Generating news & media relations...
This week the focus of the readings is on media relations, including how an organization determines what is and is not newsworthy. After grading your previous blogs, there are three elements that are not always included, so this week seems like a good time to bring them to the fore: (1) comment on another student's entry, (2) include a link, and (3) refering to the text.
Your challenge this week as you reflect on your readings is to find a current issue being talked about in the media/blogosphere that illustrates what you found to be an important point or points from your text. You can take this from PRNews, prsa discussions, newspapers or any other source. Your entry should include the link to the article so that your peers & I can go there and check it out, and I hope you have time to read the other comments before posting yours so that you can build on each other's thoughts. Have fun looking for current examples!
posted by prteacher @ 10/07/2007 09:25:00 AM
32 Comments:
The skills associated with media relations are ones that we will all have to master is our professional career, regardless of what public relations domain we will be employed in. Wilcox (2005) wrote that "a purpose of many public relations programs is to provide information to the media in the hope that it will be published or broadcast." We have discussed in class that one of the problems pr practitioners face when proving that pr does have a very lucrative return on investment is the debate of which is more valuable - quanitity of the stories in the news media, or quality, in terms of the actual effects of the pr efforts. Many clients are only concerned with the visual aspect of seeing their name in print, so this point emphasizes the importance of media relations.
The Wilcox text did not spend really any portion of the chapter discussing pitching stories, which was of large concern to me. Our Cutlip text (2006) did not really either, but was a little bit more detailed on how pr professionals should deal with the media, with the advice of, "shoot squarely, give service, do not beg or carp, don't ask for "kills", and do not flood the media." Pitching is something that I always hear my friends with agency jobs talking about, and something that I have little experience with from my own internships. Why is it not discussed in the text? Pitching is how you get the media gatekeepers to take on your story if you are not relying solely on press releases. A bad pitch means no coverage, and a bad perception from your client of pr's return on investment.
An article from Friday's PRSA site titled The Media Maven on getting started in media relations discusses some basic tips for pitching. The author expressed concern that public relations degree programs are not teaching students the practical skills necessary for effectively utilizing media relations. She wrote, "I find there’s often a gap between the skill-set needed to start pitching the media in your first job and what you’re taught in the classroom." I think it is a shame that many students come out of their programs with theorhetical knowledge of the discipline, but inadequate practical skills. This is another reason why internship experience is so important to compliment your academic studies in public relations.
Excellent observation about the texts and field, Christina. Pitching is considered an entry-level skill and the ability to quickly communicate the essence of your message as it relates to a particular audience is something I look forward to pursuing with the class.
As we have learned, one of the main roles of public relations practitioners is building and maintaining good relationships with diverse publics. In a circumstance that publics can be more active on monitoring activities of an organization with the new media, an organization has to find various ways to interact with its publics. Among various stakeholders, I believe that employees are the most important stakeholders of an organization. Since they are involved in many categories, such as community members and consumers, building good relationships with them is crucial for a company to thrive in the long run. Two factors are changing employee communication and enhancing management’s respect for the part of the public relations task: the value of understanding, teamwork, and commitment by employees in achieving bottom-line results and the need to build a strong manager-communication network (Cutlip et al., 2001).
Intranet and blog are good tools to have dialogues with its employees and many companies have own blogs for communication with their employees. By using blogs, the companies can figure out how their employees think about issues and policies of the companies, and these valuable opinions can sometimes influence company’s new plans and policies. In a big-sized company, there are rare chances to meet the whole employees together and hard to share employees’ thought. For that reason, having internal blog for the employees is meaningful. While many companies previously used newsletter or email as communication channels, posting articles or news of the company on the blogs for employees is more often used by public relations team.
Employee blogs make it possible for an organization to connect other publics from various fields. I found an article regarding the power of employee blogging which transcends organization’s boundaries Goodbye Bounded entity . According to this article, Employee blogging is characterized by the interaction through various social networks that collaborate and influence each other across official departments, and organizational boundaries. Links, comments and syndication, the technological backbone of blogging, make employee blogs transcend boundaries through hyperlinked networks inside and outside of the organization, and employee blogs attract and communicate with various stakeholders, be that other employees, customers, partners, interest groups, shareholders and many others. It means employee blogs can share the role of public relations practitioners as boundary spanners.
However, there is another controversial issue on blogging and employee relationship. Since employee blogs can make a company transcend its boundaries, employees can be an unofficial spokespersons of the company. Nowadays, many people also have their own blogs or Web pages such as facebook, they might express their personal experience and thought related to their company and the policies. Can we say that having blog and leaving personal opinion represents the freedom of speech? There is an example of this concern Nintendo .
By the way, I agree Christina’s opinion that we need to be armed with skills to pitch while we have learned how to write articles in a journalism perspective, not media relations perspective. In a circumstance of unequal relationship between journalists and public relations practitioners, to have specific courses to teach media relations, not depending on classes on journalism, is good start to cultivate environment leading to equal power of two parties.
I agree with what Christina said about the media relations skills necessary for a competent public relations practitioner and this comes straight from our observation of the field of public relations. Most of us have had this experience in our careers prior to joining this course.
Our aim as publicist is to get coverage- also known as publicity (Wilcox, 2005.) The text mentions four barriers to media coverage: Media gatekeepers, Shrinking new holes, changing nature of the mass media, information overload. There is a competition to get coverage resulting in the 'survival of the fittest.' So Christina is correct that one needs to develop practical skills out of his/her degree program. (The precise reason for me to make this huge move from India to US.)
So what essential qualities make you newsworthy? Wilcox (2005)mentions some aspects of news including "timeliness, prominence, proximity, significance...newness." So if I keep all these factors in mind while writing my story will it ensure coverage? Well, the answer is not that simple. It depends on the underlying relationship with media. As Cutlip et al(2006)put it "Ultimately, the relationship between practitioners and journalists has an impact on the quality of news coverage about organization."
