Abstract
Van Dijk (1991) argues that it is from news that the majority of people obtain most of their social and political knowledge. Therefore, it should concern us that current research evidence suggests that the discourse of public relations is growing in influence over the discourse of journalism to an extent that journalists are relinquishing their agenda-setting function (Davies, 2008; Moloney, 2006). Using the concepts of intertextuality and genre, the form and content of examples of public relations material and the news stories which resulted from them are discussed. Erjavec’s (2005) method of comparative analysis is employed to examine the texts as well as discuss the discourse processes. Fairclough’s (1995) argument that texts are a set of options is used to show that the options journalists are choosing are not necessarily based on the accepted rules of news values (Galtung and Ruge, 1965).
Introduction
The rise of the global public relations industry has come as newsrooms experience deep cuts to the numbers of reporters available for traditional journalistic investigation, and move towards multi-skilling and convergence (Burton, 2007; Davies, 2008; Moloney, 2006). With more to do, more deadlines to meet and fewer hands, journalists are less capable of rigorously testing the information they are receiving (Davies, 2008; Erjevec, 2005; Moloney, 2006).
Van Dijk (1988) contends that source texts affect the production processes, but the resulting news text is dependent on the journalist’s motives. Therefore, it could be argued that the extent of the reworking or the ‘transformations’ (Pander Maat, 2008) journalists make to the source texts when writing their news stories exemplifies how they see their role.
Van Dijk (1988) further argues that the cognitive and socio-cultural context of news production has had a profound effect on the textual form and content which appears in our news. As the last few years have seen huge changes to news production processes with many newsrooms becoming more convergent, I believe it is time to re-examine the news product.
In this article, two media releases and the news stories which resulted from them are considered. Their form, genre and context are discussed and any intertextuality reviewed. If we consider the texts as a product of a specific set of professionals with common practices and beliefs, it is possible to more fully understand those texts’ structure and content (Van Dijk, 1988, 2010). The findings suggest that journalists are in many instances not carrying out the traditional practice of checking information. Instead, journalists appear to be replicating the material given to them by public relations professionals, thus elevating the promotional genre above others and reducing the intertextuality of news.
These findings build on research (Burton, 2007; Davies, 2008; Moloney, 2006) that suggests that journalists are increasingly turning to public relations practitioners (PRPs) as a source of information which they are then failing to corroborate or enhance with further research. However, exactly what influence PRPs have on news production is difficult to ascertain, with researchers estimating that anywhere between 50 and 80% of news shows some public relations influence.
Scholars looking at ‘information subsidies’ (Gandy, 1982) for journalists have stressed that press releases are a ‘pre-formulating’ (Jacobs, 1999a, 1999b) device for news (Catenaccio, 2008; Jacobs, 1999a, 1999b; Lenaerts, 2002; Morton, 1988; Pander Maat, 2008; Walters et al., 1994). Morton (1988) discovered that ‘camera-ready’ materials were more likely to be used by journalists, especially if they concerned a topic which readers would consider noteworthy, for example consumer information, coming events and research. Morton and Warren (1992) found that smaller circulation papers accepted more press releases. However, according to Walters and Walters (1992), large circulation newspapers have more space to fill and therefore are reliant on PR.
All of the above addressed whether a press release was used, but did not consider how. For example, what changes do journalists make to the form and style of the press release when turning it into a news article? In a study of 60 press releases, Walters et al. (1994) tried to answer some of those questions.
They examined the grammatical structure of the original press release and compared it with the resulting news stories, and discovered that journalists re-wrote press release materials to fit with their house style and make them as much as half the length.
Jacobs’ (1999a) study of the generic features of more than 500 press releases and his (1999b) article on self-reference in press releases also examined press release materials linguistically and pragmatically. He noted that PRPs carried out pre-formulation, including many elements similar to news stories such as a newsworthy headline and lead paragraph, in the hope that journalists would copy the contents. Pander Maat’s (2008) study of 50 corporate press releases and how they were used by journalists discovered that while writers of press releases did employ some of the journalistic conventions, their style was often quite different from a journalist’s. He calls this ‘genre conflict’, which he suggests arises out of the different functions of press releases and news stories. The function of the press release and how it is identified in the text is considered further by Catenaccio (2008). Building on McLaren and Gurău’s (2005) work on corporate press release, she says press releases identify themselves and their promotional function by being printed on company paper with a logo and they provide a brief company description. Recently, several studies have used ethnography to study the process of PR writing (Lindholm, 2008; Sleurs and Jacobs, 2005; Sleurs et al., 2003).
