On October 26, IABC/Toronto hosted a webinar with five seasoned media experts on the changes they’ve seen in newsrooms post pandemic, trends they expect to see in 2022 and strategies that communications professional can adopt to be successful.
The session was moderated by Daniel Tisch, APR, FCPRS, President & CEO at Argyle and the panelists included:
- Sophie Nadeau, Vice President, Reputation, Executive Training & National Media Lead, Edelman
- Wojtek Dabrowski, Managing Partner, Provident Communications
- Shabnum Durrani, Head, Corporate Communications, TTC
- Sean B. Pasternak, AVP, Global Communications, Manulife
The pandemic has brought about key changes in newsrooms and the way stories are reported:
- There’s an abundance of news everyday and record consumption from the public, making it difficult to get your pitch in.
- Financial and economic pressures are causing layoffs adding to the stress in newsrooms, as journalists now have to cover multiple beats.
- As a result of global diversity campaigns, newsrooms have come to terms with the fact that they are largely white and male and a correction is happening – there’s now a strong desire, especially in the Opinion pages, to feature new and diverse voices.
- Story choice is being heavily driven by research and data because media houses have to find a way to make money.
- We’re seeing more personalized stories that readers can identify with, deprioritizing corporate news, with newsrooms pushing companies to the paid side of the business.
- The pandemic has brought a lot of scrutiny on how businesses operate and there’s an increased need to highlight corporate values and be authentic in delivering messages.
Key media trends in 2022:
- Newsrooms will increasingly integrate more data into their editorial choices, so it’s important to have a sense of how your news, activities and decisions play in the market.
- Major consolidation is taking place in the media with big media companies getting even bigger. This will drive news coverage priorities, as the media look for new ways to remain profitable.
- The pandemic has shown that the public places great faith and trust in journalists over social media. As a result, business leaders will continue to see communications professionals as very valuable and needed at the decision table.
- Bloggers and social media influencers will also continue to hold sway with the public and while some have a legitimate following, many others don’t, so it’s important to choose who you want to engage with carefully, as it’s hard to measure success.
- The media will continue to scrutinize if businesses are walking the talk and taking meaningful actions around key initiatives such as diversity and inclusion, mental health, etc.
- There will be an increased focus at organizations on strengthening crisis communications programs to deal with issues such as cyber security breaches, health and wellness, etc.
How to use data to your advantage:
- Media Rating Points (MRPs) no longer work. It’s important to focus on metrics such as quality, sentiment, share of voice, spokesperson pull through and to pair earned media metrics with reputational insights around trust.
- Mine your company data for insights that no one has thought about and keep an eye on the news cycle constantly to know what’s relevant. Do the work of a journalist where needed.
- Don’t let the news happen to you! Identify areas where your organization is doing meaningful work or areas where you want to lead and approach the media before they approach you, armed with facts and data to back you up.
- Have a meaningful mindset that prioritizes curiosity and objectivity and out of 10 stories that you want to tell, find the one that will really resonate with the media. Tell the rest of your stories internally or on social media and your website.
- Do the proactive planning – find the purpose filled, values-based areas of conversation you think your company belongs in and do the work proactively that gets you into those stories.
Some strategies for dealing with the media post pandemic:
- Spend lots of time on building relationships with journalists in your network and reach them on their terms by understanding their interests and those of their end readers.
- Choose a few journalists that really matter to your business and retool/customize your pitch to be effective in getting into stories they want to write.
- Invest heavily in internal communications and crisis communications and making employees and customers aware of what’s happening in the company before they read it in the news.
- Companies are being asked to comment on everything, but you need to choose carefully what you want to comment on, where you want to lead and where you want to stay quiet.
- Get your business ready to embrace new models/ways of working and advise leaders with candour, honest and bravery and help them to prioritize the stories they tell.
- Focus on simplicity and avoid jargon and needless complexity. This is the most effective way to get your message through.