Friday, May 14, 2010

Journalism VS Public Relations: A war or a marriage of convenience?

There may be a war going on every day when you eat your toast and morning coffee.

As you open the pages of your newspaper and watch or listen to the news, you probably have no idea how the forces of public relations and journalism have collaborated and sometimes fought to bring you what is happening in the world.

Behind the news, who wins? Who loses? Who works hardest? You see the results every morning without noticing it.

So where does it all begin?

As early as 1926, the New York Times, found that on average, about 60% of all articles were from news releases.

A more recent example and closer to home, on May 10 the first three pages of the New Zealand Herald contained five PR generated stories out of eight.

From then, changes such as the development of technology and the internet have continued to increase the demand for the immediacy of news. With online newspapers, journalists have to work harder and faster to publish news as soon as it happens. Deadline pressure, dwindling newsrooms and round the clock bulletins make up an ever-growing news hole. Not surprisingly, PR becomes the conduit and ‘quick fix’ for journalists looking for prime sources and company spokespeople. They help the media better understand the issues that a company or individuals are trying to communicate in a short amount of time.

So why then are the PR practitioners the ‘bad guys’, ‘spin doctors’ or ‘flacks’?

Helen Sissons, who wrote the book Practical Journalism: How to write News (2006), summed up this attitude when she said “Public relations companies generate news releases as propaganda, not to help the poor overworked hacks.”

Ok, but is this true? Can’t the relationship be more of a marriage than a war?

It is really more akin to a symbiotic relationship where journalists and PR practitioners work together in close harmony and depend on each other. With the development of new technology and demand for more news, journalists and PR practitioners have a massive opportunity to collaborate to get the news to audiences and make a positive difference by giving people the news content they need. So rather than a war, why not use each other’s strengths and create, like a marriage, a partnership based on working together as a team and not opposing forces.

Then everyone, and especially the public reading their news with breakfast, wins.