Media involves not just publications, but Akashvani, Doordarshan & other private electronic channels. When an organisation or government is ‘in the news’, the objective of press relations may be simply to ensure that what is published is favourable or at least accurate. But for promotional purposes, the problem is more often to stimulate media interest in publishing information about specific subjects.
‘Mass Media’ includes Doordarshan, Akashvani, Private electronic channels, Newspapers, and large circulation magazines, as well as many more specialised publications. One’s press relation work will be with the press itself, often the business press in particular.
In every industrialised country, there are dozens, hundreds or even thousands of business publications, serving virtually every industry, trade or profession. The people who read these publications are seeking information useful to them in their jobs or business. A single reader often is directly responsible for, or influences, very sizeable purposes.
Because trade and industrial publications are so specialised, their circulations are smaller, choose the right ones, trade and industrial journals regularly publish news and other information that general publications would not consider. If we are trying to reach trade, we also find several different publications to reach the right people at various levels and in different kinds of operations. One way to identify the right business publication for our purposes is to ask people who fit into the business categories you are trying to reach which publication they read.
Although the business press can be our most promising publicity channel, it is rarely adequate as the sole medium for a publicity campaign, trade magazines do not reach everyone in every trade; small shop owners, for example, do not read them and top executives often read general business publications in preference to many of the specialised journals serving their industries. Moreover, if we are promoting consumer goods, in many cases obviously would want to reach consumers, not just the trade.
Daily newspapers, can achieve greater audience coverage than business journals. Newspapers also have a degree of selectivity which can be very useful, particularly in terms of geographical coverage. Newspapers usually serve individual cities or rural and sub-urban areas.
Consumer magazines are another medium, one should not overlook. Women’s magazines, for example, often carry articles and news items on products in the food, clothing and home furnishing areas. Travel articles are another favourite subject.
The essence of good press relations is understanding what kind of material publications and other media want, and then supplying it to the extent possible. In all probability, these will be a smaller group of publications that will be especially important for you.
Study these publications more carefully. Do they publish articles about specific companies or products? What seems to interest them about products? Are they interested in foreign statistics and trends, in personalities? Do they publish feature articles about whole industries, including those of foreign countries? Do their articles seem to be based on reporting (by their staff or by outsiders) or press releases? How is the publication divided up according to subject matter? Do they use photographs and if so what subjects, and how do they treat them?
For the smaller number of magazines most important to us, it will pay to go a step further and get to know some of the editors and reporters.
An even better reason for developing personal relations with appropriate journalists is they will thereby get to know us. Editors of good publications do not decide what to print based on friendship or in return for hospitality; their livelihood depends on publishing material their readers want. However, if an editor knows us and has been impressed with us as a serious source of useful information, he might well pause a bit longer over a press release coming from our organisation.
To engage in press relations on a personal level successfully, one must bring two particularly important qualities to the job: Knowledge and honesty.
Be candid with journalists. If we have information which we are not free to reveal, say so frankly and do not attempt to avoid the fact with evasive replies. Do not deny a correct story. Make a point of becoming a source of useful information for reporters. Be scrupulous about being fair with reporters. If we have a piece of news, release it simultaneously to all journals.
The most common and practical way of disseminating a news story is by sending it to the news media in the form of a press release. Publications rely heavily on press releases, sometimes like 80% or 90% of the press releases received by the better publications are almost immediately thrown into the wastepaper basket. The main reason so many press releases are rejected is what they contain is no news at all or no news of interest and that are badly prepared. Preparations of press releases should be entrusted to a professional publicity man.
To stand a chance of being published, a press release must contain news. Concentrate on preparing releases that interest a limited number of publications which are especially important to us, rather than to send out generalised releases indiscriminately.
A daily newspaper, for example, might run a short story about the visit of a high-level trade delegation but it would not be interested in the arrival of an individual businessman or the signing of a single agency agreement. For some trade magazines, printable ‘news’ may be nothing more than an announcement about the availability of a new supplier, a large scale, a change in prices, the appointment of a news agency or sales manager or the launching of a new promotion campaign. Whether the publication is general or specialised, the one thing it will insist on is hard facts. Vogue generalities won’t do. (to be continued……..)
(The author is a technocrat and educationist. He studied Journalism and Mass Communication at Patna University)
