Report by Cardiff University's School of Journalism analysing the quantity of public relations material and news agency copy within news output, measuring the changing number of journalists employed by major news organisations, and illustrating the role of PR in news based on three case studies.

The key findings are that:
- Journalists are producing more copy: 'While the number of journalists in the national press has remained fairly static, they now produce three times as much copy as they did twenty years ago'
- A majority of the output is based on news agency copy or public relations material: '60% of press articles and 34% of broadcast stories come wholly or mainly' from either PR material or news agency copy
- 'The most PR influenced topic was health, followed closely by consumer/business news and entertainment/sport'

The statistics regarding the use of PR material were based on an analysis of 2,207 stories from five national newspapers. 71% of these were 'standard news articles', most of the rest news in briefs. The broadcast analysis was based on 402 TV news items.

There are three case studies:

The first looks at the use of press releases targeted at the Press Association on behalf of Friends Provident Pensions Ltd.

The second is about PA's coverage of tax credit overpayments in 2004-05 and its use of press releases by the Public Accounts Committee, which then fed through to the national press.

The third is about a health story, released by the British Media Journal, about the supposed lack of clear health benefits of oily fish.

The study also notes the continuing reliance of broadcast news on print media. 'Of the stories covered in our sample broadcast programmes, 48% originated in the same day's newspapers'.

Keywords: Cardiff, public relations, pr