Journalism vs PR: A Tense Relationship

Journalism vs PR — how does it work?

Journalism and PR are close, yet so far apart.

But how?

Here we go:

Journalism vs PR: The Difference

Journalism vs Public Relations

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

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

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

Public Relations is the effort to advoc­ate pos­i­tions on behalf of spe­cial interests sub­ject­ively.

A fun­da­ment­al cri­tique against pub­lic rela­tions is that advocacy of spe­cial interests is manip­u­la­tion by the affluent.

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

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Why Journalists Sometimes Dislike PR

Journalists have plenty of reas­ons to dis­like PR professionals:

Why Journalists Seek PR Careers

Journalism is a harsh industry. The digit­al-first paradigm shift has hit the news media hard. In many mar­kets, schools out­put a sur­plus of journ­al­ism stu­dents, but there are few good jobs around, so the com­pet­i­tion is often fierce.

The pay isn’t great, the work is stress­ful, there are often lots of intern­al polit­ics to nav­ig­ate, and the hours typ­ic­ally aren’t great. Many journ­al­ists must hop between tem­por­ary assign­ments for years before land­ing a reas­on­ably safe position.

Despite journ­al­ists teas­ing each oth­er about con­vert­ing to the “dark side,” many journ­al­ists switch. I’ve been told this often is a per­man­ent choice since news organ­isa­tions rarely hire PR pro­fes­sion­als as journalists.

Journalists often ask me for advice: Should they switch to PR?

I often say no.
Here’s why:

When Journalists Make the Switch to PR

Many journ­al­ists have mis­lead­ing pre­con­cep­tions of what the PR industry is about. While this is per­fectly under­stand­able, it does­n’t change the fact that journ­al­ists often find PR work to be deeply disappointing.

To under­stand what a PR pro­fes­sion­al might be tasked with, I like to point to the stake­hold­er model:

Stakeholders in Public Relations

In PR, we often dis­cuss stake­hold­ers. And our PR spe­cial­isa­tions are named based on which stake­hold­ers we’re respons­ible for managing. 

“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).”
— Wikipedia

This is the stake­hold­er mod­el in PR:

• Corporate Communications = External and intern­al pub­lics, busi­ness journ­al­ists, reg­u­lat­ory insti­tu­tions, part­ners, sup­pli­ers, vendors etc.
• Investor Relations (IR) = Shareholders, fin­an­cial mar­kets, mar­ket ana­lysts, fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions, trade journ­al­ists etc.
• Media Relations = Journalists, edit­ors, influ­en­cers etc.
• Digital PR = Inbound web traffic, brand com­munit­ies, sub­scribers, fans, fol­low­ers, influ­en­cers, social net­works etc.
• Public Affairs (PA) = Voters, polit­ic­al journ­al­ists, polit­ic­al ana­lysts, colum­nists, interest groups etc.
• Lobbying = Politicians, legis­lat­ors, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, com­mit­tees influ­en­cers etc.
• Internal Communications = Coworkers, poten­tial recruits etc.
• Crisis Communications = Crisis vic­tims, wor­ried pub­lics, the gen­er­al pub­lic, cowork­ers, journ­al­ists, influ­en­cers, cus­tom­ers, share­hold­ers etc.
• Marketing PR = Potential cus­tom­ers, exist­ing cus­tom­ers, trade journ­al­ists, mem­bers, affil­i­ates etc.
• Industry PR (B2B) = B2B cli­ents, B2B pro­spects, trade journ­al­ists, trade organ­isa­tions, niche influ­en­cers etc.

Developing and main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships with vari­ous stake­hold­ers is a sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenge for PR pro­fes­sion­als since their inform­a­tion needs are typ­ic­ally very dif­fer­ent. ¹A wide­spread mis­con­cep­tion is that the PR func­tion only deals with journ­al­ists, edit­ors, and influ­en­cers (Media Relations) with­in the scope of attract­ing new cus­tom­ers (Marketing PR). But such work … Continue read­ing

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Journalists typ­ic­ally know little about cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tion in vari­ous forms. And it’s a far cry from what they once signed up for when they pur­sued a career in journalism.

The out­come is, there­fore, that ex-journ­al­ists are often tasked with full-time media rela­tions along­side more juni­or PR pro­fes­sion­als. But while their PR col­leagues advance, they’re stuck with full-time media rela­tions. Forever. 

Journalists typ­ic­ally expect media rela­tions, and if that were what all PR pro­fes­sion­als did every day, maybe that would’ve been easi­er to stom­ach. Or maybe not.

Love or hate it; media rela­tions isn’t about serving the pub­lic interest. The best media rela­tions spe­cial­ists are salespeople at heart. And spend­ing your day selling PR stor­ies to former industry col­leagues can be rough for a trained journalist.

Same Same but Different

So, journ­al­ists and PR pro­fes­sion­als share many skill sets. They’re both oper­at­ing with­in the media industry. They’re both fas­cin­ated by the news. There are dead­lines, stress, and lots of writ­ing.

But make no mis­take about it: The work is entirely different.