We have never had so much information at our fingertips, and yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to find anything that is truly worth reporting.
Every morning, when I open the emails from the newsrooms I regularly contribute to, I am confronted with a paradox that captures what is happening in journalism today. Hundreds of press releases – and I am not exaggerating in the slightest – land in our inboxes every day. They promise to be relevant, urgent, essential. But the reality is quite different: most lack journalistic interest, are repetitive, and respond more to a brand’s need for visibility than to companies’ right to inform and people’s right to receive useful and accurate information.
It is a daily grind, a constant struggle, and also an obstacle to carrying out my work as a journalist professionally. The deluge of empty and unsubstantiated press releases is eroding a relationship that has traditionally been based on mutual benefit: that between the media and public relations agencies. Far from facilitating journalistic work, this constant barrage of irrelevant content ultimately has the opposite effect, leading to fatigue, mistrust and, in the worst cases, indifference, to put it mildly. Journalists stop opening emails; the phone rings and no one answers. Not out of disdain, but for the sake of professional survival.
How can one distinguish what is truly important when everything is presented as urgent?
How can one find the time to verify information when nine out of ten emails could be deleted without consequence? This is where we need to pause, not to lament, but to propose solutions so that so the few don’t pay for the many. Communication agencies play a fundamental role in the news ecosystem; they are intermediaries, content generators and facilitators of access to sources. But for that role to make sense, it is essential to recover certain basic principles that seem to have been diluted in the race to ‘place’ any message and have it reproduced in as many media outlets as possible.
A press release is not an advertising piece, although many people believe it to be so. It is not a space for empty self-promotion, nor for language inflated with grandiose adjectives. It is, or should be, an informative tool, and as such, it must meet clear journalistic criteria: timeliness, relevance, accuracy and, above all, interest for the target audience.
This means, first and foremost, understanding the media outlet to which the information is being sent. Not all content fits into every space. Indiscriminately sending the same press release to hundreds of newsrooms is not only ineffective but counterproductive. It shows a lack of judgement and respect for others’ work. Tailoring the information to the general interests of the media outlet is not an option; it is a requirement.
Secondly, the information must be verified. It seems obvious, but it is not. We have received press releases with incomplete data, figures without sources, claims that do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny, and even pranks on April Fools’ Day, which end up irreparably damaging trust in the source. In a context where credibility is a media outlet’s main asset, this is unacceptable; publishing without verifying is not an option. But neither is spending time verifying what should already have been validated.
And finally, the content must be interesting. Not for the sender, but for the reader. This distinction is key. The fact that a company organises a conference with its sales team may be relevant internally, but not necessarily to our readers.
The angle is everything. Does it provide new information? Does it respond to a trend? Does it have a social, economic or cultural impact? If the answer is no, it is probably not news.
The consequences of ignoring these principles are obvious and well known to all. Information overload not only reduces the effectiveness of press releases but also damages relations with the media, as it creates a vicious circle: more emails are sent to compensate for the lack of response, which in turn increases the overload and further reduces attention.
From this platform, we are not asking for less communication; we are asking for better communication. More rigorous, more selective, more aware of the context in which it is presented. Because when everything is news, nothing is. And because, at the end of the day, our commitment is not to those who send information, but to those who receive it – our audience. Because it is they who trust our judgement, who expect us to filter out the noise and highlight what really matters. Without them, everything falls apart, and I truly believe that someone had to say it.
José María Martínez Mora
Journalist and expert in corporate communications.
Partner and Director of -RdM- Recursos de Mercado
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