The declining interest in news and how we can help keep your stories in the public eye.

We live in the age of 24-hour rolling news.  Anyone who wants to keep up with events can watch TV news round-the-clock, scroll through news websites on their phone and tune their radio to a news station 24-hours a day.  They could even buy a daily newspaper or subscribe to a digital news title online.

But while it has never been easier to learn what’s going on, a report from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute says the number of people taking a strong interest in news has dropped by around a quarter in the last six years.

That is despite news events of huge significance during the period, from environmental disasters linked to our changing climate to the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

For people and organisations with stories to tell the revelation that fewer might be reading, listening or watching must be a concern.  But it should act as a spur to those who deliver the news to explore more compelling ways to tell the stories to reach the audiences that count.

It is hard to persuade someone deliberately avoiding bad news coverage for the good of their mental health to keep up to date with what’s going on.  Big news is often bad news, at the top of website, on the front page of the newspaper and leading the TV and radio bulletins. It can be relentlessly depressing and for some just too much to bear.

But what about the smaller but no less significant stories, about what’s going on in the neighbourhood or the village?  Disengagement with mainstream news sources risks alienating people from those stories too as they simply switch off from the whole news output.

KOR Communications has long experience of crafting clients’ content to gain the right exposure.  Often that means finding the right audience where the numbers might be relatively small, but the importance of getting a message to individuals is significant.

The ‘story’ might be a planning application which will affect a neighbourhood, an environmental initiative on a rural estate or the promotion of an event to make sure everyone who needs to be there knows where and when it’s happening.

And it might be better told through social media or a client’s own website than through mainstream press.  It’s a case of horses for courses. A long-established and experienced communications agency needs to know which horse to use at which course for the maximum benefit to the client.

The coming of the internet has massively increased the choice of news outlets.  The days when, nationally, just a handful of newspapers and three or four news broadcasters held all the cards are long gone.  Regionally and locally it is the same story.  Online news, the growth of commercial and independent radio stations, booming social media and the arrival of the podcast have altered the news landscape beyond recognition.

It takes experts to negotiate what can be a media minefield.  But it also puts power back into the hands of businesses, estate owners and individuals.  Often the best person to tell your story is you   - and with a website or podcast, created and curated by an agency like KOR, it is possible to bypass traditional news media and go straight to the audience.

In other circumstances, of course, wider exposure is necessary and good relations with mainstream media makes the difference, getting information into the public domain in a way that properly reflects what the client wants to say.  And, when things go wrong - as they sometimes do – mitigating the damage quickly and effectively.

The Reuters Institute report makes the point that in Britain disengagement with news is even more pronounced than in much of the rest of the world.  Just 43% now say they are very or extremely interested in the news while trust in news has fallen too – only 40% say they trust the news “most of the time.”

Journalists are doing their best to stop the slide, becoming active on Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok, where millions now get their news and posting links back to their stories on traditional news websites.  Award-winning broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire provides regular short videos on Tik Tok to serve some of the 41% of 18-24 year-olds who say their main source of news is now social media.  Her posts are punchy and short, reflecting declining attention spans but ensuring major stories do get attention from her half million or so followers and the eight million who tune in to watch her from time to time.

The media jungle in the 21st century can be a difficult place to navigate and finding audiences sometimes challenging.  It is always going to be easier with an expert guide to hold your hand.