In an age of instant updates, fake news and viral chatter, effective storytelling is more important than ever. Brands rely on PR, marketing and communications to craft a narrative that cuts through the noise with interesting, authentic and relevant content. Reputation is everything and having control over where a brand’s content lives is paramount.
In years gone by, newswires were a great way to achieve this, but in the rapidly shifting media environment, are newswires still the best way to get your stories to the right journalists, securing that all important press coverage?
The Rapidly Changing Media Landscape
The way we consume news has changed and the patterns continue to shift away from traditional platforms to online sources. According to Ofcom, social media makes up a significant proportion of online news consumption, with more than half of UK adults (52%) and 88% of 16-24 year olds using it as a source of news. This in turn has changed the way journalists approach their work. Before the internet, they had to go hunting for stories and newswires were a valuable tool. Today, there are endless sources of interconnected global news available all day, every day. News cycles have accelerated.
This shift in news consumption and surge in demand for social media has reduced the reliance on traditional newswires. The media landscape is more fragmented, making it harder for newswires to reach the right journalists and the right audiences. Less journalists than ever are using newswires, with shrinking newsrooms meaning there are often fewer journalists to pick up wire stories, so if you really want a story to land, you need to go straight to the journalist’s inbox.
Crafting Pitches that Cut Through the Noise
According to PR Newswire’s 2024 State of the Press Release Report, 74% of journalists said that they want to receive news announcements and press releases from PR professionals. In general, they know that the press release will be well written, relevant and accurate. This can be a welcome contrast from the sea of social media news and noise. To do this well, it’s important to build relationships with journalists, understanding their niches and working to craft relevant, targeted pitches that resonate well.
As a PR, it’s your job to offer value. Is the story genuinely newsworthy? Is it compelling? Did you research the journalist properly? Can you offer an exclusive? Why should the journalist care about this story? Direct, tailored pitches can offer better engagement and increased chances of press coverage compared to the broader more passive approach of newswire distribution.
A Time and a Place
All of that said, newswires are still very relevant within certain sectors and for certain types of news. In fact, in some industries newswires are used for regulatory compliance reasons. For example, financial institutions, M&A news, publicly traded companies, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Here, newswires provide a standardised, traceable and legally recognised method for the public disclosure of information.
When mass reach is required, fast, newswires can hold their own. They can be a great way of achieving international reach and they can also bring SEO benefits because press releases distributed via newswires are indexed by Google News, which helps with brand presence and discoverability.
They are also more likely to be used in the USA, than in the UK, where according to the 2025 State of the Newswire Report from EZ Newswire, 90% of US agencies surveyed claimed to use newswires for distribution with only 2% doing so to satisfy regulatory or legal requirements. 100% of those surveyed cited increased reach and visibility or SEO value as reasons. The UK media landscape in contrast, is more relationship-driven with national journalists at outlets such as The Guardian, BBC, or The Times, for example, unlikely to act on wire content.
A 2022 study showed that journalists receive at least 50 pitches per week, with 24% receiving over 100 each. The need for journalists to actively scour the internet for stories is rapidly diminishing as the pitches are increasingly going directly to their inboxes. This means that to stand out from the crowd, newswires are perhaps not the best route.
Newswires are not dead, as such, but their role has certainly diminished due to the rise of social media, direct communication with journalists and content marketing strategies. To remain relevant, newswires need to improve the quality of their distribution and offer brands more control over the selection and placement process. In the meantime, agencies and brands are often better served building direct journalist relationships to secure those all-important big press coverage wins.