Week 8 Readings

'To Contact...or Not?: Investigating journalists' assessments of public relations subsidies and contact preferences' By Sallot, M. & Johnston, A.

'Writing a Media Release' chapter in The new Australian and New Zealand public relations manual, edited By Tymson, C., Lazar, P. & Lazar,R.

I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were...
The key points from the 'To Contact...or Not?' reading was that public relations practitioners need to adjust their strategic plan to utilize the growing capabilities of the internet. These capabilities not only allow for more direct communication with your audiences, but particularly the media. It is now common practise for there to be specific sections of a company website, solely devoted to communicating with the media. This is particularly important when 70% of journalists saying that the first place they search for information is the company's website. However many say that these tools are still not being used to their full potential and that public relations officers need to be learning and using these new skills.

The key points for the 'Writing a Media Release' chapter were how to best frame your media release to communicate with the media. Using journalist tools of timeliness, relevance, public interest, novelty, achievement, human interest or celebrity will make it more likely that a journalist will use your media release, as you have followed the journalist style and this makes it more appealing for journalists, as it means less work for them if your piece already suits the media outlet's criteria.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that
The 'Writing a Media Release' Chapter made me think more about the practical side of public relations, because the style of your media release and the way the information is framed can make the difference between your story being run or not. This chapter also linked back to the 'To contact...or not?' reading because it looks at the positives and negatives of emailing the media.