Dear Journalist,

Dear journ­al­ist,

Traditional journ­al­ism is going to hell in a handbasket.

The fall of journ­al­ism is a ser­i­ous mat­ter, of course. Journalism is the Fourth Estate, and we all depend on the free­dom of the press and its will­ing­ness to tell mean­ing­ful stories. 

PR pro­fes­sion­als, on the oth­er hand, are doing bet­ter. The media logic is evolving, and so are we. Change is dif­fi­cult, but soci­ety needs more pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­nic­a­tion, not less.

So, dear journ­al­ist, let me pose this some­what naïve question:

Is there a way for journ­al­ism to let go of the idea that PR is the prob­lem and explore more con­struct­ive solutions?

Here we go:

More “Flacks” than “Hacks”

According to journ­al­ist Mike Rosenberg, there are five PR pro­fes­sion­als for every news report­er in the US. Fifteen years ago, we had two “flacks” on every “hack”. Rosenberg por­trays an army of “Pitchmen”, sin­is­ter cor­por­ate mer­cen­ar­ies, attack­ing journ­al­ists from every direction.

And I agree that we, the PR pro­fes­sion­als, should improve and get bet­ter at media rela­tions in general:

However, a reas­on­able assump­tion would be that an aver­age PR pro­fes­sion­al spends less than 5% of their work­ing hours work­ing towards journalists. 

The rest of the time is spent on, well, com­mu­nic­a­tions. Communications with vari­ous stake­hold­ers, to be more precise.

The Stakeholders in Public Relations

In pub­lic rela­tions (PR), we often dis­cuss ‘stake­hold­ers’:

Stakeholders = rep­res­ent­at­ives of vari­ous ves­ted interests dir­ectly or indir­ectly con­nec­ted to a brand. ¹Silfwer, J. (2021, January 5). The Stakeholders in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​t​a​k​e​h​o​l​d​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Establishing and sus­tain­ing rela­tion­ships with vari­ous stake­hold­ers is a sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenge for PR pro­fes­sion­als since their inform­a­tion needs are typ­ic­ally very different. 

“Public rela­tions dis­tin­guishes itself from mar­ket­ing by focus­ing on the stake­hold­er-organ­iz­a­tion rela­tion­ship, which com­prises mutu­al ori­ent­a­tion around a com­mon interest point and a mul­ti­pli­city of stakes.”
Source: Public Relations Review ²Smith, B. (2012). Public rela­tions iden­tity and the stake­hold­er – organ­iz­a­tion rela­tion­ship: A revised the­or­et­ic­al pos­i­tion for pub­lic rela­tions schol­ar­ship. Public Relations Review, 38, 838 – 845. … Continue read­ing

The PR Stakeholder Model

PR pro­fes­sion­als have vari­ous spe­cial­isa­tions (based on the Stakeholder Model), includ­ing cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions, investor rela­tions (IR), media rela­tions, digit­al PR, pub­lic affairs (PA), lob­by­ing, intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions (IC), crisis com­mu­nic­a­tions, mar­ket­ing PR, and industry PR (B2B).

“In a cor­por­a­tion, a stake­hold­er is a mem­ber of ‘groups without whose sup­port the organ­isa­tion would cease to exist’, as defined in the first usage of the word in a 1963 intern­al memor­andum at the Stanford Research Institute. The the­ory was later developed and cham­pioned by R. Edward Freeman in the 1980s. Since then it has gained wide accept­ance in busi­ness prac­tice and in the­or­ising relat­ing to stra­tegic man­age­ment, cor­por­ate gov­ernance, busi­ness pur­pose and cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity (CSR).”
Source: Wikipedia ³Stakeholder (cor­por­ate). (2023, October 27). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​t​a​k​e​h​o​l​d​e​r​_​(​c​o​r​p​o​r​ate)

PR spe­cial­isa­tions are typ­ic­ally named based on which stake­hold­er type they manage:

Corporate com­mu­nic­a­tions = an organ­isa­tion’s stra­tegic use of mes­saging to shape its repu­ta­tion, artic­u­late its vis­ion, and engage with key audi­ences across intern­al and extern­al chan­nels.

Targets: External and intern­al pub­lics, busi­ness journ­al­ists, reg­u­lat­ory insti­tu­tions, part­ners, sup­pli­ers, vendors, etc.

Investor rela­tions (IR) = an organ­isa­tion’s delib­er­ate com­mu­nic­a­tion efforts to build trust and main­tain trans­par­ency with investors, ana­lysts, and the fin­an­cial com­munity.

Targets: Shareholders, investors, mar­ket hubs, mar­ket ana­lysts, fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions, trade journ­al­ists etc.

Media rela­tions = a brand’s tar­geted use of com­mu­nic­a­tion to foster pos­it­ive inter­ac­tions with journ­al­ists, edit­ors, and media out­lets and to gain favour­able cov­er­age.

Targets: Journalists, edit­ors, influ­en­cers, etc.

Digital PR = the stra­tegic use of online com­mu­nic­a­tion to build brand com­munit­ies, foster engage­ment, and man­age repu­ta­tion in the digit­al space. ⁴Silfwer, J. (2017, November 20). What is Digital PR? Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​w​h​a​t​-​i​s​-​d​i​g​i​t​a​l​-​pr/

Targets: Inbound web traffic, brand com­munit­ies, sub­scribers, fans, fol­low­ers, influ­en­cers, social net­works, etc.

