Finn Partners Inc.

01/07/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/07/2025 12:25

Health Media Relations: New Year’s Resolutions for 2025

News and Insights

Health Media Relations: New Year's Resolutions for 2025

January 7, 2025

Over the last year, journalism has undergone significant change. Traditional earned media is no longer consumers' main source of news, which has led to layoffs and newsroom closures, leaving fewer journalists available to report on stories that have turned out to be among the most important of our time.

In the year ahead, media relations experts and healthcare communicators must be nimble and adjust to the current environment to ensure that earned outreach efforts remain supportive of overall client goals. Successful media relations will require balancing how best to break through the competitive media landscape with understanding the ways in which to provide the most value to journalists. With this in mind, here are the New Year's resolutions that the FINN Health Media Team will be bringing into 2025:

Tap Into News Cycles Relevant to Your Client: Develop angles relevant to current healthcare events that have a diverse appeal to reporters at a variety of publications, from top tier to trade to consumer outlets. Monitor for breaking news around legislative changes and other important healthcare developments, leveraging those moments to establish a connection between your thought leaders and the news cycle. Pitch immediately to secure opportunities when breaking news occurs - and, to get your leaders' names on the reporter's radar for future stories.

Offer Thoughtful Perspective Around the State of Health Policy: The new Presidential Administration must make substantive healthcare decisions in 2025, including whether they will drive potential legislative changes and what position they will take on policy reforms impacting healthcare delivery. If willing to engage with the media, healthcare executives can provide a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on the legislative and regulatory healthcare policy outlook and evolving landscape, particularly related to how those policies might impact health innovation, access to care, or patient communities, depending on their involvement.

Identify the Right Media Outlets for your Target Audiences: While traditional media will always have its place in a comprehensive media strategy, determine if there are other platforms that can help reach your target audience. For example, Unreported Truths by former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson has more than 243k Substack subscribers - a number that competes with some traditional outlets' unique monthly visitor count. Think about the target audiences your client would like to reach and dig in to make sure that no potential target goes unpitched.

Provide Essential Health Education: Our job as communicators is to present accurate and evidence-based information, essentially "stating the facts" so that people can make informed decisions about their well-being based on reliable data. In 2025, we can significantly empower individuals to do just that. Employing media relations strategies that disseminate credible health information to educate the public and combat misinformation is key to this effort.

Meet Journalists Where They Are: While some journalists have remained loyal to the X platform, others have begun to shift over to BlueSky. No matter where they are, engaging with journalists on social media is an important opportunity to build connections, contribute to their stories, and sometimes gain insight into their pitch preferences or current story needs.

Finding opportunities to engage in relevant storytelling and continue relationship-building efforts with journalists, will help us connect the public to key information and experts who can provide critical perspectives on healthcare. These activities are at the core of our work as communicators - and guide our 2025 Media Resolutions. With these drivers in mind, we will not only ensure that clients are better able to reach their goals and elevate their profiles in the media, but also guarantee that we as PR practitioners and media relations experts are providing value to journalists as they report on compelling, informative stories that will make a difference.

POSTED BY: Brendi Bluitt