MORI (Market & Opinion Research International) the UK’s “largest independently-owned market research company” (Ref: www.mori.com) interviewed UK financial and business journalists during the Summer of 2002 and found that the top ten sources of information (in order of preference) are:
1) Telephone conversations with company executives (not PR)
2) Company Public Relations Personnel
3) Personnel interviews with company executives (not PR)
4) Press Releases
5) Articles about companies
6) Financial Analysts
7) News agencies
8) PR Agencies
9) Websites
10) Company annual reports
The most interesting thing I see in the study is how highly press releases are ranked and secondly that financial analysts have gained one place in this year’s top ten.
For all the criticism aimed at press releases, they still play a role in press relations – in fact they gained one place this year.
It seems that the issues that have surfaced about a small number of (albeit high profile) US financial analysts hasn’t affected their profession’s credibility in the UK at all.
There’s a lot more interesting (UK) research at the MORI site. Worth a look.
Murphy's Law 