Public affairs (PA) = a brand’s inten­tion­al use of com­mu­nic­a­tion to engage with gov­ern­ments, poli­cy­makers, and com­munit­ies to influ­ence pub­lic policy and social impact.

Targets: Voters, polit­ic­al journ­al­ists, polit­ic­al ana­lysts, colum­nists, interest groups, etc.

Lobbying = the focused use of advocacy and com­mu­nic­a­tion to dir­ectly influ­ence legis­lat­ive and reg­u­lat­ory decisions in favour of spe­cif­ic interests or causes.

Targets: Politicians, legis­lat­ors, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, com­mit­tees, influ­en­cers, etc.

Internal com­mu­nic­a­tions (IC) = an organ­isa­tion’s delib­er­ate use of mes­saging to align, inform, and motiv­ate employ­ees while fos­ter­ing a pro­duct­ive work­place cul­ture.

Targets: Coworkers, poten­tial recruits, etc.

Crisis com­mu­nic­a­tions = a brand’s rap­id, stra­tegic deploy­ment of com­mu­nic­a­tion to mit­ig­ate repu­ta­tion­al dam­age, address urgent chal­lenges, and restore pub­lic trust dur­ing crit­ic­al situ­ations.

Targets: Crisis vic­tims, wor­ried pub­lics, the gen­er­al pub­lic, cowork­ers, journ­al­ists, influ­en­cers, cus­tom­ers, share­hold­ers, etc.

Marketing PR = a brand’s tac­tic­al integ­ra­tion of com­mu­nic­a­tion and pro­mo­tion­al efforts to enhance product aware­ness, drive sales, and sup­port mar­ket­ing object­ives.

Targets: Potential cus­tom­ers, exist­ing cus­tom­ers, trade journ­al­ists, mem­bers, affil­i­ates, etc.

Industry PR (B2B) = a busi­ness’s pur­pose­ful use of com­mu­nic­a­tion to build cred­ib­il­ity, foster trust, and estab­lish thought lead­er­ship with­in its pro­fes­sion­al sec­tor.

Targets: B2B cli­ents, B2B pro­spects, trade journ­al­ists, trade organ­isa­tions, niche influ­en­cers, etc.

Learn more: Stakeholders in Public Relations

Media rela­tions is only one focus area of sev­er­al. The typ­ic­al PR gen­er­al­ist will devote more time to cor­por­ate, intern­al, and inbound communications.

With a decreas­ing num­ber of journ­al­ists com­bined with an increas­ing num­ber of ways to com­mu­nic­ate dir­ectly with the inbound pub­lic (yes, we do see oth­er people), it makes sense for the PR industry to focus even less on tra­di­tion­al mass media.

Not more.

It’s a Privilege, Not a Curse

In 2000 – 2003, while study­ing pub­lic rela­tions at Mid Sweden University, I inter­viewed the edit­or-in-chief at one of Sweden’s largest even­ing news­pa­pers, Thomas Mattsson, Expressen.

For our thes­is, my study part­ner Markus Christiansson and I wanted to explore the rela­tion­ship between journ­al­ists and PR pro­fes­sion­als in more depth.

When asked wheth­er Mattson ever felt irrit­ated about the sheer volume of use­less press releases and lousy PR pitches, he said he was­n’t bothered by this.

For Mattson, people needed to pitch their stor­ies, good or bad, to Expressen. He said he would be more wor­ried if people, includ­ing PR pro­fes­sion­als, did­n’t pitch Expressen.

The edit­or-in-chief, Thomas Mattsson, wel­comed PR pitches because being a gate­keep­er is an essen­tial priv­ilege of being a journalist.

The Elephant in the Newsroom

I can under­stand resent­ment com­ing from journ­al­ists who are under the impres­sion that pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­nic­at­ors are respons­ible for mak­ing mat­ters worse:

Corporate com­mu­nic­at­ors make mis­takes every day. However, it’s a stretch to claim few­er mis­takes would be made if all PR pro­fes­sion­als decided to quit their jobs tomorrow.

The real prob­lem is that there are too few journ­al­ists, and not that more organ­isa­tions pri­or­it­ise bet­ter communication.

Almost all organ­isa­tions today, pub­lic or private, must com­mu­nic­ate pro­fes­sion­ally with intern­al and extern­al stakeholders.

The ratio of pro­fes­sion­al PR pro­fes­sion­als versus journ­al­ists could be twenty to one, just as long as enough journ­al­ists to report the news.

Dear journ­al­ist, per­haps news pub­lish­ers should even con­sider hir­ing more PR professionals.

Bonus Resource: The Difference Between Journalism and PR

Public Relations vs Journalism

PR pro­fes­sion­als and journ­al­ists share many prac­tic­al skill sets. Still, pub­lic rela­tions and journ­al­ism are fun­da­ment­ally different:

Public rela­tions is the effort to sub­ject­ively advoc­ate agen­das on spe­cial interests’ behalf.

A fun­da­ment­al cri­tique against pub­lic rela­tions is that advocacy is an afflu­ent priv­ilege that manip­u­lates the truth.

Journalism is the effort to object­ively report the news on the pub­lic interest’s behalf.

A fun­da­ment­al cri­tique against journ­al­ism is that objectiv­ity is unreal­ist­ic and the pub­lic interest heterogeneous.

But even if both pub­lic rela­tions and journ­al­ism fail to live up to their ideal states at all times, both prac­tices play vital roles in uphold­ing a bal­anced and stable democracy.

Learn more: Public Relations vs Journalism