Finally, returning to Christina's point on pitching, I would say pitching in an art and an science, need to be leared and strategically planned. Wow! did I just write strategically? well, am learning fast the buzz words of our profession. I found an article on PRWeek about Yoh . I must admit this is the first time I came to know about its existence. And so is the case with many of us I assume (assuming I am not being too ignorant which implies I need to be more media savvy.)And the fact that we are reading about it has very much to do with the current blog topic- Media focus, in this case renewed media focus. Yoh wanted to get media coverage (surprisingly after almost 67 years; why?)so they approached their agency (FCS)who their problem statement. FCS program included launch of a blog, offering regional story data to business journals (proximity), repackaging of Index of technology wages (study of Fortune 500) etc. The result was that American Staffing Association named Yoh's effort "Best Industry Media Relations Program" two years in a row. Well, publicity generated.
One question that I would like you all to help me answer is "Role of inter-personal relations in organization-media relationship." ie. is it the newsworthiness or the personal worthiness that leads to media coverage?
Hi again,
I don't know why the links don' work here. Sorry for inconvenience. For your reference, please visit the belows.
1.http://www.globalprblogweek.com/2005/09/21/froda-bindslev-no-boundaries
2. http://www.blogherald.com/2007/09/24/anonymous-nintendo-employee-fired-over-personal-blog/
In the 2006 text, Cutlip and the gang are still talking about bulletin boards. No wonder our profession has such issues with skill gaps between school and the workplace. Our leading texts are still talking about bulletin boards when we are expected to know about wikis, blogs, and other social media when we leave college. As I am reading the text, I can't help thinking that this isn't how people work anymore.
Moon Hee commented about the possibilities of using blogs as a tool for employee communication, but there are other tools as well. Wikis are perfect for any company whether you have employees collaborating across oceans or just across the table. You work off of one document, not the multiple versions
floating between your e-mail, hard drive, or flash drive. You can edit them in real time, and by using comments and notes, you can get so much more out of it.
Not only do we have to adapt internally, we must change for our publics as well. Journalists work off of e-mail just like the rest of us. Why try to apply the paper press release format to e-mail, when there is the capability for so much more? Social media news releases became the talk of the industry several months ago. By giving the reader as much information as they want via links, you can inform without overwhelming. Mark Nowlan's article examines this further. I think what it comes down to is what works best for your situation. Whether it is double-clicks or push pins, you need a strategy that will work best for you and your publics.
Generating or creating news, to me, is one of the more interesting capacitates of a public relations practitioner. As the name implies creating news is ‘creative’ and there for can be fun. Having fun with what I do for a living is a necessity for me. Where as attempting to get your story out to the media may seem like a daunting task, as Rajul pointed out, with the many obstacles stated by Wilcox in Chapter four i.e. “Media gatekeepers, Shrinking news holes, Changing nature of mass media, and Information overload.”(p. 93) these obstacles can instead be looked at as challenges which may take creative and adaptive thinking to overcome. In the hurdling of these challenges comes the fun in which I speak. When I am out of school and am finally working I am looking forward to using my right brain and coming up with new and innovative “strategies” (buzz word, thank you Rajul) to outsmart those pesky journalists and get my story to my publics.
In an article that I found at prweek.com was a story that illustrates a public relations tactic that made a press release “newsworthy” as is touched on again in Chapter four of the Wilcox book. In 'Halo 3' push focuses on traditional media outlets the PR team made the release of the new Halo game more “prominent” and “significant” which are two of the eight aspects that make a story “news” stated by Wilcox (p. 94). The practitioners challenge was to target non-gamers and the best way to do that would be through traditional media. The PR team needed to some how make the game release more newsworthy so they called the game a “cultural milestone” which upped its prominence and significance and there for made it more interesting to the traditional media outlets such as Newsweek, Rollingstone, USA Today and NBC. The PR team equated the release of the game to that of a historic ground breaking motion picture such as ‘Gone With the Wind”. It’s a very interesting insight into how creating news works, you should check it out.
Thank you to Christina for that pitching article, it makes some good points that only real world experience can teach, which is why it may be overlooked in school. I also believe that making a story newsworthy goes a long way in the pitching process. Wilcox’s eight aspects of news are huge buzz words that can be used to prick up the ears of those journalists.
How organizations acquaint themselves with publics? How organizations spread latest information to far-ranging publics? How organizations attract publics’ attentions? The answer is through media. Maurer, ex-CEO of Nestle, pointed out mass media has great impact on organization’s image, it not only does influence on publics outside, but also affect the inside publics. Sometimes, the media’s own opinion is much more important than the issue itself, and their opinion is likely to become the fact, media plays key role in agenda-setting. Hence, it is essential for public relations people to know how to work with each medium. Besides Cutlip and Wilcox’s viewpoints on communicating with media, in the article “The Media Maven on getting started in media relations” Christina mentioned, I can know some tips about how to get media to take on organization’s story.
How to create news for the organization? According to Wilcox (2001), organization should offer “information linked to events and holidays that are already on the public agenda”, in a word, “tie in to a well-known week or day” is a one method for organization to expose to mass media and publics. This approach can help grasp people’s attentions easily. Halloween is approaching, it is a good time for organization to create news, for example, a food company can produce a new ghastful-packed candy with pumpkin flavor to celebrate Halloween, the company can inform people that the candy is the best gift when confronting with the kids who saying “trick or treat”. I find an article,Treat the Kids to a Safe Halloween released by Oncor. Oncor, a subsidiary of TXU Corp., is an electric distribution and transmission business in Texas. In this article, Oncor tells people how to use electricity safely on Halloween eve. This kind of media coverage can help organization to establish the image that having high social responsibility and credibility. By virtue of the importance of making news to media, I think it is necessary for pr practitioners to have some journalism skills and for pr students to receive some journalism training.
Not only does organization have to establish good relationship with traditional media, organization should pay attention to the new media as well. As we discussed this week, internet is becoming a powerful tool to start promoting products and services, organization should pay attention to the news coverage on internet. In the article “Traditionalists GE and Pepsi Giving New Media a Try”, it mentions that Pepsi-Cola North America launched commercials online and YouTube has appeared its commercials. Considering Pepsi-Cola’s fans, most of them are youths and prefer acquire information on internet, so the relationships with new media cannot be ignored.
Yeah that is right Todd..we all want to be better equipped to reach our publics and be considered newsworthy.
