Sixty eight per cent of American journalists are unhappy, overworked, under-resourced and producing more copy than they were five years ago a survey has found.
ISEBOX.com, a content distribution and tracking platform, conducted the survey of American journos, although the actual number surveyed wasn’t revealed.
The results found that journalists were working harder and producing more content but admitted PRs and technology solutions were often more a hindrance than a help.
It found that 68 per cent agreed that their jobs had become more difficult since 2010. Just over half – 52 per cent – wrote five articles a week, while one in five wrote 11 articles per week. Of the articles published, three-quarters included some form of multimedia content.
The survey also found:
- 68 per cent of journalists receive at least 20 pitches a week from PRs etc. Thirty one per cent receive more than 80 pitches.
- 73 per cent of journalists spend up to four hours researching an article before writing it.
- 80 per cent say some sort of visual or multimedia is important to illustrate a story.
- 80 per cent were frustrated finding the multimedia content to include in the story which often took over 30 minutes to collect.
- 65 per cent wanted pitches and releases from PRs to include some form of video, images or graphics.
“There seems to be a major gap between what reporters need, and how corporate communications are providing these needs,” said Salvatore Salpietro, CTO of ISEBOX.com.
“There is increasing pressure to gain earned media coverage by corporate communications and public relations teams, yet they are still making the process very difficult for media to access content and put together a story by using things like FTP, email, locked-down websites, and manual requests – all of these are enthusiasm-killers.”
