10 Yetis Insight Blog - Thoughts On Influence, CIPR’s Brand New Magazine

Well, CIPR have done it, they have released a flashy print magazine which may seem a little out of the ordinary to some seeing as everyone and their dogs are banging on about the end of the print publication.

Yes the idea is somewhat unorthodox, but at least the bottom-line thinking behind Influence is one that I think we can all appreciate. In 2015 those at the CIPR asked a multitude of agencies and members of their institute how they preferred to absorb their information within the ever-changing world of public relations and the overwhelming response was that a magazine that explored different trends and upcoming challenges the industry faced was indeed desired.

The magazine starts off with an introduction to their brand spanking new publication. The President of CIPR, talks to the reader about what the magazine is hoping to achieve within the glossy pages. Influence hopes to discuss events and milestones within the sector of public ethical communications while also entertaining those who work in the industry that faces new challenges and changes every day. The hope of the magazine is to remain thorough and informative while still remaining ‘editorially independent’.

So, how do the editorial team at Influence achieve this? Well with this first issue the tone is certainly set. The first article, which explores robotic journalism considers the multitude of changes that the industry will face and is arguably already facing today. It includes some fascinating facts about the amount of articles that are now written using algorithms instead of people, for example The Wordsmith platform generated one billion stories in 2014 alone. Where these stories are primarily finance or sports stories, there is no doubt that this new face of journalism will begin to leak into consumer stories. The article also debates how this will affect the PR industry and how we should plan to go about pitching and structuring our releases to robots.

Now, the magazine is pretty thick in girth, so I won’t discuss every article individually or we may be here for a while! I will, however, mention some of my personal highlights that appear in this first issue. The Index section has a variety of appealing infographics which spotlight key trends in the public relations sector. I found it to be extremely insightful and incredibly easy to digest if you’re just glancing at the magazine during your daily commute or sat on the toilet! The infographics all come from the CIPR’s ‘State of the Profession’ report which is the longest running exploration of sector professionals.

Another favourite of mine was the ‘Public Relations Versus Journalism’ piece. As a journalism graduate, I personally found this very helpful. The structure of this ‘interview’ between former journalist Zaiba Malik and ex-Westminster PR man, Christian May is insightful and flows incredibly well. The journalist responsible for the piece lets the two guests freely talk, allowing for a more free-flowing conversation then if she had just laid out the piece in a simple question/answer format. The fact that the two interviewees had swapped career paths, with Christian May now working as editor of City A.M. and Zaiba Malik working in communications makes the piece far more complex as the two discuss the pros and cons between the two industries and the complexities switching between them can cause.

The last article that really caught my attention in Influence was the ‘Time To Think Different’ piece which discusses the future of PR. The publication created its first ‘Future of PR’ study where they gathered the views of 70 CIPR members, collaborated with consumer futurist William Higham, founder of The Next Big Thing and also did a bunch of desk research. Each section of this piece explores a new topic from how those working in public relations should also be able to draw in the near future to the ever growing use of internet famous vloggers and viners. The short nature of each segment again makes the piece easy to read when you’re in a rush without leaving out any vital information.

Even for a rookie, the articles presented in the first issue of Influence are easy to understand and follow. They are professionally presented and digestible for a morning commute. I am excited to see what they talk about in the next issue and hope they continue on this high.