PR practitioners can reach out to the public using traditional forms of media, which include newspapers, radio, television, magazines and newsletters. As journalists, there is need to be objective, and to constantly look out for opportunities to publish newsworthy articles to raise awareness, address concerns, serve as links between the organisation and the public, and other roles (McLean & Phillipps, 2009).
Uncontrolled forms of communication through magazines and newspapers, generally have more credibility as the article or product would have received the approval of the editor before it can be published. On the other hand, controlled forms of communication like brochures and posters are created to serve the organisation’s purpose and can be seen as biased. Thus, these forms of advertising can be slighted by the public and not be able to achieve effect on the public as intended by the organisation.
Articles need to have news value before they are considered to be used. Some considerations include truth, timeliness, proximity, conflict, eminence and prominence, consequence and impact, human and animal interest, the unusual and the focus of media the various media forms and picking the right day and time to publish the article. It is important that PR practitioners are truthful in their reports about situations and not provide exaggerated and false information. People also wish to know about the latest information about events and situations and are not interested in something that has occurred 20 years ago. Also, people are generally more concerned with news that is closely related to them. For example, the NTU stabbings in 2009, where a student, David Wijarya, stabbed his professor before proceeding to commit suicide is of greater concerns to Singaporeans as compared to the Winnenden school shooting in Germany in 2009. As a form of publicity stunt, it is common to see companies hiring artistes to promote their products. In addition, people would be concerned about natural disasters that have great impact on people. For example, the Haiti earthquake in 2010, having a 7.0 magnitude, and killing and injuring more than 500,000 people, made the headlines of many newspapers, television news reports and the internet all over the world during the aftermath of the event. People are also interested in issues like poverty and animal cruelty, and would donate or help out at The Salvation Army, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals when these organizations need people and help in supporting their cause.
As stated by McLean and Phillipps (2009), “The golden rule for all public relations work, not just media relations, is to under-promise and over-deliver. Over-promising and under-delivering is the best way to lose the confidence and trust of any reporter.” The importance of credibility and reliability can not be reiterated much more than it has already been emphasized in this profession. Trust can also be lost when the person who specifically said not to be quoted has been quoted in an article. This can lead to lawsuits because of defamation, if what is written has affected the reputation of the person in question.
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Even though the controlled media focus on the positive traits of a product or a company/organization, the uncontrolled forms of communication through magazines and newspapers would also be edited first by the editor. \
ReplyDeleteThey could've been written with a certain angle or perspective of the journalist, thus, I think we can't really say that they are more credible than the controlled forms of communication.
valinka: true, but the journalist will not stand to gain by putting the organisation in a positive light, unless they have been bribed etc haha..in this sense, i would think that uncontrolled forms of communication will tend to be more reliable and credible as compared to controlled forms of communication..
ReplyDelete