Greentarget

Lisa Seidenberg

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The troubling spread of disinformation doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon. But news consumers don’t view media sources as the leading culprits.

According to the 2019 IPR Disinformation Report, 63 percent of Americans view disinformation – defined as deliberately misleading or biased information – as a significant problem in society, up there with gun violence (63 percent) and terrorism (66 percent). However, nearly two-thirds of respondents to the IPR survey say local newspapers (62 percent) and local broadcast news (62 percent) are trustworthy. And some of the country’s largest newspapers – USA Today (47 percent), The New York Times (46 percent), The Wall Street Journal (44 percent) and The Washington Post (42 percent) – are widely viewed as trusted sources.

But simultaneously, according to another research report, Americans’ trust in the mass media dropped over the past year – findings that echo the sentiments of panelists at a recent event in Chicago.

Reporters Not Feeling the Love

The current media landscape is something we plan on digging into a lot in 2020, specifically with the upcoming presidential election. But we had a chance in 2019 to hear from some members of the media during the panel, “Preserving the Truth in an Age of Misinformation,” sponsored by Indiana University’s Chicago Alumni Association. Several reporters who spoke said public perception hasn’t swung back in their favor after years of intense attacks against the news media.

Veteran Reuters reporter and foreign correspondent Elaine Monaghan moderated the discussion, which focused on how best to navigate distorted information and share news responsibly. The panel included Meghan Dwyer, WGN Chicago; Traci Rucinski, Reuters; Andrea Hanis, Chicago Tribune; Hannah Alani, Block Club Chicago; Eric White, Chicago Sun-Times and Kale Wilk, Times of Northwest Indiana.

Several panelists blamed the disinformation crisis on a singular culprit: “fake news.”

Dwyer said that the phenomenon is (literally) hitting broadcast reporters on the streets. She recalled doing a story about Jazz Fest in New Orleans. After throwing a beer can that hit her in the head, a heckler shouted, “FU – You’re fake news! Get out of here!”

“We have terrible things said to us daily while standing in the cold, trying to give people the information they need to know about a shooting,” she added.

Hanis agreed. “The fact that people feel journalists are reckless about the truth is hilarious. As journalists we live in a constant state of paranoia,” she said. “Our job is to make sure our reporting is right. We wake up at 3 a.m. scared we got something wrong and run to our laptops in the dark to make sure we didn’t.”

Hanis walked through the process for addressing corrections at the Tribune, illustrating how serious the paper is about getting things right.

“We have a full-time standards editor who creates the policy and holds us accountable,” she said. “Everyone knows that when we get something wrong it’s a big deal.”

Elani addressed how accountability drives her work. “At Block Club, we work for the people, and they pay our salary. We don’t have advertising streams; we don’t have shareholders. The readers own us; we must be accountable,” she said. “They also live and work in the neighborhoods where we live and work, so that impacts our accountability as well.”

Elani talked about how a reader reached out via Twitter with a suggested change to a story. Elani didn’t have time to respond but that same reader happened to see her out that day while jogging and followed up on whether she had caught her suggestion.

Elani handles the fake news talk by taking the time to educate her community about the job of a journalist. “Many times, fake news comes from people recycling the term, but not understanding what journalists do and why they do what they do.”

Headlines and Other Ways to Combat Fake News

While the panelists agreed about the importance of accuracy, they also addressed sensitive topics such as whether they are pressured to create “click bait” headlines to drive readers to stories.

“While our goal is to use a headline to get a reader to read a story, we don’t include anything in our headlines that is untrue,” said White, of the Sun-Times. “That would go against everything we do.”

At Reuters, while headlines are essential, they’re mostly targeted towards the publication’s fastest-growing clientele: media clients.

“We are cognizant that our media clients like Google, Apple, MSNBC and Yahoo are looking towards our headlines and our ability to turn a story around quickly and accurately so that they can repurpose them for their platforms,” Rucinski said.

The reporters also provided great advice for consumers of news who would like to help combat the “fake news” epidemic.

“Talk about the news and cite where you read an interesting article,” Dwyer said. “If you see someone sharing information that’s false, comment on it and then link to the actual source. Sign up for multiple news outlets. Pay for the news, because the news can’t pay for itself.”

Keep Calm and Carry On?

The evening concluded with a final question from the audience: “What keeps you all going given the constant pressures and doubts about your commitment to truth and accuracy?”

