'Spinning the Media' is 6 month investigation by the University of Technology (UTS) Sydney and Crikey online news into the role PR plays in making the media. Under UTS’ Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) head Wendy Bacon (a Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist herself…) more than 40 UTS Journalism students have got up close and personal with the sticky end of the spin cycle.
They’ve had to analyse, critique, question and then pick up the phone to ask the hard questions of the media and its reliance on public relations to drive news. Hard questions, because this is what came out in the wash: after analysing a five-day working week in the media, across 10 hard-copy papers, ACIJ and Crikey found that nearly 55% of stories analysed were driven by some form of public relations. The Daily Telegraph came out on top of the league ladder with 70% of stories analysed triggered by public relations. The Sydney Morning Herald gets the wooden spoon with (only) 42% PR-driven stories for that week.
The series will be published between 15 and 30 March.
Read more about Spinning the Media (opens an external site) on Crikey.
