The State of the Media in 2019

(It’s been a while since I posted, so quick update… Last summer, I was overseeing customer experience and communications at Union Metrics. Ten months and two acquisitions later, I now run communications and content at Cision.)

My new team puts together Cision’s annual State of the Media Report. The report represents an incredible effort from a host of people across the company, and this year’s report is jam-packed with interesting data and analysis. It also happens to be Cision’s 10th annual State of the Media! We surveyed 1,999 journalists from around the world for this year’s report.

You can download the full 2019 report here. Here are a few highlights.

First, some context. The past 12 months have been challenging for the media industry. Members of the press have dealt with personal attacks, accusations of fake news, and the rapid spread of misinformation. Social media has been particularly difficult to work with as of late, with complex updates to data privacy laws and sudden changes in newsfeed algorithms (thanks for a particularly rough year, Facebook). So, what issues are journalists most concerned with? What does 2019 hold for the media?

Distrust in the media is on the decline

Even in this formidable environment, there’s a glimmer of hope; trust in the media might actually be on the rise. More specifically, distrust is declining. Only 63% of journalists surveyed felt the public lost trust in the media in the past year. While this is still a large number, it’s lower than it’s been in years.

That jives with findings from Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer, which highlighted a slight increase year-over-year in the public’s trust of the media (up to 47% of people reporting they trust the media). At the same time, Edelman also reports a “massive rise in news engagement.” One explanation for this is that the fake news era we find ourselves in may actually be contributing to a more informed public, as many people are paying more attention to what journalists do and the value they provide.

Data drives storytelling

Another big theme in the 2019 Cision survey is data. 65% of journalists feel the availability of detailed audience metrics have changed the way they evaluate stories — relying on data like readership or views, engagement, and impact on revenue to decide what content to feature.

Cision’s State of the Media Report also focuses on how PR and communications professionals can better work with their peers in media. A whopping 75% of journalists said that fewer than 25% of the pitches they receive are relevant. They also said that the single most important way to make a pitch or press release more effective is to provide information that’s more relevant to their audience.

So while journalists are relying more and more on data to make decisions, they seem to feel that their PR counterparts haven’t caught up to that yet. This is supported by other data suggesting that PR measurement lags behind marketing measurement in terms of sophistication and accurate attribution. (Full disclosure: Cision is in the business of trying to change that so I have a vested interest in this.)

The media industry is stretched thin

The survey also revealed that journalists are increasingly concerned with staffing and a lack of resources. Many journalists reported feeling overworked and overwhelmed — receiving hundreds of pitches a week, publishing new stories at higher rates than ever, and planning new content less than a day in advance. Additionally, there are at least 6 PR pros to every journalist now in the United States.

Social media is more and less important than ever

Finally, Cision’s 2019 State of the Media Report surfaced some interesting insight into how traditional media feels about social media. 22% of respondents said the biggest challenge for journalism last year was social influencers bypassing traditional media. In addition, 38% reported that social media algorithms were likely to be the technology to have the biggest impact on their jobs in 2019.

2018 was a rough year for social media. Facebook faced (and continues to face) a number of challenges: from data privacy issues to concerns about the accuracy of their engagement metrics. Ultimately, publishers have come to realize they can’t rely on Facebook as a distribution platform the way they used to. In many ways, social media is making their work harder: While still a helpful source of story leads and content amplification, social media contributes to the spread of misinformation, complicates distribution and measurement, and provides competition through less-traditional influencers.

Those are just a few of the juiciest takeaways from this year’s State of the Media Report. There’s so much more in the full report, so I would encourage you to give it a read. Get Cision’s 2019 State of the Media Report here.