Inside Churnalism: PR, journalism and power relationships in flux.

Abstract

There is widespread concern about the growing tide of “churnalism” in the news. Commonly, such accounts are written from within and about journalism studies. But this overlooks another story that we examine in this paper: that of the public relations (PR) practitioner. Based on interviews with 28 UK PR practitioners, we document their media relations practices, their perspectives on power relations with journalists, and their normative evaluations of churnalism. We find a number of PR professionals who understand news in depth, and whose media relations practice goes beyond the classic information subsidy, to what we call an editorial subsidy: targeted, tailored, page-ready news copy that contains key client messages. PR practitioners see power relationships in complex and contradictory ways, though. Despite many circumstances working in their favour, this does not mean they necessary feel emboldened in their everyday encounters with journalists. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, for the vast majority of practitioners, there were either professional or personal concerns about increasing churnalism. At least on the surface, very few observe journalists' recent travails with glee: most want to see a robust and independent journalism where PR input is balanced with other sources.