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The study examines how much influence one group of sources—public information officers for six state government agencies—had on daily newspaper content through the information they provided journalists. About half the information provided by PIOs was used in subsequently published news stories, and the topics the PIOs identified as salient to their agencies were the same topics given salience in media coverage. But the study also indicates public relations information, though it was used, was not the major source of information on which journalists relied. Fewer than half of all published stories that dealt with one of the six state agencies actually included PIO-provided information.
Judy VanSlyke Turk (Sun,) studied this question.