Online Pressrooms: Journalists’ Expectations from Public Relations Practitioners Concerning Online Media Relations

Abstract

Online pressrooms are important for public relations practitioners when improving their media relations in a rapidly developing new media ecosystem. This paper aims to provide an insight into the journalists’ preferences when retrieving information from online pressrooms. In a mixed design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from Turkish journalists. As the first step of the study, a focus group with 11 journalists was conducted to understand what the expectations of journalists of online pressrooms are, and how they verbally express these demands. These qualitative data were then used for the structuring of a survey questionnaire that was applied to a sample of 155 journalists. Results indicate that journalists were frustrated by the current state of online pressrooms. Journalists asserted that information-rich and skilfully designed pressrooms help increase the corporations’ credibility. Journalists designated visuals and news archives as the most important contents for an online pressroom. It is also found that journalists trust more an organization if they receive fast answers from an authorized media relations person. Furthermore, our cluster analysis revealed that junior journalists with more new media practice have more trust in organizations with successful online media relations.