I think Halo3 launch also puts an important issue to the fore. I mentioned it in my last week's post too; the utility of traditional media in today's context. It implies and even Cutlip et al seems to agree on this, that even with the extreme popularity of new media traditional media hasn't become futile. Thus, it is necessary to be proficient in the new ways of practicing media relations but at the same time be aware of the traditional outlets. Do you all think there are different skills required for the two: new media and traditional media?
According to Wilcox text, practitioners are better to work honestly with the media, and to operate in a mutual dependent and mutual beneficial relationship, which sometimes as adversaries, sometimes as colleagues cooperating in respective self-interest (Cutlip, p325). It occurs to me a question that if practitioners are not working for organizations, but working for government, which is much more powerful than organizations, how do practitioners to operate relationships beneficially, rather than autocratically? We all know there are regulations and controls in China media which occurs to me that if we work for China government, how do we do our job correctly, or I’ll say ethically? Or if we work for organizations in China and which are under government’s information control, what can we do? If we are threatened by the great power to not reveal the truth, can we still evaluate our job meaningful?
China now plays a major role of global economy, thus, as Chinese speakers, it’s easy for us to consider our future job in China; however I’m so confused if there are regulations made by governments, how do we do our practice by the book? Reference by the article “Media Censorship in China”, we can see the freedom of media in China is low, and all information releases are monitored and controlled by government. However, Wilcox text book mentioned that to achieve good relationships with media is better to follow the advice of “do not beg or carp, and do not ask for kill”, but those advices are hard to be taken if practitioners are under government threaten. I believe pr practitioners, no matter who work for government, or local organizations, in China sometimes need to hide the truth or to ask for killing some stories which are not preferred by China authority. Do we need to change our norms and codes, which we learnt from school, to operate pr in China, or try to fight for them?
In fact, in Taiwan, about 40 years ago, we were undergoing the same situation as what China is having now. Government forbad any story or talk against them, and punished practitioners and media if they violated, which even involved in killing civilians, journalists and editors. We had a revolution war and fought for our freedom of speech for many years, and then turned out to be today’s Taiwan.
However, because new media tools are introduced nowadays, such as intranet, internet, and blogs, China’s freedom of speech may be expedited to advance faster than 40 years-ago Taiwan. In my viewpoint, the role of pr practitioners maybe become critical under today’s situation in China. Although it is tough, but it still will be our duty to educate government people to build more fair relationships with media and publics by the first step of dealing relationship with bloggers, and which may finally lead us to have an ethical pr practice in China.
The Internet changed everything around us including the way we thinking, talking, and acting. It also affects the way that people gather news. Traditionally people get the news from TV, newspapers, radio, Cable TV, etc. However, the characteristics of Internet- easy to access, immediate dissemination- make people more and more relying on the Internet new sources.
I found a newspaper article in “The Christian Science Monitor” WHO CONTROLS THE NEWS? ON THE WEB, YOU CAN. The article reports a research result that compares a top story on the major newspapers and the three leading user-news sites. Whereas mainstream press was focused on Iraq and the debate over immigration during the research period, user-news sites were more focused on stories like the release of Apple’s new iPhone and that Nintendo had surpassed Soy in net worth.
This article can interpret with a perspective of “framing function of media.” Traditional media deliver the news with framing. People consciously or unconsciously accept this framing and the topics dealing in the major newspaper become hot issue of society. As Cutlip points out that “Newspaper scholars have suggested that the power of the press comes from its dissemination of information and its impact on public interest in important issues.” (p. 256)
Even though power of traditional media is still on strength, online journalism can gives PR practitioners to another chance and opportunities. According to news article of the Christian Science Monitor, online newspapers “do different news choices than professional journalists do. And they get their news from different sources from nontraditional new sites and blogs.” User-driven online newspapers are changing the framing and agenda setting function of media from monopoly whose main players are traditional newspapers to competition whose main players are traditional media and new media. New media that have diversity framing perspective try to find a diverse news sources, and PR practitioners can be an important sources for these online newspapers. Furthermore, if PR practitioners understand exactly what the user-driven online newspapers want in making the news and can give what they want, PR practitioners can take a part of agenda setting function.
As Rajul cited, if the statement that the quality of news coverage about organization depends on the relationship between practitioners and journalists (Cutlip) is true in the traditional media, those relationship give stronger effect on news coverage about organization of on-line media. (Sorry for poor English^^;;)
I like to have more discussion about media pitch that Christina raises. In my post, I will discuss media pitch in terms of media relations. I am trying to find some articles about media relations that different from our textbook, but unfortunately all articles seam censored; only positive articles can be posted.
Media pitch rather then providing news release is a good way to reviewing the relationship of a PR practitioner with the media. In media pitch, I will divide into 2 parts to discuss. One is to persuade the reporter to write our story, the other part is to work with him or her to develop the big and positive story for us. The success of persuasion and working with is dependent on the relationship that we exactly measures. In Cutlip guidelines for good media relations (p. 270-273), generally assume that media is the same professional as the PR practitioner. However, in fact, the group of journalists is full of all kinds of people just like the group of PR practitioners. Some journalists like to make professional relationship only; some journalists like to make personal relationship only; and some journalists like to maintain supply-and-demand relationship with PR persons, just namely. The critical factor to opening the mind of the journalists to decide writing your pitched story is that we exactly estimate the preference of the reporter and his or her media and correctly realize the role of PR practitioner in the reporter’s eyes. More visualize, we have to plan when and how to deliver our news to the targeted reporters, for example, by phone or in informal conversation to link some hints or by formal pitch proposal or by arranging a small event in front of reporters. It depends.
The second part of media pitch is content. Unlike news release which we provide to the media as many as we can to gambling any opportunity of publicity, media pitch is exclusive. The story or the angle or the CEO interview is only for one or few media. The challenge for PR persons is not to get widely coverage but to get huge or big space of coverage. We have to deeply work with reporters to broaden our story. At this time, it is important to play the right role for the reporter, team worker, working assistant, slaver, pacesetter, information provider, topic tutor and so on? How to push lazy reporters to write more our message, how to push diligent reporters to cover more issues that help our organization? However, unfortunately, I cannot find some good articles to disclose the other side of media relations. Most of articles we can find are full of textbook tone or academic manner.