“It’s the comradery,” White said. “We’re understaffed and trying to do a good job every day. You feel responsible for the others sitting with you and doing this thing that matters even though it’s not easy and the hours suck.”

Added Dwyer: “I really believe in what we do. We are the Fourth Estate, damn it, and we must hold people accountable. I still love it, even on my bad days.”

Wilk, a reporter and photojournalist at the Times of Northwest Indiana, says that it’s his love of the craft that drives him. “Photos are an incredible and concrete way to capture humanity,” he said.

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What if a yogi with a JD was a law firm’s highest-paid employee? What if a law firm committed to paying a law student’s loans once they passed the bar – if they committed to stay with the firm for two years?

These were just some of the ah-ha moments that Greentarget team members and students of DePaul University’s Public Relations & Advertising (PRAD) Grad class arrived at during a problem-solving workshop guided by innovation sherpa Howell Malham, founder and managing director ofGreenHouse::Innovation. Malham drove the conversation using Innovation Dynamics, his groundbreaking approach to true social innovation and problem-solving that involve large groups of actors: people, in other words.

Our goal? Find answers to the following question:

How can the legal industry attract and retain new talent in an age of clashing cultures?

That question, a critical one for many Greentarget clients, centers on how old-guard attorneys might be more comfortable with long work hours, whereas younger attorneys yearn for wellness programs, robust cultures, professional development opportunities and work-life balance.

The workshop could have taken a lot of different paths, but Malham kept us on track and used his Innovation Dynamics playbook – designed to seek out unseen social forces holding the status quo in place – to produce ideas to disrupt the legal industry. Malham’s playbook identifies six elements that form norms, unwritten rules that govern our behavior and interactions.

Over the course of two hours, we focused on one of those elements: actors, people with close relationships to the problem. Identifying law firm partners, clients, law schools and the students themselves, lateral recruits and families and spouses as just a few of the key players involved in recruiting and retaining legal talent, we discussed their motivations and asked questions such as:

What are the actors’ behaviors related to the problem? What do behaviors suggest about actors’ interests and motivations? What current behavior by a current actor could subvert the norm? What behavior by a new actor might subvert the norm?

The answers present clear challenges to the traditional law firm model.

The partner track is not necessarily attractive to all incoming attorneys, and compensation and benefits are not necessarily enough to keep them around. Younger people are waiting longer to settle down and have families, leaving them flexible to explore options at all stages of their careers. They also enter the job market hungry for meaningful work and purpose. Putting in long hours as an associate to earn their spot on the partner track can clash with those motivations.

Figuring the law firm model is still valuable to many law firm employees and partners, Greentarget and the PRAD Grad students brainstormed the following ways to better align that model with younger lawyers’ motivations:

  • Ex-Lawyers on Staff: Hire and engage employees who have earned their JDs and pursued alternative career paths, such as yoga instructors, journalists and therapists, to tackle recruitment challenges. These individuals understand the pressures of working at law firms and can provide fresh perspectives on the culture and wellness elements firms are trying to employ.
  • “Scott’s Tots”: Inspired by “The Office” episode when Michael Scott (Steve Carell) promises to pay an entire third-grade class’ college tuition after they graduate high school, a firm could sponsor a class at a target law school for recruitment and offer to pay their law school loans if they pass the bar. This level of financial support when so many students are drowning in debt promotes a sense of loyalty from employees.
  • Pro Bono Focus: Once a year, host a marathon where the firm’s lawyers focus solely on pro bono matters and work in shifts for one straight week, 24 hours a day. This level of commitment would not only drive good publicity but also engage all employees in purposeful work outside of their standard client work. 

DePaul’s PRAD Grad students participated as part of a course called Chicago Corporations & Their Agencies, which focuses on working relationships between agencies and clients. The Greentarget team had a great time – and it sounds like the students did too.

“The class couldn’t have gone better,” said Ron Culp, instructor and professional director of PRAD. “Seldom do students linger afterwards, especially when the evening runs past 8 o’clock. No complaints last night.”

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Curiosity. Empathy. Trust. Grit. These are the essential elements that inspire our work — both with our clients and the journalists who cover them. These elements are also the foundation of our development and implementation of successful media relations programs at Greentarget — and they have been since our firm’s earliest days.

The media landscape is constantly shifting, and news organizations are in the midst of disruption that would have been unthinkable not long ago. As print newspapers and magazines continue to fold or shrink, digital news and social media grow. Faced with tight deadlines and demands to produce content online and through social media, journalists are under constant pressure. To top it off, the public’s trust in traditional media sources has declined.

