2. What is a journalist?
„The conductor of a public journal, or one whose
business it to write for a public journal; an editorial
or other professional writer for a periodical”
(Webster Unadbridged, 1913)
„A person who practises journalism, the gathering
and dissemination of information about current
events, trends, issues and people” (Wikipedia,
2008).
New journalists 2
3. This...
• „The Journalist”, Thomas Rowlandson, 1786
New journalists 3
4. ...became THIS
• Reuters Mobile Journalism Toolkit, 2008
New journalists 4
5. Then & now
• Write • Gather
• Think • Copy
• Speculate • Establish facts
• Transmit • Receive
• Phisically go to source • Virtually go to source or,
(legwork) rather,
• Goes to information • The source gets close via
e-mail, press release, CCTV
etc. (fingerwork, eyework,
earwork)
• Information comes to him
New journalists 5
6. Contemporary journalist
News agencies
●
●
Rolling news televisions
●
Radio
+ News sites
●
●
Blogs
●
E-mail
●
Mobile/fixed phone
(SMS, talk)
New journalists 6
7. Evolution
●
The emphasis stands now on factual, and the amount of facts the
journalist is to choose from is overwhelming
●
The knowledge is acquired via proxy – be it the internet, radio or
something else
●
The journalist is color-blind - reality or realities described via words and
images are faint, far-away
●
Distance can be overcome but can't be erased via the „information
superhighways”.
●
The journalist is more dependent on his sources than his predecessors.
New journalists 7
8. New PR approaches: DO's
●
Go for journalists' sources to influence journalists: blogs are easy to reach and unexpensive. Press
agency journalists are valuable
●
Look for attention, rather than for total control – it's very difficult simply to be published
●
Be very responsive to journalists' requests, no matter how exotic or hard to fulfill they might be. You
can always build something on responsivity
●
Be concise. Serve the plain news - if you have none, your efforts are useless
●
Intellectual flirt: disclose a small piece of info to arise journalists' curiosity
●
Go multimedia – send the full pack (pictures & audio & movies)
●
Look for redundancy without repetition – send your message via various channels in various forms
●
Break your topic into pieces and negociate them as exclusive separately with various journalists
●
Take over a broader area of a journalist's interest with neutral, newsworthy messages and then use
the channel created to disseminate your own message, assuming again it's a powerful one. Become a
valuable source on various topics first, and then use the attention you've got.
New journalists 8
9. New PR approaches: DONT'S
●
Don't insist – journalists' patience is decreasing
●
Don't try to bury the problem by delaying the answer. Journalists armed with
mobile phones and internet are very effective in finding their info elsewhere
●
Avoid „marketese”, messages stuffed with weasel words are hard to digest,
at least for journalists, no matter what copywriters might think
●
Never try to impose an unique form for your message. Repetition is
advertising, PR is diversity
●
Don't lie. You might easily fool a journalist connected to you only via optic fiber,
but consequences are dire once the lie is discovered. And it shall be.
New journalists 9
10. Thank you
●
www.comanescu.ro
●
office@comanescu.ro
New journalists 10