I like PR because the relationship is dynamic and manageable. We like a water which can easily pull in any kind of cups and becomes that shape for maintaining relationship. I do not mind to become an assistant for demanding reporters or to become a team worker with reporters who need our GPS.
As Cutlip et al. written, the key function for public relations is to “ building and maintain relationship” (2006). One of the tactics to realize it is to use media. Because of the discrepancy between journalists and PR practitioners in their stances, it requires PR practitioners to build and maintain media relations. Therefore, PR practitioners need to decrease discrepancy and increase concordance with journalists in the same issue in order to disseminate positive information that the companies expected. Cultip, et al. provide the guidelines for maintaining good media relations. I think the main concept in the guidelines is that PR practitioners should provide their news to the media with consideration of what media want. Standing for their companies, PR practitioners surely hope that media will report the news being favorable to the companies. However, journalists can choose whatever issues to report or whatever angles to report the issues, which their target readers or audience may be most interested in.
In order to have a good media relationship, PR practitioners must make clear what their target public wants to hear and what the media want to report. It should be “proactive” and “cooperative” to handle the media. In Media Relations: Rate how equipped and proactive you are, the author posts a series of questions that PR practitioners should ask themselves for media relations. And all the questions are related to proactive research of the media. You need to “actively search for media features and supplements” and “think about what the media is looking for”. “Cooperation” not only means to provide the media the newsworthy story but also means to tell the true, which is stated in the textbook and in Managing the Media. Try to conceal the unfavorable information or lie to the media will probably induce a credit crisis later and seriously damage company’s credibility.
As Coutney and Christina commented, it is true that sometime the textbook could not provide us the most updated information. However, it can provide us the basic or fundamental concepts about what we should do. To me, PR is a field requiring practical experience. Sometimes, I think what I read in the textbook may not be the things that PR practitioners are actually doing nowadays. I do agree Hsinyi’s comments about the relationship of government and PR in China.Some of the things talking about in the textbook are not the cases in China. Therefore, as I said just now, the textbook is like a reference. It gives you a basic guideline. What you actually do depends …
About Rajul’s question, “is it the newsworthiness or the personal worthiness that leads to media coverage?”, I think, they work together to get media coverage. And it is the reason why we need to build and maintain good media relations. Good relationships with media personnel make you have better chance to communicate with them and let them pay attention to your story. However, your story needs to be a newsworthy one that can be reported.
In a fast-evolving world of wikis, blogs, Intranets, del.icio.us, RSS feeds, and other technological wonders, it is important not to lose sight of the people behind the technology. Managing effective media relations should not be a race to see which companies and firms can adopt the newest electronic conveniences the first. Many people do not use electronic communications at all. In North America, an estimated 70.2% of the population uses the Internet but only 12.4% of Asians use the ‘Net (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm).
Others, like Betsy Plank, whom Dr. Robinson talked about in one of our first classes, refuse to adopt new technology because it takes an emphasis off the person in front of the computer monitor/at the other end of the VoIP phone. This person, whether they are an employee, a journalist, an editor, or a client, is the focus of media relations just as much as the idea being pitched, and they deserve personal attention. This is why bulletin boards and handwritten letters still have a positive effect on internal and external relations. Employees like seeing a colorful display in the hallways of their workplace. Bulletins, paper newsletters, and other hard-copy collateral give people a fun way to learn more about their company and the importance of their work, and let them know that the company values them enough to go the “extra mile” to produce relatively time-consuming materials. Think about how we’re taught to thank interviewers when we’re seeking a job. We don’t send emails – we send handwritten thank-you notes by snail mail because the time and effort required for such a note tells our potential employer, “I really want this job.” Five out of the eight publicity-generation tactics listed by Wilcox (2005) are low-tech and focus on human interaction as much as they focus on the message (special events, contests, stunts, rallies, and personal appearances). The use of traditional tactics conveys the message that the recipient or target is valued and appreciated.
Referring to the questions Rajul has posed, “Is it the newsworthiness or the personal worthiness that leads to media coverage?” and “Are different skills required for new vs. traditional media?” I think the answers are “A combination of both” and “No.” Success in earning publicity is most likely a combination of both, contingent upon the relative weight of each factor is contingent upon the size of the media market in question, the industry to which the coverage relates, and the values of the journalist. While timeliness, proximity, prominence, etc. should be carefully planned, we should remember that “the sound approach for organizations and practitioners is to view media relations as an investment” (Cutlip, Center, and Broom, 2006, p. 271) and that doing our homework on the personal values of the journalist in question is also important.
Good media relations habits translate across all types of media because all habits boil down to one thing: building relationships with journalists. Mike Yanke of Misukanis & Odden, a PR agency, notes that buildings friendships with different journalists, no matter what medium they employ, is the one essential component to effective media relations. Once you’ve accomplished this, “everything else will come naturally. After all, it’s easy to tell your friend a story because you know who they are, what they’re interested in – and most importantly – what they love” (Link: http://www.mediarelationsblog.com/category/media-relations/). If we as public relations professionals can make journalists’ working lives more enjoyable by following the guidelines laid out by Cutlip and Wilcox while tailoring our efforts to the specific medium we are trying to break into, they are more likely give us a positive return on that investment.
How to judge a story is newsworthy or not newsworthy? I think that there is clear guide to help us distinguish them. However, the “judgment” is about subjective opinions, especially the journalists, although they try to be as objective as possible. Therefore, it let me think about the agenda-setting. According to Gans(1979:80) words, he think that news is a kind of information, and it is spread to audiences by journalists. It’s obvious people’ views are influenced by journalists a lot. The issues the public regard as important is highly relative the issues journalists regard as important. By seeing this, we see the power of media to influence people.
Talking about how to judging whether an article is newsworthy or not newsworthy, I quickly think about timing and meaning of articles. Cutlip et al said: “Journalists strike a bargain with their audiences to supply important and interesting information” (Cutlip et al, 2003) What makes a story newsworthy? presents the considerations of a newsworthy story. The content is similar what Walcox pointed about “what makes news.” which presented the important guidelines about news construction.(Walcox, 2005) These guides are directions to tell journalists the standards of judging a newsworthy or in-newsworthy news or story.
