How long will it be before we start seeing news or media content tagged like this, boasting that it was handcrafted by humans? In the future, stories completely written and edited by real people may become an artisanal luxury - one you'll need to pay for, like a Birkin handbag.
As digital natives grow up relying on AI, skilled human writers will become increasingly rare. The ability to craft original, thoughtful work with forward-looking analysis could go the way of analogue photography.
Our AI addiction is leading to "skill atrophy" or " deskilling" - not just in media, but everywhere.
Take law for example, junior lawyers that are over-reliant on AI for case research or drafting documents may lose deep analytical skills and the ability to construct persuasive arguments from scratch. In medicine, doctors who trust AI diagnostics too much may lose subtle clinical judgement normally honed from years of practice - missing symptoms that computers overlook. Even in daily life, heavy dependence on GPS and smart assistants are eroding basic navigation and problem-solving skills.
Cars are now graded by levels of automation, ranging from Level 0 (no automation) to Level 5 (fully autonomous). At Level 3, you can check e-mails and watch TV while the car drives, but must take control instantly in a crisis - but if people rarely drive themselves, how can we expect them to suddenly outperform AI in an emergency?
Used well by experienced writers, generative AI (GenAI) is a powerful assistant - tightening language, sparking ideas, and boosting productivity. But hand it to someone inexperienced, and they will most likely produce unauthentic and hollow fare that few want to read.
NP Patel, a global performance marketing agency, ran an experiment placing 744 articles on 68 websites - half were written by humans and half purely written by AI. The human-generated content took four times as long to produce but received 5.4 times more traffic. Without real-world writing experience behind them, newcomers will struggle to add value to what AI pumps out because it looks so polished and convincing. This includes spotting “hallucinations.”
I started out in journalism, writing club reports and wedding anniversary captions for a local newspaper, before graduating to sexier topics like murders. On business desks - where I spent most of my working life - reporters began with rote tasks like stock market summaries - formulaic but foundational.
Today, automation can quickly spit out the "what" of breaking news, including which stocks are moving. It can easily summarise things like earnings and economic data, press releases, and statements. But for now, AI struggles with the "why" and " so what" - these are the special ingredients that give stories relevance and bring them to life.
If new reporters dive straight into complex stories and analysis without first laying foundations of experience, they may flounder. The same is true for copywriting for marketing and PR.
Paul Graham, a visionary computer scientist and essayist, predicts a near-future of "writes" and "write nots", and "thinks" and "think nots". His point: writing requires thinking. When people stop writing, they may stop thinking too.
Steven Levy, in Wired, refers to Graham as a "hacker philosopher" - someone who combines deep technical prowess with philosophical insight. Graham believes that in a decade, those who retain strong writing and original thinking abilities will be rare and highly valued.
Yet many media companies and other organisations are using AI to cut costs - hiring more tech-savvy juniors and fewer seasoned professionals.
In newsrooms, sub-editors' jobs are especially vulnerable. For now, media outlets still need human editors to check and refine AI or human-generated stories. But automation tools drastically reduce the time needed for each edit, meaning fewer sub-editors will be needed. Reporters will remain essential for groundwork and for producing original stories. But they will need to prove their worth beyond rehashing press releases and summarising data - tasks AI and automation can readily handle. Their value lies in breaking exclusives, creative storytelling, and providing specialist insight.
Deans of journalism and communications schools are grappling with this generational shift. If entry-level writing tasks vanish, how do you train the next generation to be newsroom ready? They don't currently have the answers.
In PR, a manager may spend days waiting for a junior to draft up a press release - only to end up needing to totally rewrite it. Alternatively, they can now feed prompts to AI, quickly tweak the draft, and send it for approval. Here lies the problem: If juniors never learn to write unaided, how can they be expected to have the skills to improve what AI pumps out or catch errors? If your entry-level staffers don't add value, then why hire them?
Marketing presents similar challenges. Plenty of AI tools can churn out blogs and web content that's already SEO-optimized. The result? Standard, generic, and replaceable volume.
If you head a PR agency, are you going to admit to your client that the press release they paid you for was actually produced by a machine? No. It's more likely you will play up the unique human insight and value your team offers.
There is no doubt it won’t be long before AI develops better world views to help them understand context and curb most hallucinations. This would narrow the quality gap between man and machine. But as we invest heavily in training AI models, we must not lose sight of training ourselves and future generations to stay valuable in this exciting new era.
'Perspectives' is a Telum Media submitted article series, where diverse viewpoints spark thought-provoking conversations about the role of PR and communications in today's world. This Perspectives piece was submitted by Barry Porter, Founder of Raspberry Communications.
Barry previously managed newsrooms for 20 years, including senior editorial and management roles at Bloomberg in Singapore and Malaysia. His agency focuses on the art of modern storytelling through content creation, media and presentation training, and ghostwriting.
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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.
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