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Against this backdrop, there are some rumblings that earned media might become obsolete — rumblings with which we wholeheartedly disagree. While Americans are consuming the news in evolving ways — with nine out of 10 adults now getting news online — there isn’t less interest in news. We’re seeing explosive growth in digital journalism, with emerging outlets adding resources and staff. As a result, earned media will continue to be a preferred way for B2B and professional services companies to enhance their reputations and direct smarter conversations to key stakeholders.

Known by clients and colleagues as the “guardians of the lost art of media relations,” we at Greentarget are keeping a close watch on the changes to the media landscape and adapting as need be. However, more often than not, we’ve found that staying true to the principles and approaches that we’ve had since our company’s founding is the best approach for our firm and our clients.

At our core, we believe successful earned media campaigns are about aligning our client’s business objectives with communications goals. This means finding clients the right platform to get the messages in front of the right people. We pride ourselves on offering journalists reputable spokespeople who add value to their stories — which, in turn, forges strong relationships with these journalists who return to us time and time again. It is through this process that clients get the third-party validation they need that can turn a quote into a measurable sales impact.

Get the media relations strategy that works for today’s world.

Greentarget’s Media Relations VisionDownload

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Keeping a watchful eye on the changes in the media landscape is part of our jobs in the PR business. Our clients depend on it, and we can’t do our jobs well if we don’t understand what’s happening at the publications we work with. But it’s also in our DNA — most of us are news junkies at heart.

So we’re all well aware of what those publications are up against, especially in local media, where viable business models and paths to monetization have been all but impossible to come by. The results are mostly discouraging, with news deserts popping up all around the country.

But there are some rays of hope. Speaking to our staff over lunch, ProPublica Illinois investigative reporter Jodi Cohen recently told us that “the public is yearning for reporting that exposes wrongdoing.” She pointed to the creation of her organization and Block Club Chicago in the last year as positive signs.

Cohen isn’t the only one who sees hope for local journalism. We recently spoke with Douglas K. Smith, co-founder and architect of the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative. Launched in 2015 as the Knight-Temple Table Stakes project, the initiative was developed to strengthen local media in the face of disruption by accelerating the transition to audience-first and digitally skilled news enterprises, improving their practices and helping them grow audiences and audience-related revenues.

Smith, who coauthored Table Stakes: A Manual for Getting in the Game of News, told me that participating organizations have made good progress. Four major metros participated in the first year of the initiative in 2016. Since then, more than six dozen local journalism organizations have participated in what are now five different Table Stakes programs.

The initiative calls for participating journalists to share current challenges and opportunities and discuss strategies. That collaboration has revealed that most news organizations face similar challenges. They include juggling two monumental undertakings. “Journalistic efforts in today’s digitally disrupted world all work hard to put audiences first, create and monetize as many sources of value as possible,” while at the same time newsroom leaders must “retool skills, work and technology in ways that are sustainable going forward,” Smith said.

Early results are encouraging. “Participating enterprises have made significant progress toward success at the challenges selected,” Smith said. That progress includes revenue gains from a variety of sources, ranging from digital subscriptions to native advertising to local digital marketing services to fundraising to events and more.

Some of the success stories were recently detailed at Poynter.org:

  • The Houston Chronicle revamped its newsletter and expects that by the end of this year, it will have more readers coming to its subscriber website through newsletter click-throughs than through homepage visits. The morning report newsletter has grown dramatically, from 1,000 subscribers in January to 20,000 in August.
  • The Philadelphia Media Network, one year after focusing on the performance management models taught in the Table Stakes program, has more than 25,000 digital-only paid subscribers, 25 percent above the goal they had established for the newsroom.
  • The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel grew page views 20 percent year-over-year since 2017, unique visitors by 29 percent and digital-only subscriptions from 13,000 to 30,000.

Three years into the newsroom initiative, Smith hopes that all local news organizations embrace the core tables stakes needed to be in the game:

  1. Serve targeted audiences with targeted content
  2. Publish on the platforms used by your targeted audiences
  3. Produce and publish continuously to match your audiences’ lives
  4. Funnel occasional users into habitual, valuable and paying loyalists
  5. Diversify and grow the ways you earn revenue from the audiences you build
  6. Partner to expand your capacity and capabilities at lower and more flexible cost
  7. Drive audience growth and profitability from a “mini-publisher” perspective

“Healthy and sustainable local journalism is a linchpin to healthy and sustainable local democracy,” Smith said. “We cannot have one without the other. We must reverse the now decade-plus slide in the quality and sustainability of local journalism.”