Also, Walcox pointed that how to create news. It’s clear that the news are not only the natural information, it is also made by PR practitioners. “A lot of ‘news’ comes from the planning and stage managing of events.” (Walcox, 2005) Through the time change, as the article “Who control the news? On the web, you can.” cited by Jinsuk, the publics also can create news on-line. It’s interesting phenomenon. It is possible that the views nowadays are not just controlled by media and journalists, they are also influenced by different voices on the Internet.
Internet and blogs are so popular everywhere, it also include in Taiwan. In Taiwan, many books are come from the Internet. Publishers gather popular articles on-line, and publish them to be real books. Therefore, we can’t deny that the voice on the Internet is become so loud now. Although new media is so popular, it still can not replace the traditional media. To understand media is important to PR practitioners.
Hsinyi,
Although news censorship exists in China to some extent, it is not true that all information releases are monitored and controlled by government like you said, sometimes gatekeepers in newspaper office play the role of news censor instead of government, and it is their responsibility to control the news release.
How Americans know the news on China? Media is a channel for people to know what happened in other county. However, according the reading of New York Times these days, lots of reports in media about china is misleading. Because of cultural diversity, it is difficult to reach agreement on the same issue for people from different cultures. As pr practitioners in Multinational Corporation, how to make relationships with local media is a priority they must think about.
Rajul posts the question, "Are there different skills required in order to practice new media and traditional media?" I believe there are indeed, different skills required, as well as an extended education and knowledge about the respective medias in order to practice them effectively. An organization or agency is only as credible as it is knowledgeable. By this I mean, in order to "talk the talk" and say that you want to endeavor in new media you must also be able to "walk the walk" and practice new media effectively. I came across an archived article which highlights a few of the things that organizations and agencies must be aware of when claiming to practice new media. Can Ketchum walk the new media talk? scrutinizes a well known Public Relations agency for claiming to practice new media tactics as a service to their clients, but not practicing them within their own realm of employees or internally. The article also highlights Ketcham's absence of the use of blogs and updated websites.
In order for an organization or agency to practice new media, they need to perfect it by use and application through internal and external tactics. I believe the same standards apply to the use of traditional media. An organization must prove that it can successfully and effectively produce traditional media in its everyday practices in order to be seen as credible in those areas. Traditional media is certainly an important part of a PR practitioner's knowledge. They must know how to produce news releases, pitch stories, and launch products for example. However, there is the recurring discussion that traditional media has transformed into social media or new media. I believe that it is important for one to learn the skills necessary to produce traditional media as a base on where to build and transfrom new media. For instance, I discovered this slide show which highlights a new form of press release in which Todd Andrilik calls the Social Media Press Release. In order for him to create this new style of press he must have the skills and knowledge to create it, as well as his formal education or knowledge or traditional media.
In this week's readings Wilcox points out the eight aspects of news and Todd eluded to the issue of "buzz words" to catch the attention of news journalists. I have to agree and also point out that these buzz words are also important in the integration of new media to traditional media. It is important to know that buzz words can create an awareness of issues and topics that a PR practitioner may be trying to get across.
When I saw this article : http://www.prnewsonline.com/resources/breaking_news I was decided to write my this week's comment on employee public relations. Though they might not seem the most important group of stakeholders in the first place, they actually are much more important than what it seems first. A successful company or organization is not run by bored, unmotivated employees who just wait till they can get home every day. No, it's run by people who care about the company and like their work, willing to give their best.
Now good employee pr can do a big part of building a commitment to the company. As moonhee said,
"Among various stakeholders, I believe that employees are the most important stakeholders of an organization." So WalMart obviously did not spend too much time working on this topic.
I even found a special forum where WalMart employes complain about the tactis (http://members.aol.com/walmopboy/abuse/). Now that definitely is not good PR for WaLMart itself and it will affect the more obvious important group of stakeholders: the costumers. And that 's what leads to losses in terms of renevue, too. As Cutlip et al. say, "there are many ways to communicte with internal publics." And as I say, if we want to focus on tht , we just have to pick the right ones and take advantage of our possibilities.
It is important for making relationship between PR practitioners and media as well as for making relationship between organizations and publics. Among organizations, media, and publics, media may have a role of a mediator. This role of media has shown after a lot of media research have started. Here is a magazine article shown the relations between PR practitioners and media. However, as Todd mentioned, there are barriers between them, like gate-keepers.
Amid the change of technology, new media, including corporate blog, would be the alternatives to break the barriers. As Cutlip et, al. (2000) said, new media and online services have changed the nature and structure of both newspaper organizations and how they process news and information. AS a personal and corporate media, blog has been getting powerful. Its impact in business area is considered as “New Road for the Future”. Blog Cinderella, also, came to us.
Although new media has an impact for business environment, I think old media still and will have their position in media market. Here is data for media consumption. Therefore, as discussion between Rajul and Todd, I think there are different skills required for the two: new media and traditional media. As Christina mentioned above, for old media, PR practitioners should learn pitching skill. In the same with that, not exactly same, PR practitioners should learn new writing skills (http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/blogs/policy.html) for new media. Actually, this is not the same with present pitching methods. However, this is the first step for shaping writing style of corporate blog. By growing its impact on society, costs for managing new media communication methods will be grower than before. The amount of management costs can not be easily forgotten in the memory of top managers.
As we can see limitations of new media, old media and new media have their own parts in our society. PR practitioners prepare to two different communication methods for both media. Recent online PR research show that online media is less powerful than other old media in relationship management between organizations and publics. Related research also contend that online media can be the supplementary for old media in the part of information credibility and information source power. The duty of PR practitioners is not only disseminating information, but also is to help publics consume information. So, combination between tow media is good ways of contact to publics.
I am so sorry for your inconvenience. One domain adress is not activated in this web site.
The correct and full adress is (http://www.sun.com/aboutsun
/media/blogs/policy.html).
I am really so sorry
about this problem.
I am really sorry for my link problems. I repaire them.
Revised Links are below.
