We're learning how to write news releases in Public Relations, to give our client the best chance of being covered by various forms of mainstream media.
We also learned that news releases typically include little-to-no "news" in Journalism, and essentially, as a journalist, it is considered lazy and/or bad form to accept news releases from PR people and run their stories. For Example:
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
It's interesting to see the dichotomy between Public Relations and Journalism. They're both so similar but at the same time they both have such separate functions and intentions in the media. Our J instructor jokingly refers to PR as "The Dark Side" and I can see where he's coming from. PR represents one side of the story, typically. PR is worried primarily with its own bottom line, and in most cases, will do anything to help said bottom line. That's its function.
The problem with casting PR as The Dark Side is that the only reason PR exists is because journalists allow it to. What I mean by that is, journalists don't have to use the news releases PR people supply them. They don't have to run the story the PR people want them to, they don't have to 'tow the company line' as it were... but it seems that because of how our news cycle is set up, because of how much content journalists are required to produce these days, they have to cut corners to keep up, and that means getting 'news' from wherever they possibly can, whenever they possibly can.
Consumers are constantly bombarded by breaking news, updates, tweets, photos, stories, articles, blogs, etc. Every day. 24 hours a day. Seven days a week. There is a serious quality vs. quantity discussion that we need to have, because when you take a look at some of the crap we're being fed on a daily basis, the direction things are going needs to change. Consumers need to start caring about the quality of news they are consuming.
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| As soon as news media was made into a for-profit business, everything went to hell. |
Multiple privately owned 24-hour news channels means multiple channels with 24 hours of time to fill. A newspaper every day means tons of space to fill, as well. On top of that, there are dwindling numbers of Actual Journalists (with a capitol J) to fill all the time/space. PR takes advantage of this fact, and is cast in a sinister light because of it.
I love having these conversations, but every time we do, I come to the conclusion that Journalism simply isn't done how it used to be done and it's still (d)evolving. The question is, what side of the fence am I going to be on when all this is said and done.
-NxB
Playing: Bad Piggies by Rovio
Watching: Dexter
Listening to: Hopsin - The Ill Mind of Hopsin 5
You make some great points, Nolan. Consumers want more, more, more information -- but we don't want to pay for it. Media outlets have to find cheap ways to give us what we want (i.e. "more"), and the result isn't always excellent. Let's thank technology, which stoked our appetite for information by putting all this bandwidth in our hands, purses, pockets. :)
ReplyDeleteI can't let a couple of your statements about PR stand, though. First of all, PR doesn't exist because journalists allow it to -- media relations is only part of what PR practitioners do. We have many other means of communicating with our publics (nowadays more than ever).
If your Journalism instructor has told you news releases typically contain little-to-no news and often aren't useful to journalists, he's telling you PR people are issuing releases about things that aren't newsworthy. You have learned about what makes a story newsworthy -- if a story has news value, a journalist is happy to cover it, as long as the source is credible. If it isn't newsworthy, it's a waste of time on both sides of the fence.
PR people "in most cases will do anything to help said bottom line?" Them's fightin' words! :) As we've discussed in class, some do, and they give the rest of the industry a bad name. But not "most." (And there are unethical people in all lines of business, unfortunately -- even journalism!). Ethics are key in professional public relations; if our publics can't trust us, we won't have credibility -- so won't be effective. We'll be discussing that in more depth in the weeks ahead.
Thanks for the response, and for calling me on those two lines. I do agree with you 100%.
ReplyDeleteIt is, however, tough to change my preconceived notions about PR. Ethics are paramount, I fully agree, but many companies/entities don't.
A dozen bad apples have spoiled the bunch, because although some News Releases truly ARE news worthy and informative and interesting (Redbull Stratos) we also get crap like the video I posted above, of Wal-mart's "news report" which is just a commercial disguised as news.
I definitely shouldn't group all of PR into one entity and paint the entire industry with one fell brush stroke, though.
I look can't wait to talk more in class tho. :) thanks again for the comment.
We will talk about this in J class too.
ReplyDeleteCreating stories that originate in press releases is part of a journalist's job. it's not the only part, and it shouldn't be the biggest part.
Let's think about the functions of public relations as we do the city council journalism assignment this week.
Does the City of Winnipeg have a successful approach to PR?
Do individual city councillors?
Does the mayor?
I have little-to-no experience with Winnipeg's city council, so you better believe I'll be watching carefully for how they approach the media and students on Wednesday.
DeleteCan't wait!
Isn't it "toe the line"? (Expression originates in foot racing.)
ReplyDeleteBy golly, you're right. Learn something new every day!
DeleteI guess I've only ever heard it said, and assumed it was "Tow the line"... something to do with sailing? or... tug boats? or... tug-of-war?
Thanks for the heads up, though.