relations workers for every reporter it’s no wonder that some writers say they are bombarded daily by story pitches. Some have taken to Twitter to complain about the most egregious phone calls and emails.
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