Blog Cinderella
media consumption
new writing skills
I love John B. Bogart’s quote: "When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news" (I had to use Wikipedia to remember how the quote goes). As Wilcox (2005) notes unusual news does get covered because it stands out. More often than not, I think we as practitioners will encounter the challenge of selling news that runs on the principles that Hsiao-ching’s article reiterated: timeliness, significance, proximity, prominence, and human interest. However, as Christina argued, and I agree our text fails to discuss as “the practice” of media relations; how to sweet talk and kiss-butt.
I second Kelly D. Building the relationship between journalist and practitioner (and organization) is the most important function in media relations. While Cutlip (2006) warns against “begging or carping” to avoid negative journalist impressions, he doesn’t stress on how to build the relationship further. I think part of process of a proper “pitch” includes research. Knowing who you are speaking and everything about them. While an email blast might or might not get their attention a phone call connecting the reporter to the story can go a long way in securing placement. A reporter is much more receptive to a pitch if we know what that reporter has/has not written on in the issue in the last six months. If he/she has covered it, we can then be prepared to present the story in a new angle.
Additionally, Wilcox (2005) doesn’t pay enough attention to the issue of timeliness. It seems obvious that you don’t want to pitch summer vacation story during winter holidays. But PR practitioners need to be aware of how newspapers will cover a season/holiday to make their pitch in a timely manner. Take a look at this article featured on CNN.Money.com . We are in the first weeks of October and already CNN is looking ahead to the holidays. This article follows on the heals of Wal-mart’s release that they are cutting the prices of toys way before the holidays. Discover Financial Services , (using research as news) tied their customer spending research to holiday spending. Effective PR and the issue of timeliness rest on our understanding of how the news-industry operates. I’m looking forward to hearing other personal suggestions and future discussions on this topic!
As Christina already mentioned above, Wilcox does not tell us how to build the relationship with the media. Instead, he suggests several key characteristics of newsworthy items (2005). Among the features, when it comes to localizing the information, I think that the new media such as blogs, online community, and website have great potential to increase the proximity at interpersonal level. Not only that, because the new media does not limit audiences to communicate with each other or with the source (Cutlip et al., 2006), it is meaningful for PR practitioners to pay attention to its feature and possibility to be utilized to the new media relations.
In practice, working with Burson-Marsteller, the BEP unveiled the bill online and held an Internet-only press conference to discuss details. They say that their information could reach to lots of national and international stakeholders quickly through the internet recording a great number of visitors. Although the form of press conference itself came from the traditional media relations, the event means much more than that; they understood the benefit of online media relation which makes the organization contact with enormous amount of the press and the interested publics ‘at one time’ ‘without any charge’. As Courtney said, it seems that there is no reason for PR practitioners to hasitate to apply the new media to traditional forms that can bring about synergy effects.
More than being a tool of creating and maintaing media relationship, the new media gives us fundamental insight. The online media, one of the representative new media, can access to a large number of tailored audiences, including journalists of course, with comparatively low spatial-temporal limitaion. Which means, the audience’s acceptance of information could be much more dependent on their own decision, the answer to ‘What is the important issue for me and the current society right now’. Ultimately, we need to go back to the rudimentary question; Which issues do we have to select and what kind of angle do we need to be selected as an important issue? For the answer, there should be more consideration for the new and traditional media, and changing relationship between PR practitioners and the various media. What I can convince now is that understanding and taking advantage of the new channels are able to contribute to establishing more efficient media relationship for PR practitioners.
Realistically speaking, there may be some tension between the media and PR practitioners. However, this is somewhat natural given that journalists have developed their own sense of journalistic objectivity and news values while PR practitioners seek to disseminate organizational information. Nonetheless, relationships between media and organizations are often depicted as highly adversarial, and sometimes even hostile. Why then, is this the case? As Cutlip et al explained, “The underlying conflict of interests necessarily makes the practitioner-journalist relationship adversarial (Cutlip et al., p.325).” Yet in reality, the essential role of PR practitioners in media relations is to build and maintain relationships with the media and its gate-keepers for mutual respect and trust!!
The role of interpersonal relations between the two on news selection is still in controversy. For PR practitioners in Korea, personal relationships with journalists have historically been regarded as more important than the news values of publicities. But according to recent studies (Yungwook kim & Jiyang Bae, 2006), “public relations practitioners who perform informal or monetary media relations believed that journalists would select news stories based on journalists’ extra-media factors, such as personal relationships with public relations practitioners. Such practitioners did not anticipate that journalists would select news stories based on objective media routine principles while they anticipated that individual, organizational, and ideological influences would force journalists to select specific news stories. However, interestingly, practitioners who mainly practice formal media relations believed that other influences, except for media routine principles, would not be strong forces on the journalists’ news selection process (p.244).”
This implies that depending on a PR practitioners’ perspective on media, the goal of media relations might be different such that some practitioners’ relationships might realistically become adversarial. In this respect, I would like to pose a question similar to Rajul’s: Do interpersonal relations between organizations and media influences news selection or newsworthiness from a journalistic perspective? I would also like to mention that Hsinyi’s questions were very impressive to me since I hadn’t considered media environments in nations like China, which impose media regulation and censorship.
I believe it would be really useful to consider the possible ways of pursuing public relations in these environments.
Reference
Yungwook Kim & Jiyang Bae.(2006). Korean practitioners and journalists: Relational
influences in news selection. Public relations review, 32, 241-254.
Although not recent, the article “Unsolicited E-Mail Press Releases = Spam (To Me)”
posted on The Poynter Institute’s Web site raises the point that some journalists do not even look at e-mail press releases from senders they do not know (2006). The article goes further to state that journalists are “generally not fond of traditional press releases” and prefer actual human contact instead. I agree with Courtney’s comment that public relations practitioners must expand their media relations tactics beyond paper press releases. But I think we also need to make sure that we always use an element of interpersonal communication with each story we pitch to journalists. Wilcox states that “the ‘one size fits all’ news release is dead” (2005, p. 93, 5th Ed.) By talking one-on-one with a reporter, a practitioner can both make sure the reporter understands the message and adapt communications to fit the individual reporter or media outlet as necessary. A reporter will also feel respected if a practitioner takes the time for individual attention.
