Evolving Sources of News for Journalists

A new research has demystified the rapidly evolving media universe in India and shed light on the growing appeal of new-age alternatives to the press releases.

The largest PR network in India, 20:20 MSL (part of MSLGROUP, Publicis Groupe's strategic communications and engagement consultancy) in strong collaboration with the Advertising and Public Relations Department of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) has launched a #MediaInsights report to arrive at insights that would benefit India's media and communications industry.

When a piping hot story is on the anvil, only one in eleven journalists would use more than half the press releases that flood their email inboxes.

Internal brainstorming sessions remain the most preferred among many, when it comes to exercising their grey cells in the newsroom.

An emphasis on the diversity of content from the media has driven a series of compelling changes in the conventions of news sourcing among journalists and other media professionals.

The public sentiments that are considered in constructing a story, the advent of the social media space as a hub for story ideas and extensive use of official websites to cull out authentic data are some of the most striking industry-wide changes that the report has highlighted.

Chetan Mahajan, Managing Director, 20:20 MSL said it is imperative for the next generation insights-driven agency to understand the media environment in order to be a strategic advisor to the stakeholders. We jointly conducted this research with IIMC, in order to get insights to address the gap between news-makers, news-consumers and the media. The report has successfully mapped the changes and brought out some compelling facts. I believe that this report will help PR practitioners in best aligning their strategies and tactics.

Sunit Tandon, Director General, IIMC welcomed the report as the first in a series of such studies that would be useful for all who are interested in understanding the rapidly changing contours and dynamics of the Indian news media sector.

The report also focuses on statistical data sets, including the ratio of stories produced by senior correspondents to those filed by young reporters, the frequency of social media usage in newsrooms, the reliance that journalists place on the Internet for sourcing news and, the male versus women reporters' behavior towards different news sources.