All of the above, if they at all consider the resulting news stories, accept that journalists usually make significant changes to press releases either by altering the style, structure or length of a press release or by adding to the content. My research shows that this is happening less and less. From the data, it appears news outlets are increasingly publishing public relations material almost or completely unchanged. The current study is part of a larger ethnographic-style study of the relationship between public relations officers and journalists.
Materials and method
Thirty-five media releases were collected along with the news stories that were written using the releases as the main source. I was interested in releases which became news reports because, as Erjavec writes, news reports are ‘perceived as the most factual, disinterested, impersonal and objective genre in the mass media’ (2005: 166). Some of the releases were gathered during fieldwork at two public relations departments and two newsrooms in Auckland, New Zealand. Between June 2009 and July 2010, I spent 100 hours in an in-house media relations department and a public relations agency. In 2011, I spent 70 hours in two newsrooms: a national online news site and a national radio station. Other releases were collected between 2007 and 2011 when I was a participant observer in four local newspaper newsrooms across the North Island of New Zealand for a week at each one. Still others of the press releases were written by me during two years, between 2006 and 2008, when I worked as a part-time PR officer, also in New Zealand. A few were collected from public relations professionals and journalists who know of my research; some of them are former students. The criteria I set for the collection were that they should be:
Press releases I had witnessed being produced.
Press releases I had produced.
Press releases I had witnessed a journalist working with.
Press releases I had not witnessed being written or being worked with, but was able to interview the PR professionals who had written them or the journalists who had worked with them.
Press releases and the news story written from them which have been donated by a journalist or public relations officer, not because they have worked on them, but because they believed them to be of particular interest to my study. I have accepted only one of these to the collection. It is the second press release analysed in this article.
In all cases I needed both the press release and the resulting news story or stories. The releases in this article were chosen to indicate the variety of public relations activities. One is a news release from a charity about an upcoming event, the other from a pharmaceutical company releasing the results of a lifestyle survey. According to Morton (1988), both of these are potentially of interest to readers. The press release from the charity was written by me in my capacity as a part-time press officer for the organization represented in the release.
The analytical procedure
Fairclough (2001) argues that texts cannot be understood or analysed in isolation, but must be looked at in the ways in which they transform and embed other texts which are in chain relationships with them. Texts in journalism are often reports of events which the journalist has not witnessed and are therefore expected to draw on and embed other texts (Bell, 1991).
In Fairclough’s (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis framework, intertextual analysis is a bridge between the ‘text’ and ‘discourse practice’, hence texts can be indicators of both social change and changes in professional practice. Therefore, if journalists’ news articles are showing little reworking of their main source texts or evidence of corroboration through the embedding of other texts, then this is indicative of a change in journalistic practice and in journalists’ relations with their sources.
The analysis in this article utilizes Erjavec’s (2005) method of comparative analysis for the study of PR discursive elements incorporated in news reports. This is a macro-structural (generic structure, topic, perspective, choice of sources) to micro-structural textual analysis. However, Erjavec (2005) believes that relying on texts as indicators of change in practice is not enough. She argues that textual analysis should be combined with an analysis of discourse processes to reveal how much of public relations discourse is being accepted into the news discourse. To this end, Erjavec gathered data for her study using a combination of participant observation and in-depth interviewing at four newspapers in Slovenia. She also collected a corpus of 32 news reports which she identified as being written ‘by the domination of PR practice within journalistic practice’ (2005: 166).
The study presented in this article combines observation both in newsrooms and PR departments, in-depth interviewing, and a collection of 35 press releases and the news stories written using them as the main source. By using Erjavec’s method to analyse what transformations are made by the journalist to the press releases, I can discover how much intertextuality there is and whether the resulting news text is appropriate to its purpose (Van Dijk, 2010). In other words, have transformations been made which ensure the news text obeys the rules of the discourse community of journalists and the news genre rather than those of the discourse community of PROs and the press release or promotional genre?
