Why organisations need earned media amidst the commercialisation of news
For a long time, public relations practitioners in Nigeria have accepted paying for news coverage on radio and television or a “live appearance” fee for interviews as the norm.
Research suggests that the commercialisation of news in Nigeria began around 1986 during the Structural Adjustment Programme and the subsequent withdrawal of subsidies from the state-owned media houses. As production costs increased, media houses resorted to the commercialisation of news to stay afloat. But the issues were heightened with the liberalisation of media in the 1990s which paved the way for privately-owned media houses, leading to increased competition. The print media remained the only source of earned media (publicity) but this is now under threat.
However, there is a school of thought that blames businesses and politicians for the commercialisation of news in Nigeria to some extent. Firstly, they argue that threats to media organisations for publishing unfavourable stories about organisations caused dwindling advertisement revenues — a BBC report titled “Nigeria’s brown envelope journalism” sheds light on this. It states: “In Nigeria, established newspapers are paid to keep big stories off the front page. Adverts are supposed to buy silence. … Often, Next would run a story in its popular weekend edition, only for editors to arrive at the office on Monday to meet an aggrieved marketing team — certain big advertisers had terminated their business that morning. After one revelation about corruption in the oil trade, scores of advertisers instantly pulled out …”
Dwindling ad revenues forced some media houses to make their journalists double as advertising agents. As such, they could not focus on their core reportorial duties leading to declined quality. Declined quality led to declined readership and with the advent of digital media, advertisers labelled the print media as “dead.” Consequently, advertisers channelled advertising budgets to blogs, Facebook, Google, Instagram and YouTube, and practitioners embraced the idea of the “sponsored post” for PR stories on entertainment and lifestyle blogs.
In a bid to survive, some Nigerian print media have introduced “sponsored posts” — if brands can pay Linda Ikeji, why not The Guardian? But PR practitioners are struggling to accept the concept of paying print media for brand publicity. So when David I. Adeleke published an article titled “How African tech startups can get better PR” a few months ago, it sparked a debate on LinkedIn with responses like this one from Olusesan Ogunyooye, head, brand & communication at AXA Mansard Plc:
… I think the point about newsworthiness needs to be stretched a little more beyond our classic understanding of what is news. I think we need to understand that journalism has become more commercialized and is losing, if not already lost, it’s (sic) social responsibility function of information, education and entertainment. Besides the traditional print media where your story — no matter how socially beneficial — will he (sic) gate-kept without a brown envelope, electronic and digital media (tech or not) have rate cards for press releases. Our local media almost don’t report brand news that doesn’t bleed. If you want your name to be mentioned as a startup, I’m afraid you need to do more than tying your narrative to social benefits.
One must add a caveat that whilst the “brown envelope” syndrome is widespread, it would be unfair to generalise. Nonetheless, Ogunyooye’s comment shows the increasing difficulty practitioners are facing in securing earned media.
Because of the reaction to Adeleke’s article, he brought together tech enthusiasts, communications professionals and a tech media representative to have a conversation on Twitter Spaces. The issues highlighted as reasons why start-ups are not able to secure press coverage mirror those in Adeleke’s article including, a poor understanding of what is newsworthy, how the media operates, poor pitches and ego-tripping of founders.
Amongst others, the panellists advised start-ups that do not have a PR budget to begin with owned media, which Gini Dietrich the creator of the PESO Model advises. At the end of the conversation, one thing was clear, media whether mainstream or digital need money to survive. They must pay the salaries of those amazing journalists whom organisations crave to cover their stories so the “sponsored post” is here to stay.
The value of earned media
Still, media organisations need to understand that this topic is touchy for PR pros because one of the functions of PR is to build credibility, and of the four media types (paid, earned, shared and owned), it is mainly earned media that builds credibility. Whilst paid media, in this case, a “sponsored post” may inform, it loses the credibility which is conferred on a news story or feature article because it is written by a journalist, from his/ her perspective and has the journalist’s byline attached to it. And as Jean-Louis Gassée, a former executive at Apple said, “Advertising is saying you’re good. PR is getting someone else to say you’re good.”
An organisation could also gain a bit of credibility from shared media, for instance, if an unpaid influencer or opinion leader tweets a testimonial about the business but for a start-up desperate for a sale, it’s a long shot. Owned media builds the profile of the founder or executives, educates consumers and if done properly generates earned media but it could also take time. That is why the clamour to be featured in tech media is understandable. More so, their reporting is a breath of fresh air in the Nigerian journalism space.
The way forward
The media and organisations have a symbiotic relationship. Now that start-ups and big corporations alike are finally accepting this, they can no longer pay lip service to the media as important stakeholders but begin to treat them as such: “a group whose actions or inactions can affect their businesses.” This means accepting some responsibility for keeping the media profitable in the same way organisations feel responsible for keeping their distributors in business or motivating employees with perks other than their salaries.
In light of this, when a start-up secures funding, it should set aside a portion of its operational budget for media. The start-up should use it for corporate advertisements in newspapers such as ThisDay to reach policymakers while product ads can be placed online. The budget could also cover sponsorships such as a BusinessDay conference, partnerships with TechCabal, support of a research report by Nairametrics spotlighting a sector of the economy and subscription to paid publications. Some might argue that these are tantamount to indirectly paying for stories, but nothing is truly free. It’s because an organisation somewhere sponsors Tech Crunch podcasts and events that a founder in Nigeria can get free coverage.
As for first-time founders who have no budget but recognise that the media could be their springboard to success, start with owned media, offer commentary and be content with being mentioned in a news feature until you become too big to be ignored. Publicity is not only gained when an entire news story is written about your organisation. It is also all right if your company name is not mentioned in the headline of a news story.
And above all, start-ups and big businesses must respect media independence and objectivity.
