There is also a sense of superiority felt by the media when comparing themselves to public relations, with Munro (2016), believing that “...PR needs journalism, more than journalism needs PR...” (Munro, 2016), which alludes to White and Hobsbawm’s (2007), conclusion that the media’s view of public relations is more prejudiced, compared to the public relations view of the media. These beliefs indicate that the power, at least in the mind of media practitioners, is held by the media, and that public relations are at the helm of the journalist’s discretion.
The similarities held by the two professions are believed to be that “they write stuff” (Munro, 2016), accentuating the idea that they could not be any more different, he further mentioned …show more content…
This is highlighted by how public relations practitioners lack the ability to create newsworthy stories, as mentioned by Charron (1989), “Journalists criticise PR practitioners in this sector for inundating them with uninteresting information” (Charron, 1989, p. 47). This is supported by Munro’s (2016) belief that a good journalist would only quickly glance and then throw away a media release, unless if it is interesting enough to research for an article. Public relations practitioners rely on the media to disseminate their message, and in order to ‘entice them’ it requires a media release to adhere to the media’s ‘rules’. The most important, is being knowledgeable about the rules of newsworthiness, which is achieved through knowing and applying the ‘news values’. These ‘big six’ news values are; proximity, significance, conflict, human interest, novelty and prominence (Masterton 1995, as cited in Lamble, 2013 p. 46), and they dictate what is and what is not news, this process could be seen as a ‘gate-keeper test’, whereby only if the media release passes this test, by meeting the criteria will it be disseminated to the …show more content…
With journalists struggling to meet these demands and with the threat of unemployment with it being found that more than 1000 newspaper journalists had in the three years prior to 2013 had either taken redundancies or lost their jobs (Jackson, 2013, as cited in Lamble, 2013, p. 420). This has shown that journalism is now a more internet medium than print; this may indicate an opportunity for public relations practitioners to communicate with their target publics without the journalism ‘middleman’. Gray (2016), believes that it is important for public relations practitioners to not become complacent, and to still utilise the media in communicating their message, as they are to be heard, but not seen in order for their message to have a higher likelihood of being successful. This illustrates Munro’s (2016) perception that public relations need journalism more so, than the other way
The similarities held by the two professions are believed to be that “they write stuff” (Munro, 2016), accentuating the idea that they could not be any more different, he further mentioned …show more content…
This is highlighted by how public relations practitioners lack the ability to create newsworthy stories, as mentioned by Charron (1989), “Journalists criticise PR practitioners in this sector for inundating them with uninteresting information” (Charron, 1989, p. 47). This is supported by Munro’s (2016) belief that a good journalist would only quickly glance and then throw away a media release, unless if it is interesting enough to research for an article. Public relations practitioners rely on the media to disseminate their message, and in order to ‘entice them’ it requires a media release to adhere to the media’s ‘rules’. The most important, is being knowledgeable about the rules of newsworthiness, which is achieved through knowing and applying the ‘news values’. These ‘big six’ news values are; proximity, significance, conflict, human interest, novelty and prominence (Masterton 1995, as cited in Lamble, 2013 p. 46), and they dictate what is and what is not news, this process could be seen as a ‘gate-keeper test’, whereby only if the media release passes this test, by meeting the criteria will it be disseminated to the …show more content…
With journalists struggling to meet these demands and with the threat of unemployment with it being found that more than 1000 newspaper journalists had in the three years prior to 2013 had either taken redundancies or lost their jobs (Jackson, 2013, as cited in Lamble, 2013, p. 420). This has shown that journalism is now a more internet medium than print; this may indicate an opportunity for public relations practitioners to communicate with their target publics without the journalism ‘middleman’. Gray (2016), believes that it is important for public relations practitioners to not become complacent, and to still utilise the media in communicating their message, as they are to be heard, but not seen in order for their message to have a higher likelihood of being successful. This illustrates Munro’s (2016) perception that public relations need journalism more so, than the other way