News report genre
News stories are articles compiled by journalists that include fresh information about events, people or ideas. Whether or not a story is selected for publication depends on how ‘newsworthy’ it is deemed. Media researchers have tried to explain news selection and ‘newsworthiness’ by identifying news values. These are discussed in detail elsewhere (Bell, 1991; Harcup and O’Neill, 2001; Sissons, 2006; Van Dijk, 1988). However, according to the best known study by Galtung and Ruge (1965), 12 news values influence the media’s selection of news including its amplitude (how big the event is, the bigger the more newsworthy); its relevance to the audience; is it unexpected or rare? Are elite people or elite nations involved? Is it negative (if it bleeds it leads)? These news values are cumulative; the more a story has, the more likely it is to be published. If a story exhibiting only one or two of these values is published, then questions can be asked about why it was published.
News values influence the structure of news stories which traditionally are tightly organized, many using the inverted pyramid structure (see Figure 1).
The inverted triangle (from Sissons, 2006).
This structure allows the reporter to address the ‘news questions’ in as short a space as possible. These are the journalistic five Ws and the H: What happened? Where did it happen? Who did it happen to? When did it happen? Why did it happen? How did it happen? The headline and the first paragraph (lead, lede or intro) should contain the most important or dramatic information, including the ‘what happened’ or main event of the story and the ‘who it happened to’ or the news actor or actors. It may also contain a time and a place. The level of newsworthiness will be centred on the perspective and lexical choices of the headline and lead sentence.
Van Dijk (1988) has described this organization as the typical ‘instalment’ or ‘top-down’ structure, with each topic addressed in the story delivered in chunks. News discourse, he says, is organized to give new or important information prominence both in the text and in the individual sentences. So for each topic, the most important information is presented first. Once this is done, earlier topics are reintroduced with less important details.
Using this structure stories can be written relatively quickly, and also read quickly, the reader being able to assimilate the important information in a few paragraphs (Sissons, 2006). Therefore, it can be seen that the functional goal of a news report is to publish ‘newsworthy’ information, which will attract the target audience.
Press releases genre
Press releases are publicity handouts or stories which are sent to journalists in the hope that they will be published. They resemble news stories, also containing what the writer considers newsworthy information and usually using an inverted pyramid structure. However, typically, a press release displays a mix of information (which should display news values) and promotion which must be carefully balanced to catch the attention of two very different audiences. Too much promotion in the release will put off the first audience – the journalist; too little will defeat the purpose of the press release as a promotional tool to attract the second audience – the public.
Van Dijk (2010) argues that genres should first be defined in terms of their contextual features. These include the setting; who is involved and their roles, relationships and identities; the kind of activity they are engaged in; and what their aims and group ideologies are. Thus, despite displaying many similarities textually to a news story, a press release’s purpose is very different. Press releases have the communicative purpose of announcing ‘newsworthy’ information about a company or organization in such a way as to positively promote that institution (Catenaccio, 2008; McLaren and Gurău, 2005). They are intended to attract the journalist to publish this information and therefore can be said to imitate news reports. However, there are peripheral features in press releases which exemplify their origin. Typically, these include a company logo, a heading which announces it as a media release and contact details where further information can be obtained (Catenaccio, 2008). Then again, if these peripheral details are stripped away, a press release could appear to be drawn from the genre of the news report and its promotional or evaluative content could be taken as independent judgement.
Pander Maat (2008), however, argues that press releases and news reports have such different purposes that one should never be mistaken for the other. In his study of the transformations made by journalists to press releases, he found that the press release is in fact in genre conflict with the news report genre. He writes:
This additional goal of image maintenance [in press releases] is lacking in press reports. These different sets of purposes impose partly contradictory stylistic constraints on the genres, so that one and the same text cannot felicitously be used in both contexts. (Pander Maat, 2008: 109)
Studying the transformations
Two publicity releases which became news stories were analysed. Through them it was demonstrated that in these examples the journalists behaved not as reporters, interpreters or critics, but as ‘churnalists’, or replicators of the words of others.
These examples are typical of those in my collection in which 23 of 35 press releases were reproduced word-for-word, or almost word-for-word, in the media. The remaining press releases did show some reworking by journalists, usually by shortening the article or altering the language to match the ‘house’ style, for example to spoken English for radio news. Only two articles changed the macro proposition of the press release, one reversing it altogether, the other localizing it to make it relevant for a local newspaper audience. In only eight of the 35 press releases was new material added by the journalists, such as additional quotes or statistics.
