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Fake news. It remains one of the most discussed and contested topics in modern media and public discourse.
The problem, however, is that the phrase itself has become politically contaminated and culturally weaponised. ‘Fake news’ now means different things to different people: misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, manipulation, sloppy reporting, fabricated stories or deliberately decontextualised content.
Perhaps a more useful term is ‘content pollution’.
Content pollution is the proliferation of low-value, low-quality and often algorithmically amplified material masquerading as insight, expertise or news. And it’s not a new phenomenon.
Not news is not new
Since the dawn of publishing, publishers and journalists have been called to task when found to contravene the principles of ethical journalism: truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity and accountability.
And since the birth of modern day public relations, publicists and their clients have also contributed to the problem by flooding media ecosystems with press releases, commentary and pitches that are simply not newsworthy.
It happens each time they go through the motions to ‘get some PR’ regardless of whether there is anything genuinely worth saying.
It happens when they publish content chiefly to satisfy KPIs or performance metrics.
It happens when volume becomes more important than value.
And it happens when they fail to identify a genuine news hook that will resonate with either the media or their target audience.
Digital saturation
Digital media – publishers, platforms and social media – is saturated with content pollution, partly because artificial intelligence has dramatically lowered the cost of producing it. Today, anyone can generate non-news releases, pseudo-thought leadership and manufactured commentary in minutes.
It’s often little more than engagement bait and AI slop. Steered by SEO. Amplified by algorithms. Quantified by quotas.
PR and marketing professionals are no longer merely competing for attention – they are competing against a flood of low-cost AI-generated content designed to imitate expertise, authority and relevance.
This means communicators now have an even greater responsibility to exercise editorial judgement.
Communications professionals can help curb content pollution
If you work in corporate communications, corporate affairs, public relations or marketing, do your part to help curb content pollution.
You can do so by reflecting on what makes something newsworthy.
- Scale – does your story stand to affect a significant number of people?
- Impact – is the issue about something that will have a meaningful impact on those affected?
- Conflict – is your story controversial?
- Novelty – is your story about something new, groundbreaking or quirky?
- Timeliness – does your story tie in with some other current affair, announcement or event?
- Proximity – is your story about a local issue?
- Change and trends – does your story involve a change or trend, and can you illustrate that with statistics or examples?
- Prominence – does your story involve a high-profile individual or event?
- Currency – are you contributing a new angle, perspective or information about an established issue?
- Human interest – is your story about other people, their achievements or how they overcame adversity?
Remember, if your story doesn’t contain any of these elements, it’s probably not newsworthy.
Will it ever be possible to achieve net zero on content pollution? Unlikely. But communications practitioners can certainly help mitigate the impact of low-quality content by resisting the urge to publish for the sake of visibility alone.
Not everything deserves a post.
Not everything deserves a press release.
Jacqueline Burns is the founder of Market Expertise
Image: Supplied
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