Journalists And Public Relations Practitioners

So as stated earlier, both public relations and journalism requires extensive writing skills as well as being able to interview subjects and intake large amounts of information they do differ. Although there are many positive sides to public relations, there are also some downsides to it. The profession of journalism has been affected by the growth in public relations, and sometime soon people will notice the negative affects when the news being reported isn't as good as it once

Ever since Bernany’s work, public relations have continued to become a vital part to businesses success, as the field continues to grow. While this progression has occurred, different public relations functions also have developed. Specifically,

In an interview with Richard Weiner, “The Practice of Public Relations,” he argues that that the top management of an organization will often contract help from an outside agency. Weiner, chief executive of Richard Weiner, Inc., a major public relations agency in New York city, contends that an outside agency is more likely to be proficient in media relations, and thus, more capable of attempting to achieve significant publicity in major media. Management is more likely to respect, and act on, the advice of an outside counselor as compared to their staff (270, 271).

I do not know much about public relations (PR), but if I can attempt to put it in a single definition it would be the communication or process in connecting to the mass media. The mass media is any consumer, voter or supporter of that particular company or person. When I envision what a person might do in a career in public relations I immediately think of Olivia Pope from ABC’s popular show Scandal. Public relations is involved with creating press releases, curating charities and essentially anything that will helps improve that business’ brand or that party’s’ image significantly. Unlike a management position, public relations comes in and consults during a crisis or scandal that affects the public and leaves when the situation is resolved.

Although I do not have specific experience as a public relations practitioner, my credibility comes from PR courses and extensive amounts of research into the position. Because of this, I have created a list of potential responsibilities that a PR practitioner will have if they were to be employed at J. Gregory Salon. This list comes from a survey conducted in 2010 by the Institute for Public Relations in predicting what the top duties for PR managers in 2015 would be. (Watson & Sreedharan. 2010)

Journalists are quick to deny the thought of a ‘symbiotic relationship’ with public relations practitioners. However, with copious amounts of research conducted, regarding the relationships between the two it would seem, ironically, that the journalists are not being all that truthful. A study conducted by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) and Crikey (2009) discovered that across 10 newspapers in Sydney that “...nearly 55% of stories examined were driven by some form of public relations”

In fact, even the journalism literature suggests that some 40-50 per cent or more of all the news that’s reported on any given day originated in PR departments” (Parsons, 2008). Hence, Parsons’ goes on to further elaborate that even though the relationship between journalists and public relations personnel is indeed significant, there are also ethical problems that are naturally evident within that connection.

However, one study conducted in 1989, has revealed the pathetic state of ethics in, and has called into question the credibility, professional integrity and public image of, public relations (229). In the broad field of mass communications, of which public relations practitioners are considered a part, the occupation is viewed with cynicism. For example, an investigation of journalists attitudes toward public relations, conducted in

Among the many competing definitions of public relations, J. Grunig and Hunt’s is the most widely

I am an experienced PR professional, having spent most of my time in B2B and technology PR. Over the past three years, I have worked in a busy press office for a leading professional services firm dealing, on a daily basis, with a range of journalists, both proactively and reactively. The role has kept me on my toes and exposed me to different sectors of the business world and challenged to me to plan and manage campaigns and achieve great PR coverage. Throughout my career, I have built and maintained outstanding relationships with journalists and senior stakeholders, as well as colleagues in marketing and internal communications.

Public relations today is a complex profession practiced by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Some public relations professionals are employed by a single organization. Others work for public relations firms that have many organizations as clients. Public relations people work for businesses, government agencies, professional and trade associations, nonprofit charities, schools and universities, hospitals, hotels, and many more types of industries. Unlike the practice of other professional fields, such as law and medicine, there are no regulations, but there is great responsibility

One could argue that public relations are talents which the human species are innately born with, and that this gift has existed since we first crawled out from the cave. However, our self-awareness of these abilities and our choice to study and refine them into a skilled trade began just after the First World War with the father of Public Relations, Basil Clarke. Clarke whose background was in journalism, eventually joined the British

Public Relations is a pivotal part of any business because it is the direct line of communication between the business and the public. It is not just the voice of the business, but also the ears of the business. A business has to know and understand the general publics’ needs and concerns; it also has to build and maintain a reputation of being open and honest with the public. For a business to enjoy long term success it has to have the ability to evolve and adapt with the ever changing trends of the public; therefore, public relations is a key

The public relations tactics in relation to the corporate context will now be examined. Customer relations can be associated with the monitoring of attitudes of key publics and stakeholders especially in regards to any negative incidents that have the potential to effect the organisation’s reputation and consumer trust (Wilcox, 2013, p.312). For Malaysian Airlines, this is evident given the potential for consumer boycotts with the missing aircraft’s (Crossman Communications, 2015, p2). Having over 12, 000 employees, employee relations are important for the organisation. Employee relations consist of monitoring employees’ attitudes and beliefs towards the organisation (Wilcox, 2013, p316) as there is potential for negative word of mouth by employees essentially damaging the company’s reputation. This is evident as according to Malaysian Airlines, they offer a “dynamic exciting environment that nurtures a diverse talented team that work to make great things happen” (2017). Finally, media relations are vital in a corporate context as “negative coverage can cause a corporation’s reputation to plummet” (Wilcox, 2013, p. 310). Having said that, it is important as public relations professionals to establish positive relationships with those who operate in the media industry. Kimberly Blessing argues the two fields (public relations and journalism) have an important working interrelationship with “60% of PR

Only recently being recognized as a discipline in itself, modern day professional public relations practices can trace its roots to the early 1900s where the first public relations firm, the Publicity Bureau, was founded in Boston. In 1923, Austrian-American public relations pioneer, Edward Bernays, identified three fundamental concepts of public relations. In 1984, American theorists, Grunig and Hunt, conceptualized the now-famous four models of public relations and the excellence theory that were generally adopted by public relation agencies across the globe. With so many significant milestones and theories of public relations established in the United States, it stands to reason that public relation practices would naturally adopt a western perspective.