The National Piano Competition press release
The first release comes from the Kerikeri National Piano Competition in New Zealand and publicizes the biennial competition. In the event, the entire press release of 13 paragraphs, including details of where to buy tickets, was replicated in one major regional newspaper and one local newspaper. I have reproduced one of these in Table 1.
National Piano Competition press release and news story.
As explained earlier, the news report and the original news release are examined following Erjavec’s (2005) method of comparative analysis for the study of PR discursive elements incorporated in news reports. This method is a macro-structural (generic structure, topic, perspective, choice of sources) to micro-structural textual analysis.
Generic structure
In structure the press release is organized like a news story with an inverted pyramid organization. The first paragraph summarizes the event and further paragraphs add information and quotes until the least important information is given of the sales of tickets. The macro proposition of the press release is that two well-respected pianists are supporting the piano competition. According to Erjavec’s method, and bearing in mind Catenaccio’s (2008) model, what initially reveals the press release to be a promotional story (if you take away the peripheral information) is the positive evaluation of the organization in the headline.
Musical Coup for National Competition for Pianists
The choice of the word ‘coup’ suggests an unusual achievement which is then developed in the lead paragraph. This paragraph answers four of the news questions: What? Where? Who? When? We learn that the ‘coup’ of the headline is that two well-known pianists will be involved with the piano competition.
Two of the Southern Hemisphere’s finest pianists have agreed to help make this year’s Kerikeri National Competition for Pianists the best one yet.
This paragraph also conforms to the ‘announcement’ move expounded by McLaren and Gurău (2005: 16). They found it was the norm for companies to begin a press release with the news they wished to announce and then elaborate in subsequent paragraphs.
The following four paragraphs of the press release deliver more information about the two pianists and also begin to answer a fifth news question of ‘How’ they will be involved with the competition. We are told that one will ‘play at a special recital’ and the other ‘will be speaking at a gala dinner on the opening night’.
Paragraph 6 is a quote from the competition co-ordinator, which again conforms to McLaren and Gurău’s (2005) move sequence. After the announcement and elaboration moves, the third move is to insert quotes from important people associated with the organization. The inclusion of a quote, however, also increases the press release’s generic similarity to a news story. In news writing, quotes or ‘inputs’ (Bell, 1991) are used to bring colour to the narrative (Van Dijk, 1988). They are also included to add authority (Sissons, 2006). I will discuss quotes further in the section on Lexis.
In McLaren and Gurău’s (2005) move sequence, the press release would end after the quotes with contact details of people journalists can contact, followed by the editor’s note which may include details of the company. However, in this press release, paragraph 7 continues elaborating on the main proposition and describes a new venue for the competition, ‘the acclaimed ‘‘The Centre’’, Kerikeri’s multi-million dollar performing arts and conference centre’. Then in paragraph 8, a new topic is introduced: that the competition’s organizers hope to find a sponsor to replace the old Yamaha piano with a full-sized concert grand. The final three paragraphs give details about the demands of the competition on contestants, including a quote from Michael Houstoun, and provide information about where to buy tickets.
If we turn to the news story which was written from this release, we can see that the macro proposition of the press release – that two well-respected pianists are supporting the piano competition – is taken on by the news story. The structure too is very similar to the press release. Further, a key characteristic of news reports written primarily from media releases is a headline with a positive meaning for the organization. Here the headline from the press release is reproduced minus the name of the competition in a heading above an equally positive headline. In fact, the words of the headline are taken from the lead paragraph of the press release.
Musical Coup for Kerikeri National competition set to be the best yet
The lead sentence of the article, the most important in a news story as it sets out the ‘promise’ or thesis, is copied exactly from the press release. It continues the promotional tone by including the evaluative terms ‘finest’ and ‘best’. The following two paragraphs of the news story are also ‘cut and pasted’ from the press release. In fact, the only difference between the press release and the news story up to this point is that the journalist has split paragraph 4. The change follows the rules of news writing that paragraphs are usually kept short, often to one sentence (Sissons, 2006).
Then, as in the press release, the next paragraph is a quote from the competition co-ordinator followed, as in the press release, by a description of the ‘The Centre’. Paragraph 9 brings up the need to replace the old Yamaha piano and this is followed by a quote from the competition co-ordinator.
The final four paragraphs give details about the demands of the competition, including a quote from Michael Houstoun, and information about where to buy tickets.
