NAIDOC Week is an annual national celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, history, culture, and achievements. In 2026, NAIDOC Week will run from 5th to 12th July, with the theme “50 Years of Deadly“ marking five decades of honouring First Nations strength, culture, leadership, and community.
Telum Media spoke with Madison West, Agency Director of Steady Ground, on how multicultural Australia, including international businesses and organisations in the country, can create genuine and meaningful ways to communicate about First Nations histories, cultures, and perspectives during NAIDOC Week and beyond.
How has NAIDOC Week awareness grown after five decades?
NAIDOC Week is an important opportunity for all Australians to recognise, celebrate, and learn from the histories, cultures and achievements of Australia’s First Nations peoples. This year's theme marks a significant milestone, celebrating five decades of NAIDOC Week and the recognition of the strength, resilience, leadership, and contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Over the past decade in particular, NAIDOC Week has seen an increase in mainstream visibility and awareness in the lead-up to and following the 2023 Voice Referendum. What we have seen since the Referendum is a spotlight on important national conversations, but there is still so much more work to do. We must see these conversations continue daily, not just during NAIDOC Week.
As Australia marks 50 years of NAIDOC Week, we are reminded of the enduring strength of First Nations peoples and the importance of continuing to advocate for the rights, interests, and aspirations of Aboriginal Communities across the nation. This is something we do at Steady Ground, and we are proud that our work supporting Aboriginal Communities contributes to keeping these important conversations on the daily news agenda.
International brands and organisations entering the Australian market might not be familiar with NAIDOC Week or First Nations communications. How should they navigate this space for the first time?
Aboriginal affairs is incredibly complex and nuanced, which means there is a critical need for brands and organisations to partner with specialists in the space who understand the landscape, have deep knowledge of the history and culture of First Nations peoples, and proven experience navigating the complex challenges that can arise.
Time and time again, we see many brands and organisations fall into the trap of developing a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and adding an Acknowledgement of Country to presentations, documents, and events, as a marker for how they can support Aboriginal Communities. While these are all great steps, they represent the baseline of what can be done.
Support for, and engagement with, First Nations communities extends far deeper than this. Brands and organisations need to work alongside First Nations peoples and specialists to ensure the histories and cultures of First Nations peoples inform their work every day of the year.
How can organisations and individuals communicate about NAIDOC Week in ways that resonate with culturally diverse audiences while maintaining the depth, nuance, and integrity of First Nations stories and perspectives?
Australia is home to the world’s oldest continuous living culture, spanning more than 65,000 years. Our First Nations peoples have been denied a rightful place in this country time and time again, all the way up to and beyond the 2023 Voice Referendum.
NAIDOC Week is an opportunity to support, amplify, and celebrate First Nations culture and stories. It should be the launchpad for year-round conversations, awareness, and learning. While NAIDOC Week is the first touchpoint, it’s up to every person in Australia, regardless of their culture and background, to commit to driving conversations forward.
We encourage Australia’s multicultural community to use NAIDOC Week to begin the journey of understanding. Read the Uluru Statement from the Heart or follow an Aboriginal organisation on social media. Be informed. Be curious. These are all starting points to gain an understanding.
When it comes to Indigenous-led storytelling, there is an increasing emphasis on ensuring First Nations people are actively involved in shaping the narrative. How can brands and organisations collaborate meaningfully without appearing to capitalise on the moment?
Tokenism is rife when it comes to supporting Australia’s First Nations people and while initiatives are typically introduced with good intentions, they don’t actually move the needle. More work and a deeper contribution is required to make an impact.
For communication professionals, these can be small, tangible steps that make a difference. For example, engaging with, booking and collaborating with First Nations influencers, content creators and media personalities (and paying them for their time and output), ensuring your team is familiar with Supply Nation, and proactively engaging with First Nations communities and businesses, thought leaders and advocates to inform the approach in campaign planning and communication strategies.
