Study: PR work influences DPA
Germany's largest news agency, DPA, often takes content from press releases and publishes it as news stories it has researched itself. This is the conclusion reached by Tobias Höhn in his thesis.
Germany's largest news agency, DPA, often takes content from press releases and publishes them as self-researched reports. This is the conclusion reached by Tobias Höhn, who investigated how six of the agency's national offices handle PR releases in a thesis last year. As Agenturjournalismus.de quotes the current Spiegel article "Gesteuerte Flut", 82 percent of the information received during the investigation period consisted of press releases. 18 percent of this was used for a news item - often without any research being carried out. In many cases, the core statement of the press release was also completely incorporated into the report, Verdi.de quotes one of Höhn's statements. In a quarter of all reports, the journalists also failed to name the source.
Der Spiegel describes the study as an embarrassment for the "journalistic core of the country". The DPA rejects the criticism: Höhn defines the term PR too broadly, counters news agency editor-in-chief Wilm Herlyn. For him, according to the article, a police report is not a PR product. According to Verdi.de, Michael Ludewig, also a member of the DPA editorial team, sees the agency to a certain extent as a "transporter of information". However, conclusions for practical use were also drawn from the study. In future, the agency wants to provide more background information and classify the information better, just as customers want based on Höhn's statements. The study was very, very helpful in this respect.
Der Spiegel describes the study as an embarrassment for the "journalistic core of the country". The DPA rejects the criticism: Höhn defines the term PR too broadly, counters news agency editor-in-chief Wilm Herlyn. For him, according to the article, a police report is not a PR product. According to Verdi.de, Michael Ludewig, also a member of the DPA editorial team, sees the agency to a certain extent as a "transporter of information". However, conclusions for practical use were also drawn from the study. In future, the agency wants to provide more background information and classify the information better, just as customers want based on Höhn's statements. The study was very, very helpful in this respect.