Topic
Topics within the news discourse should correspond to accepted norms of what is considered ‘newsworthy’ by news producers. Public relations, on the other hand, deals with ‘success reports, award achievements, new or improved products or services, major contracts, competitions, sponsorships, VIP visitors, news equipment orders, purchase of new premises, milestones and other measures of success’ (Erjavec, 2005: 168). In the press release being examined here, most of the topics are among those mentioned by Erjavec: a competition, VIP visitors, new premises and new services. Further, the topics or themes of the press release (Van Dijk, 1988) are matched by the news report. They are listed as follows:
The main action and its participants are that the Kerikeri National Piano Competition is being supported by two important pianists.
Details of the participants and the date come next.
The location details are explained – it is the first time the competition is being held at the new events centre.
Another topic is introduced, the replacement of the old Yamaha, and is supported by a quote from the event organizer.
Some background details of previous competitions are included here.
Perspective
Perspective is the point of view taken when describing events or considering topics. Publicity material is invariably written from the point of view of the organization producing it. Therefore, the perspective or angle put forward in this press release is expected to represent the view of the competition organizers, which is that the competition will be ‘the best one yet’.
In fact, this press release is unusual as it does put forward a potentially negative angle in paragraph 8: they do not have a suitable piano six months before the competition. As the person who wrote the press release, I needed to publicize the lack of a piano in the hope of attracting a sponsor. However, I did not want that angle to feature too high in the story as it could have undermined the event. I fully expected the journalists to re-angle the press release for their news stories and warned those involved in the piano competition that this could happen. If the release had been re-angled it would have made the news article more newsworthy.
However, as can be seen, the perspective taken in the news report is the same as the press release. The story as written fulfils six of the 12 news values: frequency, relevance, clarity, unambiguosity, expectedness and involves minor celebrities (elite people). Re-angled to highlight the lack of a piano, the story would have three more news values – of negativity, threshold and unexpectedness – which, according to Galtung and Ruge (1965), are the more powerful news values. Negative news is preferred by news organizations over positive because it is typically more dramatic.
Choice of sources
The two sources included in the press release directly or indirectly represent the piano competition. The quotes by the competition coordinator were actually formulated by me when writing the release and then passed to her for approval. I used ‘pseudo quotes’ (Sleurs et al., 2003) because they were a quick way of including comment, and I could guarantee that they would address the issues I wanted them to. However, I was (as a former journalist) very aware that in journalism making up quotes is not acceptable, and by inserting such quotes into a press release it was likely they would be used and therefore the practice was ethically questionable.
Nonetheless, PRPs writing quotes is not uncommon (Bell, 1991; Sleurs et al., 2003). It is more efficient for the writer of the press release than requesting a quote from a busy manager or CEO and then waiting for it to come through. In such cases, the ‘real’ quote may be bland, not reader-friendly and may not address the relevant issue. The function of quotes is to humanize a story and liven up the prose. They also add authority, as they associate a named individual with the information in the press release and can provide an assessment of the events. Further, as Sleurs and Jacobs (2005) point out, quotes make press releases more neutral and therefore more attractive to journalists.
In this case, the journalist sought no extra sources or fresh quotes. The first quote from the competition co-ordinator in the press release is unchanged in the news report. There are slight alterations to the two remaining quotes, which will be discussed below.
Lexis
The text of the press release is full of promotional phrases – 14 in the original press release without counting those in the direct quotes. The words used in the body of the news story are almost identical to the press release, with all of those 14 promotional phrases being retained.
Promotional words.
Finest
best one yet.
most distinguished
and awarded
special recital
extra master classes
eminent
gala dinner
a new era
acclaimed ‘The Centre’
multi-million dollar
oldest and most prestigious
formidable test
international acclaim
Promotional phrases used in the press release and reproduced in the news story
Further, as has already been mentioned, a positive bias towards the organization producing the release is one of the features of the promotional genre. Frequent reference to the brand is one method of achieving this. In the press release the full name of the competition is used in the headline and twice in the body of the story. A shortened version of the name, ‘the competition’, ‘national competition’ or ‘event’ is used 12 times.
