(Many Questions have been running through my mind like, How much do we need the media, Do they really need us ?Why is media viewed as the enemy?)
Over the years ,we were taught that in Public relations we make the stories for the media and in turn we get publicity, which is indeed true, however to my upset mind i thought indeed media needs us the PR people however over the past two months i have realised that as much as they need us but us the Pr people we need them more. Most interesting thing i just learned was from Green(1994)' he states that Media relation is a means to an end not an end on itself". To him the relationship we build with media its an instrument that carries us to reach our goal, which we may say its true, however for me i still say today they are important. As an intern in Pixarus communication I was exposed to working with media, through the two months I had with them , I built the relationship with Journalist.
The reason why I say we need them more is because, where I was an intern we have worked with two companies, Derma logical and Poh Kong Holdings, For Derma logical the media didn’t cover the launch as it was expected which led to the client complaining that as the consultancy we didn’t perform and the cancelled the account, while that of Poh Kong the Launch was a success because over twenty media houses came and 17 of them published the story which led to them giving the consultancy another project which is in progress.
So in all I will say as PR people, we need media for the success of the client’s projects. And it’s time we build relationships with media, as much as they may bully us, because it’s the experience I encountered when doing media follow-ups. Stop viewing media as enemies but as partners.
Share with us your experiences with media as an intern and what you think of them........
1 comment:
With the little experience that I got when doing my internship from a public relations consultancy, I would say that the PR consultancies need media more than the media needs them. The challenges that I went through when working with the media is that; firstly just because you spoke with them through the phone, it does not guarantee that they will turn up for the event. One has to go an extra mile talk to them nicely up until the last day before the event begins. Another challenge is that public relations wants free publicity so they (media) give priority to advertisers.
I remember there was a time when we were first doing introduction to Public Relations, Grunig`s four models especially symmetrical model was more stressed as a win- win situation where it was seen as the most effective model as it enables the targeted publics benefit as much as the program, sponsor or originators from a PR program (Johnston and Zawawi 2004, 55). The theory of a win-win situation does not easily happen in this case it should have been a win-win situation being that the media would get a story and the client would get publicity. While doing my internship, one of my tasks was to call the media to get their confirmation on their attendance to New Zealand Natural event. Some journalist would say I should check on them 15 minutes before the events starts. That`s when I realized that the public relations industry needs the media more than they need us
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