i was having a debate with one of my friends!well the topic of discussion was that "public relations practitioners seem to bribe media people with presents especially during celebrations". i was against the motion, trying to raise some important points as a public relations student but my friend(not a PR student) on the other hand couldn't understand why PR personnel give out goody bags,send seasons greetings cards and invitations to parties etc. she sees this as a deceptive motive by Public relations people to get the media to be on their side.she(my friend) further argued that 'if at all these small gifts are given as a token of apreciation,do the PR people also receive these "little presents" from the media people' .well i tried to get her to understand that PR people work with the media almost on a daily basis therefore they must have and maintain a good relationship with the media thereby showing appreciation. i mean without the media, PR would almost seem hopeless, how else would we disseminate information about our companies/client's campaigns and projects to large masses of people?what i am trying to say is that the word BRIBE fits rather wrongly on the topic at hand but APPRECIATION will do.speaking of appreciation, last week i was preparing seasons greetings cards to be sent out to more than 200 companies and universities,(local and abroad) and of course the media to wish them well for the new season and show our appreciation .
i was very excited about preparing and sending out the cards, it was fun though time consuming.the cards were already designed and printed by the publisher, all i had to do was to fold them nicely and dicard those which were not in good shape.once i finished folding the cards i had to carefully stamp each of the cards with the Directors signature.next i had to type and print addresses on envelopes, honestly i couldn't find a faster way to do this, mind you well over two hundred cards had to be sent out and that meant over two hundred envelopes had to be typed and printed.once i was done printing the envelopes, it was time to insert the cards and get them ready for the post people to collect them.at the end of the day my supervisor was impressed with my work.
anyway, i would like to hear what you guys think about PR practitioners sending out tokens of appreciation, be it christmas(or any other ocassion) presents,cards or goody bags.should this really be considered as a bribe of some sort?what difference will it make if these were not sent out, would the media not cover 'us'?
i was very excited about preparing and sending out the cards, it was fun though time consuming.the cards were already designed and printed by the publisher, all i had to do was to fold them nicely and dicard those which were not in good shape.once i finished folding the cards i had to carefully stamp each of the cards with the Directors signature.next i had to type and print addresses on envelopes, honestly i couldn't find a faster way to do this, mind you well over two hundred cards had to be sent out and that meant over two hundred envelopes had to be typed and printed.once i was done printing the envelopes, it was time to insert the cards and get them ready for the post people to collect them.at the end of the day my supervisor was impressed with my work.
anyway, i would like to hear what you guys think about PR practitioners sending out tokens of appreciation, be it christmas(or any other ocassion) presents,cards or goody bags.should this really be considered as a bribe of some sort?what difference will it make if these were not sent out, would the media not cover 'us'?
