Journalism Today

Chapter 16: Understanding and Using Public Relations

Overview

Public relations and journalism are professions that rely on each other. PR people work closely with the news media to communicate messages about their organization, issue, business, or clients to various audiences that are important to them. At the same time, journalists use public relations people as resources for many of the stories they write. Although not all people who enter the PR profession will be journalists or have journalistic skills, many do.

Public relations is based on blending social sciences with communications. Public relations relies on knowledge of public opinion, human behavior, and motivation to reinforce, modify, or change how groups of people—referred to as "publics"—think or act. Public relations professionals develop programs and events, utilize media, and apply a wide range of communications techniques to get these publics to behave in a certain way as a response to their work. In many ways, PR seeks to accomplish a call to action like that of editorials and advertising.

Public relations strategies are often designed according to a model. The model begins with setting clear objectives that are to be accomplished by a PR program, identifying the target audiences (publics), and determining what action the target audiences are expected to take, such as supporting a certain position or an issue. It goes on to study research to understand how to best communicate with the target audience and then develops themes and messages to help achieve the objectives of the program. Finally, it lays out an action plan, summarizes the human and financial resources required to implement that plan, determines how to assess the plan to see whether it's having the desired effects on target audiences, and provides ways to revise the plan if necessary.

Student journalists can apply their writing and editing skills to public relations. One way is to join the PR committees of local nonprofit organizations, political campaigns, or other groups. Another is to work with the school's PR team on a special campaign, such as school bus safety. Yet another is to be involved in a student news bureau, sending relevant school information to the local media.

Many rewarding PR jobs exist, and a good number of journalists find their way into them. Opportunities exist in businesses, schools, hospitals, government, various community organizations, and many other organizations. There are also specialty PR jobs, such as speechwriter or media spokesperson for a political candidate, an issue, or a cause.