The Inner Circle Round Up: Media News You Can Use – July 2018
We’re back with new outlets and opportunities for July! We’ve combed through media news to highlight opportunities that PR pros can consider for their clients and their day-to-day pitching efforts. Have you seen any PR opportunities we may have missed? Tweet at us (@scottcircle) and let us know!
What’s New (and New-ish)
This new content hub is focused on the future of health care. It includes a dashboard of news on the business of health care, and covers global big pharma, biotech, generics, biopharma, health and tech, VC/investors, insurers, hospitals, drug stores and government programs.
The Inner Circle’s Take: The world of health care can be complicated, and Prognosis aims to break down the business side to explain how health care is transforming to their audiences. Bloomberg has committed around 20 health-care reporters and editors to contribute to Prognosis, so if you have a relevant story, try pitching one of them!
Yahoo News: Bots and Ballots Podcast
Bots and Ballots is a new weekly podcast that dives into the intersection of politics and technology- as told by those in Washington, DC and Silicon Valley trying to prevent a repeat of the infiltration of the 2016 presidential election. The show features discussion with tech, politics and election experts on topics ranging from social media to electronic voting machines.
The Inner Circle’s Take: With the midterm elections around the corner, the cleverly named show explores how technology can affect elections. This is a hot button issue, and if you have clients that work in tech and politics space, it may be difficult to insert your client into the national conversation. If you have an issue that fits the podcast’s theme, this could be an opportunity to get your client’s perspective on-air.
Facebook: Introducing Facebook Watch
Facebook has announced a line up of funded news shows for Facebook Watch. The shows will be hosted by a wide range of journalists and will vary from a mix of daily briefings, weekly deep dives, and live breaking news coverage. Shows include:
- “Undivided ATTN:” - a weekly explainer show that breaks down the biggest issue of the week
- “Anderson Cooper Full Circle” - a daily global brief on the world, featuring Anderson Cooper and guests
- "Mic Dispatch" - a show that goes beyond the headlines to profile the underrepresented, the problem-solvers and the provocateurs
- And shows from other outlets including ABC News, Fox News, Alabama Media Group and Univision.
The Inner Circle’s Take: New shows need new content. And as PR pros, we know our clients have plenty of content. Along with covering the breaking headlines of the day, some of the new shows will take a deep dive on underrepresented issues and feature experts for their unique take. If there is a news hook, and if you think your story would be a perfect fit for one the shows, it may be an option to pitch!
CIVIL: A new platform for upholding and advancing journalistic standards
Backed by journalists and media executives like Vivian Schiller, Civil is a new journalism platform that describes itself as “the decentralized marketplace for sustainable journalism.” The platform, that is supported by blockchain technology, aims to bring news sources of quality information, and raise the public trust in reporting. On the platform, journalists can independently found and run “Newsrooms” concentrating on local, international, policy and investigative journalism. Civil currently has 13 newsrooms including the Colorado Sun and hopes to reach 1,000 publications by the end of the year.
The Inner Circle’s Take: What is blockchain?! As newsrooms across the country struggle with corrupt editorial influence, fake news and lack of public trust, Civil is a hopeful alternative. In media relations, trust in the media is essential and a newsroom on Civil could be a great option to get your issues and clients in reliable, trusted sources.
The DC Line: Veteran DC Editor Launches Local News Site
Chris Kain, a longtime managing editor of The Current newspapers launched a new local news site dedicated to serving the DC community to help them become more active and civic residents. The nonprofit site will have original journalism and commentary from officials, community leaders, and residents, along with civic and community calendars, and links to news of interest from other publications.
The Inner Circle’s Take: Hooray for local journalism! As investment in local journalism declines, journalists are creating new sites to keep local journalism alive. If you work in the DC landscape, this could be a great outlet to pitch local stories and events, and also presents an opportunity for thought leadership and profile-raising.
Wired: New Streaming Channel Launched
As of July 1st, Wired launched a new streaming channel available on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Roku. The channel currently features the most popular shows and videos from Wired.com but is expected to roll out more programming made specifically for the new channel
The Inner Circle’s Take: As over-the-top content (content delivered over the internet) continues to grow in popularity, more publishers and news organizations are expanding their content to new mediums to reach their audience. For PR pros, this presents a new opportunity—a new venue to frame the issues you want pitch to the media.
Extra, Extra Read All About It! (Or watch it behind the scenes…)
Major publishers from New York Times to BuzzFeed are launching new on demand TV series on platforms like Netflix and Hulu that follow journalists and their reporting. While we know the ins and outs of pitching the media, we may not be as familiar with what goes on in the newsroom. This behind the scenes look could help us better understand the demands of being a journalist and help us better anticipate their needs.
Here are some things we’re excited about:
- Follow This - A weekly Netflix Series that follows journalists at BuzzFeed News as they explore a variety of topics
- The News - A weekly BuzzFeed podcast that gives listeners more context behind BuzzFeed News journalism
- The Weekly - A weekly FX/New York Times Series that will feature one or two of the NYT’s stories each week, following the reporters that work on them (set to premiere later this year)