Smith, who is also the author of On Value and Values, a book of moral philosophy for the 21st century, added, “When local journalism gets stripped down to the bare minimum, democracy’s light dims. Citizens, consumers, employees, families and friends all depend on local journalism shining democracy’s required light — not only by shining light on abuses of power, regardless of origin, but also on how local audiences can solve the necessities of their lives and work together to make the places where they live better.”

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Despite the relentless challenges facing both traditional and emerging news outlets, the media remains a powerful and credible communications vehicle – particularly among the stakeholders that business-to-business organizations seek to influence. At Greentarget we see it every day, and it’s borne out in our latest research. So we were disheartened to read a recent report in the Washington Post. Reporter Stephen Pearlstein theorizes that corporate media relations is broken and that the business community no longer relies on traditional media as a credible resource. Spurred by the C-suite’s mistrust in traditional media, Pearlstein notes “even the prospect of a positive story can’t crack open the door to the executive suite.” More from Pearlstein: “The prevailing attitude is now that everything is about data and social media and identifying the people they can reach by going over the heads of the established media,” one top public relations executive told me. Traditional Media Still Matters But our data tells a very different story. Greentarget’s 2018 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey shows that 54 percent of in-house counsel surveyed go to traditional media (e.g., The Wall Street Journal) each day for legal, business and industry news and information, and 45 percent find such sources very valuable – far above any other source. And Greentarget’s new survey of C-suite executives, the State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey – Professional Services found that more than half of those executives get their content from traditional media every day, and 75 percent find it very valuable content for business and industry news and information. In addition, CMO respondents to Nielsen’s 2018 Chief Marketing Officer Report see traditional media as an important channel for building brand awareness. The report found that marketers still believe traditional media remains critical to brand building and its associated top-of-funnel marketing metrics, including brand awareness, recall and favorability. Fifty-five percent of respondents plan to allocate at least 40 percent of their ad budget to traditional media (TV, print, radio, etc.), according to the report. Why Engaging With the News Media Is Worth the Risk We, of course, understand why some companies would be cautious about speaking to the media and that they have the right to decline to be interviewed if it’s truly in their best interest. But we wholeheartedly disagree that a risk-avoidance strategy is an answer. Much of Pearlstein’s article focuses on consumer brands. But for professional services organizations, we encourage a proactive – not a reactive – approach to engaging with the news media, even given the current news environment. Here’s why:
  • You snooze, you lose: There will come a time when the C-level executive who shuts down a reporter will need that same reporter to tell their story, and perhaps be more understanding of a company’s business and context throughout the reporting process.
  • You have control of a negative or positive story outcome: This is something many executives forget and likely the reason so many run the opposite direction when a reporter reaches out. Preparation is key, and ahead of any interview, it’s important that executives be completely comfortable and have multiple tools and techniques to make sure an interview goes in their favor.
  • You miss out on the benefits of thought leadership: In 2017, Edelman and LinkedIn released a joint research study of more than 1,300 business decision-makers and C-suite executives that explored how thought leadership influences their behaviors throughout the B2B purchase process. Among the study’s key findings was that 45 percent of decision-makers and 48 percent of C-suite executives said a company’s thought leadership directly led them to award business to that firm. If an executive makes a choice not to participate in a story, they are likely missing out on an under-leveraged business development resource.
  • You have a responsibility: We believe true thought leaders have an obligation to participate skillfully in the conversations that matter to their clients. This is especially true as they seek to increase market share, attract leading talent and achieve a higher purpose. There is a missed opportunity every time they choose not to respond to a reporter’s request.
We’ve written previously about the possibility of recent attacks on the press intimidating reporters and news organizations from telling the stories they feel the public has a right – and likely a need – to know. What would be worse is if these important stories aren’t told because leaders in corporate America choose not to pick up the phone. By adopting what amounts to a siege mentality when it comes to the news media, they’re passing up opportunities for thought leadership. And in the professional services realm – given the content preferences of those making buying decisions – they’re making an unequivocal mistake.

