Apologies for another work-related post but, hell, we’re just doing a load of interesting stuff. Brands2Life, and its International network of partner agencies the Oriella PR Network, has just done a study into the changing requirements of journalists across Europe. The study was conducted across multiple countries covered by the Oriella PR network, and had 347 respondents. There were some interesting findings, including:

Half of the respondents (46%) revealed they are expected to produce more content for their respective publications.
Video is having a growing impact on journalism with over 40% confirming they are now responsible for producing online television or video clips, despite only 3% of respondents being employed by traditional broadcasters.
European journalists are increasingly required to deliver their content in differing formats – 44% of outlets offer journalist authored blogs; almost a fifth (18%) are now producing audio podcasts; and almost one in four (24%) offer video podcasts.

You’d probably have noticed much of this if you’ve visited a news website lately. The message out of this for us PROs, obviously, is that the game has changed. My boss won’t thank me for telling this story, but he remembers a time when press releases were sent by post or (at best) fax — email shifted expectations of what we had to deliver then, and social media and the multimedia delivery platform that is the web is beginning to have an analogous impact on the nature of reporting in Europe today. Of course, in many instances, you don’t need the latest whizzy Social Media News Release or funky viral — but in some cases there’s scope to provide much more compelling content to support journalists in their endeavours.

Of course, to all them PR bloggers out there this is a no brainer — you’ve been living, eating and breathing this stuff for a couple of years. However, judging by several of the conversations I’ve had with comms directors lately, the message is taking its time to sink through. I love this sort of research because the theory is one thing — but having journalists actually tell you that they’d like to see more multimedia content, would like more b-roll (web journalists as well as broadcast and national media), well, it warms the heart.

Have a gander at the report at the study’s website, and you can read Journalism.co.uk’s write-up here.