Curated content and PR announcements e-news value debated

Relying on curated content and PR announcements as e-news sources “is not inherently and automatically bad.” That view was expressed in comments by Deborah Lockridge, editor-in-chief, Heavy Duty Trucking and Trucking Info.com, on my December 4 LinkedIn Update calling for greater emphasis on enterprise reporting by B2B media.

In many cases, content gathered via curation or PR announcement rewrite is important to the reader’s business, says Lockridge. In fact, she adds, some of this content has been among the “top-clicked-on stories in our newsletters.” (Lockridge is an award-winning journalist; Heavy Duty Trucking is a Bobit Business Media publication.)

As I explained in my response,

There are other of your colleagues who agree on the worth of curated content and PR announcements. However, I remain unconvinced that a B2B site’s total e-news output should be outsourced material…. One definite drawback of devoting total e-news content to secondary sources is the often miserable foggy writing plus the inclusion of endless, puff-packed client quotes. In some cases, outsourced overload reflects an editorial team hard-pressed to gather original content.

The danger of relying entirely on PR announcements and curated content totality becomes clearer, I added, “when publisher A emphasizing this e-news delivery preference contends with Publisher B that consistently delivers exclusive material.” The latter gains a competitive advantage that is clearly exploitable.