Week 8 Blog- To contact.....or not?

1. I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were...
- The influence of the PR practitioner on the work of the journalist is viewed differently by different journalists, some comments are very positive while others are extremely negative.
- Since the 1960s studies have proven that the crux of the news gathering process is the transactional information exchanges between practitioners and journalists that quite often become the news of the day.
- PR practitioners that are familiar with media processes can most effectively frame a story for the targeted journalists; this is called the framing theory.
- Estimates of the percentage of news content influenced by PR’s subsidies or journalists’ contacts with practitioners range from 25% to 80%.
- From a study conducted on journalists there were many complaints on the use of the PR practitioner as a news source. These included:
· Lack of news sense, values, accuracy, timeliness, and the style of presentation (such as using the inverted pyramid).
· Lack of local angle was a major problem as it is an important requirement for an effective news release.
· 78% of the results included laments about practitioners offering information that was overtly or overly self-serving. Practitioners that represent non-profit organisations are seen as less self-serving and are more appreciative of the publicity they gain which fosters more positive relationships.
· Poor quality of writing.
· Practitioners lacking ethics.
· Practitioners perceived to lack professionalism.
- Practitioners with prior experience as journalists are viewed as more skilled and ethical than those with no prior experience.
- Practitioners engaged in media relations must work harder to sharpen their framing skills.
- They must always be accurate, act ethically, become better writers, and satisfy the local angle requirement to become more efficient PR practitioners.
- Journalists have preferences as to how they wish the PR practitioner to contact them. The most popular is email; however face-to-face contact is following closely.
- To effectively communicate with journalists, the practitioner must lean individual gatekeeper’s preferences and stay with them.

2. The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that …

It is quite clear that PR practitioners are not perceived by the journalist to be doing their job efficiently enough. Practitioners are needed by the journalist and the journalist is needed by the practitioner, therefore the communication problems need to be resolved. Journalists depend considerably on the PR practitioners to help set, build and frame news agendas, which puts greater pressure on the practitioner to perform to a high standard. It is quite simple, if the PR practitioner is not performing to a satisfactory standard the journalist will look elsewhere, which is not good for either the practitioner or their organisation.