It also means donating to and supporting Aboriginal organisations, charities and initiatives, employing and giving opportunities to First Nations people, using your platform to amplify important messaging, engaging with Traditional Owners and First Nations peoples when it comes to physical events, and consulting directly with First Nations communities to ensure that communications that reach First Nations audiences are culturally appropriate.
What role do First Nations-led communications agencies play in helping organisations engage with NAIDOC Week and other Indigenous events, and why is that expertise so important in today's communications landscape?
The right communications partner can help you navigate complex situations and ensure your work is culturally appropriate, meaningful, and intentional. Expertise in this space comes from people with genuine connections to and demonstrated experience working with First Nations peoples. Without this support and guidance, organisations risk their communications looking insincere and performative.
At Steady Ground, we are culturally informed with a close network of Aboriginal advisors to ensure we can support Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal organisations as they advance their mission and amplify their message. As a specialist in the space with proven experience, it’s our job to provide communications context on key topics to ensure organisations have the skills, nuance, and understanding to make a legitimate impact.
For many of our clients, NAIDOC Week is more than a celebration. It is a time to reflect on the achievements of communities, honour those who have fought to advance Aboriginal rights, justice and self-determination, and acknowledge the work that continues to strengthen First Nations peoples and their communities across the country.
It is important we all collectively remember this and use NAIDOC Week to start ongoing conversations year-round.
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Every few years, someone declares the death of the media release.
Today, the arguments sound familiar. Journalists don't read them anymore. Everything is social-first. AI is replacing traditional media outreach. It's all about the pitch. Press releases are becoming little more than AI-generated filler.
And yet, when we speak with journalists across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, a different picture emerges.
Media releases aren't dead, but expectations around them have changed significantly.
We've analysed more than 10,000 Journalist Interest Survey responses in the Telum Media platform collected over the past five years, alongside insights gathered from conversations with editors, reporters, and producers across the region.
Key takeaways:
- Journalists still value useful PR content
- Relevance matters more than reach
- The pitch and the release serve different roles
- The best releases reduce friction for journalists
- Modern releases need to support multiple platforms
The conclusion is clear: journalists still value media releases, but they value them for different reasons than they once did.
The media release has evolved from a distribution tool into something far more strategic.
The media release is no longer the story
For decades, many PR professionals treated the media release as the centrepiece of media relations activity.
Write the release. Send it widely. Hope for coverage - “spray and pray”.
That approach was far from perfect, but you could get away with it in an era when newsrooms were larger, competition for attention was lower, and journalists had more time to evaluate incoming information.
Today's reality is very different.
Journalists are producing content across multiple platforms, often with smaller teams and tighter deadlines. Their inboxes are flooded with pitches, announcements, thought leadership submissions, and increasingly, AI-generated content.
As a result, journalists have become far more selective about what earns their attention.
The modern media release is no longer just about news stories. It has become a source-of-truth asset, a newsroom resource, and a content hub that supports broader communications activity.
The best PR teams understand this shift.
“The strongest message from journalists can be summarised in a single phrase: ‘Understand what I cover’. Relevance remains the most important factor in successful media engagement.”
What journalists are actually rejecting
One of the most revealing findings from our analysis is that journalists are not rejecting PR content altogether.
What they're rejecting is low-value outreach.
Across thousands of responses, the same frustrations appeared repeatedly:
- Irrelevant pitches
- Generic outreach
- Mass distribution
- Weak story angles
- Excessive follow-ups
In other words, this is less a rejection of media releases and more a rejection of poor media relations practice.
The strongest message from journalists can be summarised in a single phrase:
"Understand what I cover."
Relevance remains the most important factor in successful media engagement. In fact, our journalist surveys over the past two years have seen a sharp increase in a desire for both relevance and personalisation in pitches.
Journalists increasingly assess pitches within seconds. If the connection to their beat, audience, or current priorities isn't immediately obvious, the opportunity is often lost before the email is even opened.
The pitch and the release have different jobs
One of the biggest misconceptions in modern media relations is treating the pitch and the release as the same thing.
They are not.
The pitch exists to earn attention; the release exists to support the story.
