A couple of times a year I’ll slip in at the back at journalism conferences. It’s the most valuable learning I’ll do all year.
I used to be a journo back in the day. But I don’t go to reminisce or trade war stories. I go to learn what the future of public sector communications should look like. I use the word ‘should’ deliberately rather than will.
Earlier this month, the Reuters Institute published Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026. It’s a thought-provoking document. Stephen Waddington has written a really useful analysis for PR people.
Here’s what struck me:
- AI summaries have had an impact. Bread and butter content, such as listings or lifestyle, is better produced by AI. So news titles are moving away from it.
- The great and the good are using their own channels or sympathetic content creators. The need to only speak to a journalist is a long time gone.
- News titles are identifying what they can do better. Human stories, investigations and on-the-ground reporting will see more focus.
- People are consuming more news from creators rather than titles. We don’t wait for the 9’O’Clock news. We may see what a news commentator is saying.
- There will be less ‘service journalism.’ These are listings or advice to solve everyday problems.
- There will be more focus on original reporting and on-the-ground investigations has value. Here. the human beats AI.
- There will be more video. YouTube is the particular focus with TikTok and Instagram following.
- There will be less focus on Facebook. As it becomes harder to generate link clicks this is not a surprise.
- There has been no amazing breakthrough with AI. Jobs have not been created or lost as a result of tools.
- Traffic from search is down and will continue to fall. That’ll be AI summaries.
What the public sector can learn from the report
We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. I keep saying there is more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years. It’s still true.
- Media relations remains important. The skills of the old-style press offiocer are still needed.
- More video. I run courses that show comms teams to plan, shoot, edit and post video. Of course, I’m going top highlight this. But with titles focusssing more on video the bright media officer would be well served to add video to the text of the press release and the image. These may well be B-roll footage the journo can re-work.
- Facebook. Two thirds of the UK use Facebook and two thirds of them use Facebook groups. The platform retains a central position in the conversation. It is harder to produce clicks, sure, but that shouldn’t be a central driver of a public sector comms team.
- Content. As media titles have identified routine announcements as being their bread and butter stop expecting them to cover routine announcements. If they must be covered, use you own channels.
- The webteam. The whole issue of AIn summaries cannibalising traffic should be a canary in the mine for the web team. I await with interest what the public sector’s response will be. Remember SEO? The web team need to be looking at AEO – answer engine optimisation.
Fascinating, isn’t it?
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
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Picture credit: Teignmouth newsagent by M2525 Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