Referring to the company or organization by its name, in full or in part, is also a feature of pre-formulation in press releases (Jacobs, 1999b). This third-person self- reference makes the press release look more objective, distancing the writer from the content and encourages journalists to use it. However, often the name comes with a description such as ‘international company’ or ‘largest supplier of milk’. In the example here, the piano competition describes itself as New Zealand’s oldest and most prestigious such competition, a description which is repeated in the news story. As Jacobs writes, ‘Clearly self reference through indefinite description is a powerful mechanism’ (1999b: 239).
In the news story, the full name of the organization is not used in the headline, but it is used twice in the body of the story. A shortened version of the name, ‘the competition’, ‘national competition’ or ‘event’ is used in the headline and 13 times in the body of the story. According to Pander Matt (2008), journalists favour using nominal anaphora rather than using the full name of an organization as it increases neutrality as well as readability.
The transformations made by the journalist to the press release are minimal. In the fourth paragraph the second sentence has been made into a separate paragraph, as mentioned earlier, possibly to shorten the paragraphs. This may be the reason behind the three further transformations made by the journalist. In paragraph 8, the journalist turns the sentence around to avoid repetition of the phrase ‘The Centre’ and at the same time shortens it. In paragraph 9 the direct quote is shortened to make the second half of it indirect. There is also a change to the layout of the quote to put the attribution first; this again is common in news writing as it lets the reader know straight away who is speaking.
A similar technique is used to shorten the quote by Michael Houstoun in paragraph 11. However, this time the statement is not attributed. The press release reads:
Michael Houstoun has said: ‘It is by far the best test for young pianists in the solo repertoire in this country. This is chiefly because of its demands. The contestants have to prepare what amounts to a full recital programme and be able to present it three days in a row under stressful conditions. Such demands most approximate the reality for a professional performing musician.’
The news story reads:
Michael Houstoun has described it as ‘by far the best test for young pianists in the solo repertoire in this country.’ The competition is demanding of [sic] contestants prepare what amounts to a full recital programme to be presented three days in a row.
Typically in press releases, it is the quotes that display the most openly promotional language. As Pander Maat (2008) and Jacobs (1999a, 1999b) suggest, quotes are attributed to others, and thus allow the journalist to place the responsibility for the truth or otherwise of the statement with the speaker. Hence it is surprising that Houstoun’s quote here is broken up to give the impression that the second indirect part is the journalist’s own conclusion.
The Neutrogena press release
The second release I analysed was produced by Neutrogena, the cosmetics manufacturer, and highlights ‘new research’ which claims New Zealanders are more miserable in winter.
The story was placed on the front page of the Yahoo!Xtra site and was almost unaltered from the press release (see Table 2).
Neutrogena press release and news story.
Generic structure
In structure the press release appears, as the first example, to be organized like an ‘inverted pyramid’ news story. The headline sets out the macro proposition of the press release:
Independent study finds July the most miserable month for Kiwis
The first paragraph summarizes the event which again states the claim that people are more miserable in winter.
Its [sic] official – we’re more miserable in winter and July is the worst month for suffering the winter blues.
This paragraph answers three news questions: the ‘What’, which is that ‘we’re more miserable’; the ‘When’ being ‘in winter’; and the ‘Who’, being ‘we’. The second paragraph immediately attributes the claim made in the first paragraph to the research commissioned by Johnson & Johnson. It then states that ‘July is the month in which 20 per cent of Kiwis are struck by the winter blues, followed by August on 13 per cent’. By locating the story with ‘Kiwis’, the ‘Where’ news question is answered.
The use of the first-person self-reference ‘we’ is unusual. Jacobs (1999b) says he found ‘hardly any first-person pronouns’ in his corpus of more than 500 press releases as it does not conform to the usual pre-formulating device of using third-person self-reference. Perhaps it is used here (and later on in paragraph 8) to personalize the story.
Paragraph three elaborates on the ‘Who’ and the ‘What’. Paragraph four presents another finding that New Zealanders are more likely to feel down on Monday. There follows a quote from a mental health therapist which adds authority. It may also be there to cause alarm and prompt readers to buy Johnson & Johnson products.
‘If you leave and return home from work in the dark, don’t get enough light while working, have high stress, rarely socialize and eat stodgy food, the blues are likely to creep up on you,’ says respected mental health therapist Leanne French.
