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While journalists are still heavily reliant on the work of PR pros for at least part of their reporting, growing questions about the quality of PR content could be starting to chip away at some of that dominance.
That’s the takeaway from a survey of more than 1,500 journalists conducted by Global Results Communications.
When respondents were asked if they rely on information from PR professionals, more than four out of five (81 percent) said yes. In addition, over a third (35 percent) noted that PR inbound content is “vital” or “very important” to their work.
Another marker of PR content’s value to journalists: Only 21 percent of the journalists surveyed said their use of PR had dropped over the past year. Almost seven out of ten (69 percent) said their reliance on PR had stayed the same year-over-year, and eight percent said their reliance had gone up. Those users cited tighter deadlines and newsroom staff cuts as major reasons behind the increase.
But there is a fly in the ointment, and its name is AI. The phrase “read like a bot wrote it” was a common complaint sounded by respondents about pitches, and that is linked to a decreased level of trust.
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Overall, just 12 percent had a positive view of AI being used to craft press releases and pitches, with 38 percent calling themselves “neutral” on the topic and 44 percent saying they viewed it negatively.
When it comes to the general quality of PR content, respondents were not so bullish, either. Only five percent said that the PR content they receive could be considered “excellent.” Almost half of them (47 percent) judged it to be “good.” Journalists who rated PR content as “poor” basically did so for one of two reasons— either it was “too salesy” (30 percent) or showed a “lack of subject knowledge” (nine percent).
As regards what kind of content journalists prefer to receive, the tried-and-true press release still came in at the top of the heap at 51 percent, with contributed articles at 16 percent and case studies at 14 percent.
For PR pros who want their pitches to break through to targeted journalists, the report makes a few suggestions. Keep your eye on the quality of your pitches—not on how much content you are generating. Pitches should also depend on humanized, editorially valuable storytelling as a way of building trust. Plus, to ensure that your pitches are relevant, make sure they are aimed at exactly the right audience.
The 2025 GRC Annual Survey gathered responses from journalists across digital, print and broadcast media, including a significant number of reporters covering the tech, healthcare and business sectors.
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