The best pitches are:
- Brief
- Human
- Relevant
- Contextual
- Conversational
The best releases are:
- Structured
- Factual
- Complete
- Reusable
- Easy to reference
At a recent Telum Media event, a senior journalist described the fastest way to kill a pitch with a single word: “Respect”. Or a lack thereof.
A generic greeting. A story unrelated to their beat. A mass-produced email that demonstrates no understanding of their audience.
All signal a lack of respect for the journalist's time and expertise.
High-performing PR teams increasingly write pitches and releases for different audiences. The pitch is written for the journalist. The release is written for the journalist's audience.
That distinction matters.
Why journalists still value media releases
Despite predictions of their demise, journalists continue to actively request media releases.
But they want releases that help them work more efficiently.
The most common requests include concise writing, clear headlines, strong news angles, supporting data (with downloadable images and assets), spokesperson access, and easy-to-use formats.
These preferences reveal the modern role of the release: it functions as a workflow tool.
A strong release helps journalists:
- Understand the story quickly
- Verify information
- Access supporting materials
- Build content efficiently
The best releases reduce friction. And in today's newsroom environment, reducing friction is often more valuable than generating hype.
Think beyond media coverage
Another major shift is that media releases are increasingly serving multiple audiences.
A modern release doesn’t just support journalists; it might also support clients and prospects, employees, investors and analysts, partners, and search visibility.
Rather than creating a single-use document, leading communications teams are building content ecosystems.
The release becomes the foundation for:
- Media outreach
- Newsroom content
- Executive communications
- Social media content
- Email campaigns
- Sales collateral
- Thought leadership activity
This approach not only improves consistency but also increases the return on investment from every announcement.
The role of the modern media release
Not every story needs a release
Perhaps one of the most important lessons is recognising when a media release is the wrong tool.
Releases tend to perform best when there is:
- Genuine news value
- Multiple stakeholder audiences
- A need for factual consistency
- Strong supporting assets
- Broader business significance
They are often less effective for internal milestones framed as major news (or self-congratulatory announcements), generic thought leadership, and untargeted mass outreach.
In some situations, a targeted pitch, LinkedIn strategy, executive commentary programme, or direct relationship-based outreach may be more effective.
Good communications strategy isn't about defaulting to a media release; it's about choosing the right tool for the objective.
A framework for modern media releases
If there is one word that captures what journalists are asking for today, it is respect.
At Telum Media, we summarise this through the RESPECT framework:
R – Relevance
Make it relevant to the journalist, their audience and the moment.
E – Efficiency
Help journalists work faster through clear, concise, and usable content.
S – Substance
Provide genuine value through expertise, data, insight, or access.
P – Personalisation
Demonstrate that you've done your homework.
E – Ecosystem
Think beyond the release and consider how it supports broader communications goals.
C – Clarity
Make the key message immediately obvious.
T – Timing
Reach out at the right time, not simply any time.
What journalists are asking for in a pitch / media release: RESPECT
The future of the media release
The debate over whether media releases are dead misses the point.
The more useful question is how do we make releases work better in today’s media environment?
Journalists still value relevant information, credible sources, strong story angles, and efficient communication. Media releases continue to play an important role in delivering those things.
But success today depends less on the existence of the release itself and more on how strategically it is used.
The media release remains a valuable communications tool.
Just not in the way many of us were taught to use it.
FAQs
Are media releases still useful in 2026?
Yes. Journalists still value media releases, but these days want targeted outreach, relevance to their beat, alignment with their audience, and contextual pitching.
What makes a media release useful to journalists?
Journalists are looking for releases in a format that helps them work efficiently. Which means releases that are concise, factual, with a clear angle, contain usable quotes, and come with downloadable assets and supporting data.
What is the difference between a pitch and a media release?
A pitch earns the journalist’s attention in their cluttered Inbox. A media release supports the story by providing structured, factual, and reusable information relevant to their audience.
With more than 30 years’ experience spanning journalism, corporate communications and media intelligence, Reuben Aitchison is Telum Media’s Head of Insights and Communications.
Explore Telum Media tools that help PR teams pitch with precision.
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