Revelations that half or more of the news we receive through the media is linked to public relations — or ‘spin’ as the ‘Spinning the Media’ study terms it — are not new. And they are not over-stated, according to 80 years of research which has drawn attention to this issue, but which has often been ignored.

However, an important qualification needs to be made to fully understand this phenomenon and respond appropriately.

Analysis needs to move beyond generalised definitions of all information supplied through public relations as ‘spin’. Public relations — which denotes a very broad field of public communication involving events, publications such as newsletters, brochures and annual reports, web sites, and other activities as well as media publicity — needs to be more precisely described and categorised into a number of specific practices and sources.

For instance, content released through organisational functional units called public relations, public affairs, corporate communication and other similar titles includes official ministerial announcements typically issued through press offices, financial results of public companies released through corporate communication departments, reports by scientists, doctors and other experts released through various communication offices such as that of the CSIRO, and even statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

It is misleading to refer to all information released through specialist communication functions as ‘spin’. Establishment of functional units to handle media inquiries and coordinate distribution of public information is commonplace in organisations today, with almost every government department, local council, NGO, charity, aid organisation, scientific institute, university and corporation distributing information through a public relations person or department.

More precisely turning the spotlight of attention on particular types of PR such as blatant product promotions, publicity stunts and commercial and political special interests influencing media content would more fairly represent both PR and journalistic practices.

Journalists understandably — and even necessarily — use some information issued through PR departments such as official announcements and releases that are largely ‘straight’ news or the views of authorities.

Equally, organisations have a right and a necessity to manage their public communication through a specialist function trained in writing and media practices. No one expects HR, legal services or financial accounts to be done randomly by untrained staff. So why should public communication not be managed and coordinated by professionally trained staff?

That does not mean, however, there is not a problem deserving debate among both journalists and PR professionals. Dozens of studies internationally and in Australia over more than 80 years support the overall findings of the study conducted by Crikey and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.

Here is a potted summary of some of the studies of PR and the media to reinforce that this concern is not new or unsubstantiated:

— As far back as 1927 Silas Bent reported a study of the New York Times that found 147 of 256 news stories in the newspaper on one day had been suggested, created or supplied by public relations practitioners.

— In 1934, Stanley Walker identified 42 of 64 local stories in one newspaper “were written or pasted up from press agent material — a little more than 60%”. Around the same time, Paul Bixler concluded that women’s pages were almost totally dependent on publicists and that many stories in business sections were also heavily influenced by publicists.

— In 1963, a series of studies of news media in Milwaukee found that around 45% of news reports in newspapers originated to some extent from public relations sources.
— In 1973, Leon Sigal classified the sources of 1,146 stories in the Washington Post and New York Times and found that around 75% resulted from supplied information. He concluded that 50% of stories came from routine sources such as official proceedings as well as press releases and press conferences and only 26% of news resulted from enterprise reporting, interviews, or journalists’ own analysis.

— In a widely reported content analysis of US national TV news and news magazines in 1979, sociologist Herbert Gans reported that 75% of all news came from government and commercial sources.

— Lawrence Grossberg and a group of academic colleagues cite a number of late 1980s studies that also suggest up to three-quarters of editorial media content is sourced from PR or government sources.

— In 1986, American media researcher Judy VanSlyke Turk found that 51% of all news releases distributed by six state agencies were published.

— Research studies in Australia have had similar findings. My Master of Arts by research study in 1992-93 triangulated data from a survey of journalists designed to identify the type and level of their contact with public relations with content analysis of stories published by the same journalists and their publications. A survey of 417 journalists and editors in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra found that 86% reported ‘very frequent’ contact from PR practitioners and more than 74% reported receiving 20 or more PR communications such as news releases, phone calls or faxes per week. In the same period, a content analysis of 2,500 media articles found that 768 stories (31%) were wholly or substantially based on news releases, including verbatim extracts of statements and facts and figures without alternative attribution. While 47% of these were published in trade or specialist media, 32% of PR-based stories were published in national, state or capital city media and up to 70% of the content of some small trade, specialist and suburban media was PR-sourced.

— A further analysis of Australian media use of PR material by Clara Zawawi in 1994 reviewed 1,163 articles published by the Courier-Mail, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and was able to confirm the origin of 683 of the articles, of which 37% were directly the result of public relations activity. Furthermore, Zawawi argued that surveys, papers and submissions sent to journalists with the intent of gaining media coverage could also be regarded as PR and these accounted for another 88 articles. In total, she concluded that 47% of articles in these three major capital city newspapers emanated from public relations.

— The trend of media using PR material is shown to be continuing unabated, or even increasing. A 2008 Cardiff University study of Britain’s national newspapers found that 60% was comprised entirely of wire service copy or public relations material, with a further 20% containing at least some elements of these. The study reported that only 12% of British press articles could be established to be entirely independent.

Jim Macnamara PhD, MA, FPRIA, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC is Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney involved in researching public relations, advertising, and political and organisational communication. Before becoming an academic, he had a 30-year career in media and communication practice spanning journalism, public relations, and media research.