As a journalism major, I was taught that a public relations source was just a means to an end. Practitioners need to understand that journalists like to think that they are using a source, not the other way around. Journalists are offended when practitioners try to “pressure the editorial staff to use a story” (Cutlip et al., 2006, p. 272, 9th Ed.). Like Ricco and Kelly D., I think that practitioners need to be what each reporter needs, whether that is a tutor or a slave.
Finally, Wilcox suggests that contests, Top 10 lists and stunts are great ways to create news for a organization (2005). These tactics will probably produce stories, but journalists understand the public relations motives behind these tactics. Reporters are taught to watch out for public relations “strategies.” By creating news just for attention, practitioners risk losing credibility and the respect of journalists. And “practitioners have little choice but to earn and keep the respect of journalists” (Cutlip et al., 2006, p. 276, 9th Ed.).
Our textbook and various website pages offer endless tips and hints to craft the perfect, most newsworthy pitch letter and press release. But, can public relations practitioners truly control what the media covers? The answer is no. There is so much news every day, every minute. As media relations specialist Bill Arnovich
says, “good publicity is the best advertising”. Practitioners must catch the attention of journalists and stand out from the flood of news entering journalists’ fax machines and inboxes every minute.
So, as Rajul asks, what essential qualities make news newsworthy? Wilcox (2005) mentions "timeliness, prominence, proximity, significance...newness" as influential factors of newsworthiness. In
“Journalists examine many criteria to determine newsworthiness,” Eric Henning states “[o]ne of the most important things journalists consider is timeliness. As a general rule, the more recent the story, the better.” Unfortunately, another point Henning makes and supports of Wilcox is that “[p]eople can make the news based on their prominence in society.” Britney Spears is the most relevant example at this point in time. Basically, anything Britney does is newsworthy. When she got married, when she got pregnant, when she shaved her head, when she flashed paparazzi, the media covered every detail of her life and continues to do so. Paris Hilton is a similar example.
When crafting a press release or communicating with the media, practitioners must be innovative to stand out amongst the crowd. A shocking statistic, a catchy phrase, something must aid in making your news newsworthy. It doesn’t stop there. If you don’t have a relationship with the media, the media won’t care about you or your news. I agree with Rajul when she said media coverage “depends on the [practitioners’] underlying relationship with media”. If I learned one thing in undergrad, I learned the significance of networking. It’s all about who you know. Practitioners should build and maintain relations with the media on as much of an interpersonal level as possible. A practitioner with newsworthy news but no media relations will not likely get media coverage whereas a practitioner with news (not as newsworthy as the aforementioned) but with strong media relations will have greater chances of getting media coverage.
Relationships are key in PR. Media relations is one of the most important roles of a PR practitioner. Positive relations with media can also help in molding journalists’ favorable attitudes toward your organization.
Media relations is something that PR practitioner must consider one of his or her main task in working for an organization, in my opinion. Christina said it well when she said that Cutlip text(2006) provides a general guideline of how to conduct a good media relations by "shooting squarely" and "not flooding the media." I, too, shall keep these points in mind as Cutlip et al. pointed out in the text. Also Christina did a great job mentioning what we discussed in class both with our instructor and visiting speakers for the class thus far. We live in a generation where the number of stories that are out there perhaps no longer measure what it is that we truly did: the quality of the impact that the story had on our publics and our main objectives. I think media relations is rapidly growing with the new usage of media as text mentioned. PR practitioners must be aware and adequately skilled as "technology has changed the way communication is produced, distributed, displayed, and stored." (Cutlip et al. 2006) As blogs and the use of the Internet increases in media reports and the publics' expectation to find information online nowadays, PR must pay close attention to the credibility and the message structure to capture these numerous groups of people going online for various reasons. Should we treat bloggers as reporters? This question remained as a debate in many classes so far this semester and I feel that it's getting only harder to answer universally to these types of questions as technology positions itself so widely in our lives these days. But if PR fails to pay close attention to these potential important media outlets, I feel like PR would be failing their function in its effort to carry on a good media relations. This means we just have one more thing to do on our "to do list."
Ironically, I found a blog that talks and discusses about PR, marketing and media relations. I found this "blog post" very interesting and well-written.
http://www.mediarelationsblog.com/111/six-tips-for-better-media-relations/
it emphasizes the awareness level of the practitioner with what it is that we're pitching, to whom, and the background information of the media outlet that we're reaching to. Like I said up there with blogs, we should pay attention to it, know what it is saying and what kind of people are writing these posts, and observe and familiarize ourselves with the nature of this medium. and we must "explain quickly why readers will care" when we try to pitch a story to media. and i think it's a key skill for PR practitioners to know how to explain "quickly" why this story will matter over others and why this story deserves a spot on their coverage rather than other pitches they've already gotten. After all, we are here to sell the story that will IMPACT the public and will make SOMETHING come true. We no longer pitch just to fill a blank page with black ink. So, we must believe and know that this story will matter to the public.
http://www.mediarelationsblog.com/111/
six-tips-for-better-media-relations/
the link didn't come out right I believe...
As Cutlip mentioned in the text, work in public relations requires understanding of and skills in using newspapers, magazines, trade publications, AM and FM radio, cable, books, and so on. And to handle this part of the job, practitioners must understand the role of information, the various media and their production requirements, and the values of the gatekeepers who control access. (P 254-255) Especially, appearing new media such as Internet made PR practitioners’ work even more complicated. Because a variety of communication channels permit a sharper focus of message, but greatly competition for audience attention, PR practitioners should adjust their communication strategy to rapidly changing media and audiences. Of course, I think it is hard to carry out PR practitioners’ new mission considering the fast development of new media technology.
According to Cutlip’s book, the 2004 conventions will be remembered as the conventions of the blog; just like the 1952 Republican convention was the convention of the television, and the 1924 conventions were the conventions of the radio.”(P 253) Recently I think UCC is a more popular new media than blog. However, although the ninth edition was revised in 2006, there is no mention about UCC in our textbook. This illustrates that new media has been developed very quickly. Furthermore, this caused me to contemplate the problem about skill gaps between school and the workplace as Courtney mentioned.
