Media Relations

This week's readings covered the area of media relations, about the importance of media to public relations and vice versa. The first thing that came to mind when I was doing the readings is that this module is unexpectedly similar to others, such as journalism and audience studies. That aside, it is also in my opinion, the easiest set of readings so far.

One important point that I learnt from the readings is the relationship between the media and public relations. The media and public relations as mentioned, is interdependent, requiring information from each other in order to function. As such, a public relations personnel has to keep up with the media through a task of media monitoring in order to be up to date with issues, events and changes that occur.

The second important point is the need to know the media in order to work well within it. The points mentioned in the chapter, such as deadlines, hierarchy in the newsroom, media styles and audience targetting, are practical and helpful tips for a public relations personnal. This shows that the work of public relations is better achieved as a team, as a journalist or an editor cannot function alone. On a personal note, the newsroom as described in the readings gives an impression it being fast paced and chaotic, and definitely not easy to keep up with.

I feel that the readings gave me a greater understanding of how a public relations organization works and operates. Instead of just a team of journalist who put together news and information to be released, it is in actual fact so much more complicating than that. What with the deadlines to meet and the people of importance within the newsroom, the job of a public relations personnel does not seem like such an simple job to me anymore. From the areas that have to be considered as pointed out in the book, I feel that a PR personnel is someone who needs to be able to handle things rationally and logically. Take a simple media conference for example, much planning and thought have to go into it before the actual event can actually take place, and this is definitely not a simple task.