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When Collins American Dictionary announced that “fake news” was its word of 2017, it defined the seemingly ubiquitous term as “false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting.” Collins also noted that usage of the term increased 365 percent since 2016.

Fake news has also been described as a threat to democracy, and experts worry about the negative influence it might have on the next generation of Americans who struggle to understand the difference between fact and fiction.

While the trend is something that should concern just about everyone, it’s especially important for public relations professionals to avoid shrugging fake news off as just the latest buzzword driven by political rhetoric. At Greentarget, we’re paying close attention to the topic – and we’re passionate about doing all we can to firm up faith in the media as legitimate sources of information.

Whether legitimate sources will be once again be embraced as credible is an open question – one on which experts are essentially split, according to a Pew Research study. The pessimists worry that “manipulative actors will use new digital tools to take advantage of humans’ inbred preference for comfort and convenience and their craving for the answers they find in reinforcing echo chambers.” The optimists believe that “the speed, reach and efficiencies of the internet, apps and platforms will be harnessed to rein in fake news and misinformation campaigns.”

We can’t predict the future, but we agree with the optimists in the Pew study. And we have the following predictions about how the fake news pandemic will diminish in the coming years:

2018: The Year of the Source

A recent assertion from some PR industry leaders that media relations is dead is something we wholeheartedly disagree with — and we’ll go a step further. In the fake news era, media relations is more important than ever. Forbes’ contributor Jade Faugno summed up our thoughts on this topic perfectly:

The stigma of “fake news” may cling to the popular consciousness for several years to come, but sophisticated audiences will continue to hold fast to reliable sources, which will only further demonstrate their value in a growing sea of misinformation.

Although the relationship between journalism and media relations is often cast as adversarial, our experiences with reporters show that they are dedicated – even desperate – when it comes to publishing stories that are factual and have reputable spokespeople who add value. We also believe executives will continue to view the news media as valuable and credible. In Greentarget’s 2017 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey, 95 percent of respondents said traditional sources like The Wall Street Journal and The Economist were the most credible sources of news – despite the fake news trend.

When it Comes to the News, Education Matters

“Young people’s ability to reason about the information can be summed up in one word: bleak.” That’s according to the authors of the Stanford University study that looked at whether middle school, high school and college students could decipher legitimate news from fake news. Lead author Sam Wineburg told NPR that “educational programs are the only way we can deal with these kinds of issues.” In a hopeful sign, some universities are now building news literacy classes into their curriculum.

At Greentarget, we also believe it’s crucial to educate the next generation of Americans about how to differentiate fact from fiction. That’s why we’re offering financial support to the News Literacy Project (NLP), a nonprofit dedicated to teaching middle and high school students how to use the standards of journalism to determine what information they should trust, share and act on. Count us as strong supporters of NLP’s focus to enlighten young Americans about the role of honest media in our democracy.

Technology and Innovation Can Help

As noted above, the evolution of technology was the top reason for optimism among respondents to the Pew study. We agree – but we also acknowledge that much work needs to be done amid rays of hope.

Late last year, it was reported that a group of college students designed a plug-in called Open Mind, designed to prevent false news. Created during a hackathon competition at Yale University, the plug-in works as a Chrome extension that uses sentiment analysis technology to analyze articles for bias – and steers users to alternative sources. The app’s creators will meet with members of Congress this spring, and Facebook, which was one of the sponsors of the competition, is interested in talking to the students as part of its ongoing work to address fake news.

One way leading technology companies, including Facebook and Google, are working to address fake news is through partnerships with fact-checking organizations. While it’s too early to evaluate how Google’s partnership is going, the efficacy of Facebook’s partnerships has been met with some criticism. Aaron Sharockman, executive editor of Politifact, a member of the coalition of fact-checkers who agreed to work with Facebook, addressed some speed bumps. “The reality is, there is too much content for us to check, and we imagine there is plenty more material in need of fact-checking that we aren’t seeing,” said Sharockman in an analysis that captures how complicated the fake news problem is.

At Greentarget, it’s in our DNA to direct smarter conversations and to support the core principles of journalism. We’re hopeful that through our ability to deliver credible sources to journalists, support efforts to help the younger generation tell the difference between fact and fiction, and advocate for innovation taking place to curb fake news, we can do our part in finding a solution to this complicated issue.

We wouldn’t hesitate to call fake news a pandemic – one that needs to be combatted to ensure the health of our democracy. Here’s hoping the top word of 2018 will be “legitimate news source.”

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