For many PR professionals, conversations with journalists often happen over email. For me, as a new face in this industry, I’d spent weeks developing contacts through inbox pitches and phone calls.
While communicating in this way can be efficient and convenient, it’s proving harder to develop those key relationships with reporters.
Smaller newsrooms have led to growing pressure on journalists who face increased workloads. Reach plans to cut around 160 editorial jobs as the UK’s largest news publisher shift strategy from page views and volume, while Metro proposes to reduce its workforce by approximately 60 employees.
It shows that every opportunity to have face-to-face meets and open conversations are becoming more valuable than ever. Media visits offered a reminder of the importance of genuine reporter relationships in today's changing environment.
Before my day in London with an ex-journalist colleague, I had often envisioned reporters and editors to be almost superhuman with a key to unlock my PR potential through client coverage.
However, I quickly came to realise that it’s a two-way partnership. We met up with a range of freelance and staff journalists from national titles to pitch angles and pick their brains.
With more journalists now working freelance, they are constantly looking for new angles and stories to pitch to publications, which means they often benefit from the relationship as much as we do.
The human element of bonding over a coffee became one of the biggest takeaways. Gaining real-time feedback, discussing upcoming stories and sharing products allowed for insight into topics they would like to cover over the next few months.
In an era of fake experts and AI slop, it’s much harder for journalists to know who to trust. Facetime builds relationships and enables the PR to become a trusted contact.
My experience in London reinforced a point made by colleague and ex-journalist, Lucy Varley, on ‘why human connection has become marketing’s most valuable currency’. With technology constantly at our fingertips, it’s easy to forget face-to-face conversations are what really matter.
I headed back north with a string of news and feature leads for our clients as well as an expanded contacts book.
