WEEK 4

Journalists and PR practitioners generally need each other. Journalists normally make use of PR people for story suggestions and sources. I believe that journalists actually need PR more than a PR practitioner needs a journalist. Provided that the PR person can provide something newsworthy or related to the coverage area.

As mentioned in a portion of today's lecture on tips for new relationship with journalists (as it is known that some journalists could be really nasty),

• Respond to media inquiries ASAP
• Never promise anything you can't deliver
• Always 'over-deliver'
• Always deliver on time

As you can see from the above four points, it all boils down to one thing - responsibility.
Therefore, to sum these four tips up:
To have a good relationship with journalists, first, be a responsible PR practitioner.
I guess the rest would probably follow on from there.

This week's reading - PR Ethics - is very insightful.
To be an ethically competent PR practitioner, one has to be willing to see ethics as important and also never deny the fact that ethics is a challenging area.
If ethic is all about doing the 'right' thing, should one be caught in a situation like:


Between employer's directives and public's interest, that is, then what should he/she do? So where does this employee's duty lie? I have to admit that if I were caught in that situation, I wouldn't know what to do. But then again, that is probably not a big issue for me right now because I believe that to behave ethically 'correct' in such a position should probably come with experience.

Have anyone heard of the term 'spin'?
It is a PR language and is widely used in the UK. It means spinning or twisting a bad event that has happened to an organization into a media-favorable position. This is considered unethical but it is quite impossible for a PR practitioner to not spin a story or event in favor of the client. Afterall, isn't that the role of a PR practitioner? To put its client in a good light?

Ethics oh ethics. You are one confusing thing.

WEEK 3

What is a PR strategy? And so i asked.

PR strategy, as I have understood in today's lecture, is a plan which creates and identifies new, innovative approaches to place an organisation in a good light so as to boost their image.
Well actually, apart from just boosting an organisation's image, a PR strategy can also be used to raise public awareness such as an anti-smoking campaign or perhaps an online petition against the slaughter of dolphins.

However, what makes a good (and of course, successful) PR strategy?

I personally feel that to ensure the success of a strategy, one would have to know just exactly what reporters want or need to know. Of course it would be much better if the strategy includes fitting in news of the moment, not just splashing pictures of the products and covering a whole media release about what one think is right.

(class over, ill be back to finish this up)
(now i'm back)

It is funny how the media could wrap its audiences from all walks of life around its fingers. Manipulative, evil, propagandist, dominant and so on. It is even funnier that most of these audiences, if not all, are actually aware of it but instead of steering themselves away from believing the media, they themselves fall victims.

Therefore I believe that PR is a very crucial tool to help amend these people's perceptions in more than one ways.

WEEK 2

Frankly speaking, I have never known what Public Relation was until today's lecture when we were given an introduction to what exactly a PR is and does. And because previously I haven't had the slightest idea what a PR was, I used to assume what people in this industry do - work with people. Only.
However, today, I learnt that it is actually more than just that. It is not just working with people but also working with an organisation, the public, the media, the press, the products.

From this week's reading - Understanding Twenty-first Century PR - I learn that the definition of PR varies from country to country due to cultural differences.
For example, in the States, PR is defined as the management that entails planning, research, publicity, promotion and collaborative decision making between and organisation and the public or stakeholders. However, in Asia, such as in Malaysia, PR is understood and practiced in an entirely different way due to the the governments' power and control over the media. Thus deciding what is permissible communication to the public.

Restrictions in different countries vary and therefore, creates numerous definitions of PR.