Running your own newsroom

The newsroom idea is that an organisation publishes directly rather than depending entirely on media to carry its material. It works for organisations that treat it as publishing and fails for those that treat it as a website section.

What it actually requires

The first two carry most of the weight. Without a routine and an owner, publication becomes sporadic within three months.

What belongs in it

Not press releases. A newsroom that consists of announcements about the organisation has an audience of the organisation.

What works: explanatory content about the sector, data the organisation holds, positions on developments that affect the audience, people and their work, and genuine news presented as news rather than as promotion.

The ratio that sustains an audience is roughly the same as for any publication: mostly useful, occasionally about you.

The distribution question

Publishing is the easy half. Most organisational newsrooms publish into silence because nobody planned distribution.

The routes: your own newsletter, which is the most reliable; social channels, with declining organic reach; search, which takes months; employees sharing, which requires them to know it exists; and offering material to media, which brings the two activities together.

The relationship with media relations

A newsroom does not replace press work. Third-party credibility is a different asset from self-published material, and journalists reach audiences you cannot.

The productive relationship: the newsroom holds the material, the media relations work offers it. A journalist covering your sector who knows your newsroom produces useful data will check it.

Publishing your own material first can reduce a story's value to a publication wanting exclusivity. Coordinate the two rather than running them separately.

The standards question

Publishing directly means taking on a publisher's responsibilities: accuracy, corrections, rights in images, data protection where individuals are involved, and legal compliance in claims.

Set the standard in writing: who checks facts, who approves, how corrections are made and marked, and who is legally responsible.

The honest assessment

A newsroom suits organisations with something continuous to say: sectors with regulatory change, technical fields, organisations with data, and those whose audience wants ongoing information.

It does not suit organisations whose news is occasional. For those, two good press stories a year and a maintained website produce more with far less effort.