Maakonnalehtede ajakirjanike kriteeriumid pressiteadete kasutamisel

Abstract

The aim of the bachelor thesis was to research how much and how journalists of five Estonian regional newspaper use press releases. I tried to find answers to the following questions: which role a press release has for a journalist, which is the practice of the usage of press releases and which is a good press release for a journalist. Research showed that even though journalist use more press releases than originally thought, they don’t take these as their main sources of information. Regional papers’ editors and reporters prefer their regular sources who tend to be regular people, friends and family or specialists working in a field of journalist’s subject field. Mainly press releases are used as backround information, for educational purposes or for finding a theme for a longer story. Journalists receive a different amount of press releases. There is a tendency for a newspaper’s general e-mail to receive more press releases than journalist’s personal work e-mail. Number of the received press releases is between 10 and 150. Relying on the journalists’ personal preferences only maximum 5 of these are used. This means that the average usage of press releases for the interviewed journalists is only nearly 7,5%. Journalists say that most of the received press realeases are good and well-structured, but they are not being used nevertheless. Most common reasons not to use the press release tend to be it’s subject not being close enough to the reader, impossibility to focus the story to the region, or release being too much of an advert to use as a piece of news. Press release’s sender is not important fot the interviewed journalists. Their opinions differ in a question weather a press release should include someones commentary and photos. Ladder are considered importand when there is not much time until the deadline or the article is meant for the online paper. All journalists find it important that the press release is geographically or emotionally close to the reader and it fills the criteria of news values. Backround information in the press releases is usually considered unnecessary – first hand it should be short and concrete, while the most important information should be placed in the beginning of a release and less important should come towards the end. Journalists definitely use a press release that is well-composed, short and concrete, important to the local reader and fills the criteria of news values. All the journalist said they never use a press release they finf being too much an advert.