It’s a bit of a tome, but if you can get through it the new book by award winning investigative journalist Nick Davies has some real gems of interest for charity communicators.
In Flat Earth News, Davies draws on his many years as a jobbing journalist to expose how commercialism in the media has led to journalists being continually squeezed.
The result, he says, is “churnalism”: poor journalism, unchecked stories, the regurgitation of PR and Government lines without question, a lack of diversity of news stories in the mainstream media and even a hood-winking of the newspaper reading public.
They’re bold claims, but backed up with detailed analysis and evidence, as well as accessible anecdotes.
Opportunity for charities
This book is a real gem not because it exposes the dirty underbelly of all newspapers (including Davies’ own Guardian), but because it reveals where charities can exploit this “churnalism” to get their stories into the papers and out into the public domain.
Read between the lines, and the book almost offers charities a ‘how to’ guide to getting your stories into the media – and the routes are not as obvious as you might think.
Just take the following of Davies’ claims as an introduction. There are plenty more in the book.
- Around 70% of news stories carried in the quality national dailies are recycled copy from the Press Association and other “wires”. So are charities wasting their time targeting your stories at papers directly?
- Local newspapers are most likely to reproduce your press releases word for word.
- A UN survey of poorly reported international news put child soldiers, economic refugees and water shortages among the least “sexy” stories.
- Journalists are more likely than ever to reproduce your angle/story without question in news reports. Providing them with something they can use, and getting them to take notice, is a bigger challenge than not getting your particular message across.
- Newspapers don’t avoid controversial stories because it would put off advertisers. But they do avoid ‘good news’ stories because readers don’t want them.
- Britain now has more PRs than journalists, and the Government puts out 20,000 press releases a year.
- Journalists have less time, less money and are less diligent in fact checking than ever before.
