Which Newswire Service Do Journalists Prefer?

Technology PR and search agency Vitis PR has announced the results of its recent survey of UK journalists, which reveals which newswires/press release distribution* services journalists actually read and to what extent they find these services useful in their work.

Vitis PR surveyed 80 UK journalists from its own contact lists across a variety of industries. The survey targets included consumer and business technology, marketing, cleantech, ecommerce/retail and the automotive sectors. The agency believes that these results are also applicable across other vertical sectors.

Journalists, from daily newspapers to well respected websites and freelancers took the time to help the PR agency to understand:

• How often do journalists use newswires?
• Which newswires are the most valuable?
• What newswires are used for?
• How newswires should interact with journalists?
• How often do journalists use newswires?

Respondents were asked to indicate which services they found most valuable in their work.Of the journalists surveyed, 54% found that PR Newswire was the most valuable newswire followed by PA** (38%), SourceWire (37%) and Businesswire (34%).

Newswires specific to particular verticals were also mentioned by individual journalists, including:

•  NewsPress (automotive)
• Headline Auto (automotive)
• Gamespress
• Technology4Media

Based upon the comments Vitis PR received, journalists indicated (perhaps unsurprisingly) that industry-specific services tend to be more valuable.

What are newswires used for?

78% of respondents said they use newswires for news stories, while 56% use wires for article or feature ideas and 56% for monitoring industry trends.  Many also cited newswires’ role in factchecking.

“Writing news for a monthly print publication I simply use newswires as an easy way to find/verify information, “one respondent noted. “They are often faster/easier than navigating corporate websites and press rooms. Links in wire releases to images and more information are particularly useful.”

Jas Sahota, Director, Vitis PR commented: “We believe that the best way to target a journalist is to follow them, understand what they write about, pitch a story to them exclusively and provide them with good content. While wires offer the ability to provide additional information the feedback from our respondents is that (on the whole) newswires need to find a way to help cut through the volume of less valuable releases.”The full results of the survey, including more insights gleaned from the journalists who responded, are available on the Vitis PR web site: Which newswires do journalists actually read? 80 journalists surveyed.PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1oqEK)