MEDIA RELATIONS AND LIFE AND TIMES OF A PR AGENCY
Working day to day with the media is a humbling task. Reporters are very busy, overworked, always stressed, and notoriously impatient. As PR professionals, we work hard to convince reporters to write stories about our clients’ issues or products– and it’s a tough job.
It will become even tougher with the recent announcement that the Dallas Morning News will now have journalists reporting to sales executives.
This will further blur the lines between advertising and media relations. As it stands now, I often get calls from clients excited about news opportunities. But oftentimes these “opportunities” are just representatives from cold-calling to offer editorial space for a fee, which is all fine and dandy, but it’s called advertising.
At my PR firm, we believe in good old-fashioned media relations. We build relationships with the media, pitch journalists and place stories. It’s certainly not easy, but now with situations like the Dallas Morning News, it’s going to get harder. That being said, we will keep pushing, and keep succeeding with the continued hope that this will help clients realize the vast undervalue of PR and PR agencies in general.
“The toughest thing about being successful is that you have to keep being successful,” said Irving Berlin.
Tags: 5WPR, advertising, MEDIA & PR, newspapers, Ronn Torossian
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
It’s definitely a tough situation that is not only being felt in the realm of pritn publishing but in online publishing as well. The stories that are relevant and that editors feel their audience will enjoy will always get through. It’s the 2nd and 3rd place runners up that will be handed a rate sheet.