Why Public Relations practitioners require journalistic skills

A section of public relations practitioners thinks that journalists shouldn’t venture into the Public Relations field. In her opinion in The Standard recently, Ms Abigael Jemutai stated, “A journalist is interested in conveying news while maintaining a critical distance from their subjects while a PR practitioner is interested in developing and maintaining relationships through strategic communication.”  

She is mistaken on two grounds. In the first place, journalists and PR experts rely on the decisions and actions of an organisation to work. The decisions and action form the raw material for the messaging.

Publicity, communication—call it what you will—are not enough to counteract the opinion of the public towards policies and actions the public doesn’t agree with.

The work of public relations functions is to impress on the organisation the need for circumspection in addressing issues, problems concerning public interest. This takes into account the sentiments of the public.

An excellent programme in journalism, media studies or public relations ably prepares its students to play this advisory role. It is the reason public relations experts in the early 1900s in the USA sat on boards of management.

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Secondly, while differences exist between the journalist and the PR expert in their handling of their work, both deal with information and communication. All are engaged in gathering and conveying information about an organisation or an issue for different purposes.

The journalist and the PR student undergo nearly the same training experience. Because they both will deal with information and communicate it. They both study communication from its broadest possible viewpoint. Both study the functions and effects of communication in society. There are no communications functions for journalists different from PR experts.

Both use communication technologies human beings have developed over the centuries for purposes of building, maintaining and restoring relationships between individuals, within institutions and across institutions and cultures.

The study programmes also expose students to the cultural, economic and political underpinnings of communication. The assumptions are that all communications occur in a cultural, economic and political environment. Students must appreciate this to work for and not against society.

Most critically, they also study or should study what is news and what makes news. This is important because any communication is purposeful or strategic.

Human beings don’t mindlessly communicate.  The communication must be strategic. The strategic value of any message is its salience—its relevance to the hopes, fears and aspirations of the people.  

The founding father of modern PR, Ivy Lee, In his Declaration of Principles, noted that the duty of public relations experts is to “supply the press and the public prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which are of value and interest to the public to know.”

Schools of journalism and communication expose their students to an array of definitions about what makes news. The definitions boil down to any information that is of value and interest to the public or stakeholders whose interests are directly or indirectly affected by the substance of the information.

A training in journalism where the elements of news are defined is likely to enable a PR expert to anticipate, and point out to the management issues that are of concern to the public or the stakeholders.

They should advise on possible reactions for the management to take into account during its decision-making process. They also advise, if the leadership appreciates the function of communication, when to communicate and the available media platforms through which to communicate with the public.

As Lee noted, all communication is of value and attracts interest. It must also have a purpose. The PR practitioner must know this—courtesy of his training in journalism and purposes for which communication—holds in the society.

Perhaps the other equally critical element of training in journalism is the study of writing and producing content (news) appropriate to the different communication platforms that institutions leverage to reach out to their strategic audiences or publics.

Journalists and PR experts deal with words. They should know the power of words. In the end, individuals communicate in words, paragraphs and sentences.

News writing, feature and editorial writing, and caption writing are some of the courses or units any serious training institution prepares the students—whether they wind up as Journalists or PR experts.

Institutions conduct their communication through writing. More than 90percent of the work of a PR practitioner is through writing.

Apart from counselling management on possible impact of their decisions on the audience, PR experts distill the decisions made into Press Releases or statements.

In some organisations, they also write speeches for the leadership. Impeccable writing abilities are required—writing that is simple, clear and lucid. Writing that resonates with the highly educated and the modestly educated alike.

Writing Press releases that can easily be appreciated by the news editors is the DNA on Press or Media Relations. Without a foundation in journalism, writing Press Releases is a nightmare.

A training in journalism makes one have boundless curiosity, keen powers of observation, an interest in human relationship, integrity, commitment, and a sense of style, tact and fair-mindedness.

The news sense that the training injects in the mindset of the students makes them to think, to ask questions, seek  answers or explanations to decisions, practices and other behaviour that have implications on the attitudes and dispositions of the publics. A public relations expert who enthusiastically goes with the flow is a burden to an institution.

The thrust of this article is that PR experts need the knowledge, skills, tact and judgement of journalists in helping an organisation communicate purposefully with their stakeholders.

The serious business of PR is reflected in the careful messaging of issues—issues that are grounded in their value proposition and interests of to the public.