week 7

WEEK 7

I am doing my debate on this week’s topic, Media Relations. As I’m on the negative side, I read the readings while thinking, ‘Look for things that prove that the journalist has more power in this relationship’. Therefore, this week I may have a one-sided view of the readings but I’ll try to give a balanced perspective… without giving too much away to the other team.

Media Relations is the best known element of PR. I think that this is the most important thing to remember from the readings. PR is one of the most important influences on journalism, and PR practitioners must be aware that the must seek to have good relationships with journalists.

To do so, media tools are often used. Melanie spoke about this in the lecture this week, referring to spoken/written and imagined tools, but the textbook lists the most common tools as being the media release, media kit and media conferences. I was unaware previously that a media kit included such things as a backgrounder or biographies of important company figureheads.

The readings made me think more about PR theory/practice in that almost everything a practitioner does is for publicity, which means knowing how to successfully relate to the media and hold successful conferences, write good media releases etc. I think this is the most important aspect of PR, because without publicity campaigns often fail.

The other readings that weren’t in the textbook this week were really useful for my debate coming up, as they went into detail about public speaking and working as a group.