According to the article of Korea Times, “Sony, Microsoft riding on UCC boom”, global companies such as Sony and Microsoft curiously scrutinized South Koreans' fondness of sharing short video clips on the Internet by launching pilot promotion campaigns that ride on the so-called UCC boom. Especially, Microsoft launched a promotional event for its Xbox game console using UCC, targeting the young audience in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Also, Sony launched a six new high-definition small camcorder with the slogan “video UCC era.” This illustrates that many companies already recognized the importance of new media such as Internet.
However, all publics cannot follow up the developing technology very well. As Kelly already mentioned, a lot of people have not experienced the Internet yet. In case of the 2002 presidential election of South Korea, no one can deny that Internet activities of Noh’s supporters group contributed to the winning of the election.(Cutlip, 2006) However, we should not look over the facts that Noh’s most supporters of the group consisted of young people who were familiar with Internet and South Korea was the world’s most wired nation. In conclusion, PR practitioners have to build the strategy that can cope with segmented audiences and various media rather than the strategy that is focused on new media without considering targeted audiences. To do that, PR practitioners should always pay attention to the changes of media and audience.
I would like to several classmates' concern for the lack of real-world experience in public relations. I spent six months working as a media relations intern for a professional hockey team (Springfield Falcons) and was hired full-time upon graduation. No one understood why I was leaving such a great job to go back to school for my Masters. In the field of sport management, sport marketing and sports communication, degree and education really don't matter. Plenty of people get an MBA or a Masters in Sport Management or Public Relations, but anyone in the NHL or AHL will tell you experience counts for much more than a piece of paper. I find it disheartening that six plus years of schooling and over $50,000 in student loans is less impressive to the front office of a professional hockey team. However, the role of a Media Relations Director for a professional sports team is very different that a public relations practitioner working for an agency or in the public relations department of an organization. While real world experience is important, public relations professionals need to be able to grasp the importance of research, ethics, process, and finding news. These are things you just don't think of when thrown into a real world situation without a previous educational background.
When doing media relations for a professional hockey team, much of what we do does not involve finding news. I encourage everyone to take a look at Press Box for an example of what kind of press releases we put out (You can look at Falcons announce front staff additions if you want proof that I really did work there!). As you see, most of the "news" on there is very basic hockey operations information... player signings, game reports, organization realignment, etc. Wilcox (2005) talks about gatekeepers, but fortunately in the world of sports communication, you get to pick and choose what gets reported on your team and what doesn't.
Like Cutlip et al (2006) state, "one of the greatest advantages of the Internet as a public relations medium is the reality is has... to provide direct and immediate access to specific target audiences, thus bypassing journalists and traditional news media" (p. 253). New media has helped the world of sports communication greatly. Having an online press box allows teams to post their news as it happens. Every time we had a press conference for the announcement of a new coach, new uniforms, new NHL affiliates, etc., we would set the press release so that it posted to the front page of our website at the exact same time that the press conference started. Fans and scouts could have this information at the same time as everyone attending the press conference. Yet without any kind of public relations education, myself and other members of the Media Relations department (director and interns) would have no idea how to apply certain strategies and concepts to the real world of public relations.
I would like to address the topic of government public relations which is posted by Hsinyi. Since a government has its power and authority to enforce rules and laws to guarantee the operation of administrating function and to assure the goodness of the society and country as a whole, the role of public relations in political domain is inherently different from other fields of PR and is more complex. Public relations practices in government has been everlasting debated when it comes to ethical issues—the line between public education and propaganda or the line between information transparency and imperative national confidentiality.
Indicated in Cutlip text, the relationship between practitioners and media bears an adversarial core due to different business concerns and communication goals. As a PR practitioner working for government, the pressure lies in how to draw the line between public education and propaganda in issue management and policy advocacy. While the role and stand of media in dealing with government is more delicate. The tension between media and government lies in media’s intrinsic drive to dig up truth and disclose “inside” in confronted with autocratically controlling power of government.
An article criticizing the PR practices by government shows the increasing PR operations of agencies across government—a trend which is reflected by the booming sales of marketing services to government, from $39 million in 2001 to more than $400 millions in 2006. In addition, the new-arising media innovation has forced governments to communicate with publics with more sophisticated and interactive tactics and with more effective communicating tools and channels. The unidirectional and relatively serious communication style to publics is not effective anymore. Instead, some fancy PR tools and tactics are widely used, such as blogs, stylish advertising and animation, branding and logos and so forth. The article provided a number of evidence and examples that illustrate how the changed technology of media progresses the PR practices in government agencies. However, professional PR practitioners should always bear in mind our fundamental goal of maintaining mutual beneficial relationships with publics as well as our most important properties—ethics and credibility.
Sorry, Kelly! But I have doubted your data about “North America, an estimated 70.2% of the population uses the Internet but only 12.4% of Asians use the ‘Net’” as a reference of explaining not many people using electronic communication. Although I do agree with what you say about “managing effective media relations should not be a race,” the report in population and unnamed countries are not so impartial to represent the usage behavior. The basic assumption of this report may abuse the understanding of internet usage, just like what Xia say, “lots of reports in media about china is misleading because of cultural diversity. In this case, Kelly uses the data as if inferring all Asian countries have low rate of using internet that may cause the reader confuse and misunderstand.
This is I am going to talk about. We always talk about the effectiveness of blogs, but confidentiality of information providing should also be discussed. Is it just like a word-of-mouth (http://www.prssa.org/blog/post.aspx?Id=31) way to transmit uncertain information? No, I think professional PR bloggers would like to maintain high quality of the respond by selecting correct and confidential information to promote or convince their target publics. I find a book (http://books.google.com/books?id=UcBVv8pKIeMC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=media+relationship+correct+information+blog&source=web&ots=0BVvZzKiUY&sig=HLtKj2Vtsy4a3Jtq0oPbxAIXTSA#PPP1,M1) talking about blog rules in business, public relations and other areas, written by Nancy Flynn. It talks about “Use Written Blog Rules to Control Content, Maximize Compliance, and Reduce Liability” in chapter nine. I totally agree with the idea to make a rule to show the confidentiality of the blog.
Post a Comment
<< Home