Paragraph six continues to present the research findings and paragraphs 7 and 8 highlight the negative effects on mood triggered by a lack of sunlight. In paragraph 8 the nominative pronoun ‘we’ is again used to explain how ‘we’ neglect our skin in winter. The next three paragraphs claim women in winter are ‘not using a sunscreen and failing to remove their makeup before bed’. Finally is a quote by the President of the New Zealand Dermatologist Society stating that skin cancer is still a danger in winter.
The macro proposition of the press release, that people feel more miserable in winter, is taken on dramatically in the headline of the news story.
It’s official – we’re more miserable in winter
The inference that it is now a fact that New Zealanders – ‘we’ – are more miserable in winter is repeated in the lead sentence, which is word-for-word the same as the press release, except the apostrophe is correctly inserted in ‘It’s’. The news story also faithfully repeats the statistics of when Kiwis are struck by the winter blues. However, it does not attribute the figures to a Neutrogena study (see below). Paragraphs 3 to 7 are ‘copied and pasted’ from the press release, including the use of ‘we’ which reduces the journalistic distance of the story (Scollon, 2004).
The final four paragraphs are cut from the story. Perhaps the subeditor decided the story was long enough. The potentially more ‘newsworthy’ information that 71% of women do not regularly use sunscreen in winter is unused. The news story finishes with a final paragraph laid out like an addendum.
Source: Nationwide study conducted by Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena which studied women’s skincare habits during the winter months.
Topic
The topics or themes of the press release (Van Dijk, 1988) are almost matched by the news report. These are listed as follows:
The main claim is that research has shown that New Zealanders are more miserable in winter.
Details of who commissioned the report (placed in the final paragraph of the news report) and who carried out the research (omitted from the news report).
The claim that 41% of New Zealanders suffer from Monday-itis.
A description of how women alleviate the winter blues.
A short explanation that the blues are triggered by a lack of sunlight.
A claim that women give their skin less attention during winter.
A claim that women use sunscreen less than once a week in winter.
A claim that nearly a third say they do not remove their makeup before bed.
In the news story the source of the research is mentioned in the final paragraph.
The naming of the organizations behind the research in the second and third paragraphs of the press release suggests that the PRPs believed these were important facts. However, the journalist demotes this material, writing it up as a footnote. It is not clear what the motivation was for this change, but it may be that the journalist did not believe the research to be independent or robust enough to justify a description so high in the story of who had commissioned it and carried it out. Note Colmar Brunton has been omitted from the news story altogether. However, if this was the reason, it is surprising the release was used as the basis for a news story at all.
Perspective
The perspective of the press release is that research proves that New Zealanders are more miserable in winter. However, the rules of news writing advise that when reporting surveys it is paramount to check how many people were questioned and what questions they were asked. In this way the reliability of the survey can be judged. This is especially important when special interest groups are involved who may wish to push an agenda (Itule and Anderson, 2007; Sissons, 2006). Because the sample size and questions are omitted from the press release, the claims made in the news story are unsubstantiated. In journalism, numbers are valuable. According to Bell, ‘at the core of facticity are numbers – the most verifiable, quantifiable, undeniable of facts’ (1991: 202). The lack of a basis for the claims that we are more miserable in winter means the story contains no news values.
Choice of sources
The journalist writing this news story sought no new sources and in fact reduced the number by omitting the President of the New Zealand Dermatologist Society. The direct and indirect quotes which were published were copied in full from the press release.
Lexis
As with the previous example, the press release names the company high in the story, in the second and third paragraphs and in paragraph eight. The press release also refers to the research in the headline and in six of the 12 paragraphs. In the headline it is an ‘independent study’; in the body of the story it is referred to as the ‘research’ four times, including once as ‘independent’ and once as ‘nationwide’. Twice in the story, the word ‘research’ was replaced with ‘Neutrogena survey’ and ‘women surveyed’.
The wording in the news story is almost entirely reproduced from the press release. However, as mentioned, the news report has removed almost all reference to the organization which carried out the research – resulting in one and half paragraphs being cut. It also does not refer to the company until the final paragraph. This of course breaks one of the tenets of news stories which use press releases as a main source: that they show a positive bias towards a company highlighted in a release. It is also an example of the source being hidden from the audience, thus passing credit for the story onto the journalist. It is well known that the last paragraph is the least read in a story.
The news story uses the term ‘research’ once, ‘survey’ once and ‘nationwide study’ once, conforming to the news writing rule that writers should avoid repetition (Sissons, 2006). The language used in both the press release and news story suggests credibility and implies the research was carried out by independent researchers. However, it was funded by Neutrogena’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, and therefore the language is misleading.
