Quest PR Blog

Having spent a delightful weekend in Paris, it gave me the opportunity to catch up on reading (tip: Small Island by Andrea Levy). Devouring this week’s Media Guardian highlighted several interesting articles – two covered the rise (and rise) in importance of PR versus advertising, which Richard Bailey has written about, and the falling circulations of local newspapers.

While not totally universal, it’s clear that like most other daily newspapers fewer of us read our local and regional newspapers. However, what the article went on to say was that when big issues hit a particular region, city or town, we turn to our local journalists whom we trust to tell the story impartially and honestly. It cited the example of Mansfield’s paper following last week’s earthquake – and I should expect something similar is happening in Dewsbury following the worrying disappearance of Shannon Matthews. The report also said that more and more newspapers are turning ultra local to offer themselves as community sites – certainly the Yorkshire Evening Post has started this process though hasn’t yet built one for my part of Leeds.

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