Being the silly season, news desks stuggle for interesting, captivating stories and often present light hearted, uninspired narratives, which is the basis of one of my experiences at GT Media.
Unfortunatly on Thursday morning the week before Christmas one of GT Media's clients, a security company that for confidentiallity reasons will remain unidentified was named and shamed on the prestigous and always truthful news program Today Tonight in both Perth and Adelaide.
Whilst GT Media struggled to keep the story of an elderly man who lost $4 to a parking machine in Claremont under wraps, TT were adament this was a cracking story. Unfortunatly this security company had known about the story for two days and did not inform their PR advisers- BIG MISTAKE.
The story could not be contained to Perth and Adelaide TT felt it would associate with their veiwers, causing a headache for GT in the lead up to Christmas. Whilst the story is fairly low in the crisis stakes, it could have been prevented had the security company been proactive and immediately advised GT.
I have learnt that news current affairs programs will cover any story that comes to their door, even if it is complete rubbish and not newsworthy. If you want to pitch a PR story to a current affairs show, December is very slow and thus would have a higher chance of being covered.
Communication is the key to PR and therefore it is essential that companies keep PR consultants in the loop with all updates otherwise issues and crises can occur.
Issues can be managed; crises can be avoided.
Until next time,
Jane
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