In the press release and the news article, the interdiscursivity adds weight to the promotional tone. The medical discourse is strongly represented with words such as ‘suffering’, ‘struck by’, ‘high stress’ and ‘triggers symptoms’ which imply illness. It is also inferred that the women can be cured from many of these problems if they look after their skin, the implication in the press release being with Neutrogena products. Here we see the discourse of nurturing with the words ‘alleviate’, ‘relieve’ and ‘attention and care it deserves’.
Conclusion
Several key characteristics mark out intertextuality between the public relations and news genres and we see these in the examples in this article. The generic structure and topics chosen may appear similar, thus in theory press releases can be turned into news stories quickly. However, the perspective of a press release is likely to be positive rather than negative, and the lexis will contain promotional words and phrases often associated with the organization which has produced the media release (Catenaccio, 2008; Erjavec, 2005). Further, the sources quoted will usually reinforce the perspective of the organization. This is because the role of the PRPs producing the release is to manage and enhance the reputation of the organization they represent (Newsom et al., 2004; Theaker, 2001) ‘with the aim of influencing opinion and behaviour’ (Oliver, 2007: 9).
News reports should have a variety of sources or voices, which makes their intertextuality so rich (Scollon, 2004). However, it appears that news reports based mostly on press releases show much less intertextuality. Further, it is expected (Bell, 1991; Erjavec, 2005; Pander Maat, 2008) that press reports will tone down the promotional language used in press releases. In the examples produced here and in many in my study, this did not happen. In fact, the headline in the first example ‘National Competition set to be the best yet’ is more positive than the press release, and it also runs the heading ‘musical coup for Kerikeri’.
Reproducing a press release almost verbatim may not matter when it is from a local arts group about a forthcoming competition, although the use of fillers like this in a regional daily paper should be noted. Far more concerning for news discourse is the purely commercial promotion of a product, in this case skin cream, being reproduced almost unchanged. It encourages the reader to believe that what is being reported is the result of a journalist’s impartial and corroborated research. Some may also believe that because the story ran on an internet news site, it is less influential as a news source. However, research in the United States shows the majority of young people now get their news from the internet. Even among the over 50s, almost as many people use the internet to access the news as read a newspaper (34% compared with 38% respectively) (Pew Research Centre, 2011).
Both news stories are promotional in tone and message, yet in neither case is their origin admitted to the reader. The reporter’s name is not attached, but neither is an ‘advertorial’ banner added. I contend that these are examples of what is becoming more common in journalism and is resulting in a narrowing of the range of discourses represented in our news. If journalists routinely accept PR materials uncorroborated, the result is that the powerful and/or wealthy can dominate the supply of information (Moloney, 2006). The data illustrate this clearly. In the release from the National Piano Competition, the only voices are Houstoun and the concert organizer. In the Neutrogena release, a mental health therapist is quoted along with a dermatologist. There is no attempt to check with other mental health experts or groups and no ordinary woman’s voice is heard. Taking into account the concept of news values, it is clear too that these releases are not strong news stories. One is based on pseudo-research and the other is an update on a local event. They are both, however, published in full, and substantially unaltered.
The findings in this article build on research by Davies (2008) and Moloney (2006) which claims that journalists are failing to corroborate material they are receiving from sources. However, what has not been highlighted before is the extent of the cutting and pasting happening in newsrooms, leading to whole press releases being reproduced almost word for word. In fact Erjavec (2005) is quoted earlier as saying this is rare. Two important developments may have influenced this change: multi-skilling and the reduction in the number of journalists. Nowadays, journalists have to serve the website and perhaps also the Twitter feeds of their organization as well as the newspaper or broadcast outlet. At the same time there has been the loss of thousands of traditional journalism jobs worldwide in the last decade (see Pew Research Centre statistics, 2009).
By examining the press release and the news story genres, the accuracy of Catenaccio’s (2008) claim that press releases can be so similar to news reports that they can be published unchanged has been demonstrated. Further, this article has proved that this is occurring. However, if we accept Pander Maat’s (2008) thesis that press releases and news reports are in genre conflict because of their different functions, it is clear that newsmakers and news consumers should be very concerned that press releases are becoming news stories almost or entirely unchanged.