Week 6 - Media Relations

This week's reading emphasises the importance of the relationship between public relations practitioners and the media. Because the media holds an important role in public relations, it is vital that a PR practitioner has a good relationship with a variety of media outlets. This chapter shows how to build a good relationship with said media outlets. Possibly one of the most important skills is being able to write a media release. Media releases need to be written in a journalistic form, putting the most important informatio first, because journalists and editors very rarely read past the first couple of lines before they decide whether to run a story or not. If a release is long, confusing, or hides the information, chances are it will end up in the garbage, not the paper. Implementation of news values is essential, public relations practitioners need to make their releases readable and newsworthy. Sometimes practitioners will need to write two or three releases, because sometimes the same release won't have the same value to different outlets.
Anothe important skill is being able to put together a media kit. This kit includes a lot of information, set out in a simple and understandable way, to give to journalists. It also includes a list of who's who at your organisation, your business card, and a hat or a t-shirt to keep them interested. It's almost like a showbag.