Last month we told you about a report from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that there are 6 PR pros to every one journalist (see PRNEWS, May 2019). Who are those journalists? What do they cover? And where do they work?
A new survey from Onclusive, provided exclusively to PRNEWS, provides insight. Onclusive analyzed 2.1 billion pieces of editorial content between Q1 2018 and Q1 2019. In short, the “2019 Global Journalism Report” concludes the author ecosystem is more fragmented across publication tiers, formats and topics.
For example, the percentage of authors who contributed to Tier 1 publications in Q1 2019 declined vs Q1 2018. Those who contributed to Tier 3 publications rose. Roughly speaking, Tier 1 pubs are mass media outlets. Tier 3 pubs are niche content sites, blogs and independent outlets.
Just 15 percent of authors contributed to Tier 1 pubs in Q1 2019, down from 26 percent in Q1 2018. In Q1 2019, 41% of authors contributed to Tier 3 publications, up from 25% in Q1 2018 (see chart). Of course, a niche publication, dedicated to the interests of a brand’s target audience, might be the best route for earned media.
The data also shows an increase in the number of articles published per author, though article size is declining. The number of characters per article fell 18 percent, from an average 2,324 characters per article to 1,967. Yet there’s a direct correlation between article size and Google search rank; longer articles tend to rank higher. The average word count of a Google first-page result is 1,890 words.
Onclusive will release the study this month.
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