Monday 2 March 2015

Public Relations vs Journalism

Are public relations practitioners dependent on journalists?

Maybe 10 years ago, we would say Public Relations Practitioners are dependent on journalists. Now we live in a digital world where everything is connected or linked together. Years ago, when you wanted publicity you had to build a relationship with a journalist or even pay him so that your story could be published. PRP's needed to write long Press Releases (they still do) to send to Journalists. But journalists have a lot on their plate. They should keep up with the latest trends to keep information going and interesting. Therefore, they do not have time to go through hundreds of press releases, so what they do is put your press release aside and focus on other important things to them. Times have changed, with the power of social media we are now able to reach our target audience for free with a click of a bottom. PRP are now able to generate publicity for free using controlled and uncontrolled media.

Let’s have a look at what is PR

PR has to do with branding, that is to keep a positive image of the Organisation. It's building relationships through communication, internally and externally.
Public Relation in my own explanation is like a mother, someone who is always there and will never leave you in hard times. PR deals with crisis management, whenever your company or brand is going through a crisis, the mother is always there to stand by your organisation and fight for you. PR scans the environment. For instance, you cannot build in a dry place without water, you need to build your organisation where you know the public is there to support you and use your product.
Externally, PR deals with the public what PR does is give information to the public via controlled and uncontrolled media. It is all about communicating with the public, having campaigns build awareness etc. Internally, PR is the bridge between employees and employers. What he does is to communicate to the top management what the employees are voicing out and to take the message from the top management to the lower level which are the employees through controlled media (emails and newsletters.)

What is Journalism?

Journalism is the act to give or provide useful information to the citizens so that they can make a better decision about their lives, societies, communities and mostly importantly their government.
Going back in time, when no one used social media. It was hard for a PRP or another person to generate publicity for himself or for the company without the help of a journalist. When a PRP wanted publicity for the company you had to build a relationship with a journalist so he can feature your content in the newspapers or magazines.
Everything has because of social media, one is able to generate publicity.
It’s a waste of time busy writing content which no one will read. One may say, "You cannot bombard information to a journalist or even do a follow up on the stories you send him or her" Therefore, the best way to have control is by generating your own publicity, by taking the advantages of media.

Advice; the world has changed. Take advantage of social media.
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