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Why Public Relations practitioners require journalistic skills to excel
Journalists and PR experts rely on the decisions and actions of an organisation to work. The decisions and actions form the raw material for the messaging.
PR is “finding out what people like about you and doing more of it and finding out what people don’t like about you and doing less of it”. Fraser P. Seitel, The Practice of Public Relations.
Some public relations practitioners think that journalists shouldn’t venture into the field.
“A journalist is interested in conveying news while maintaining a critical distance from their subjects, while a PR practitioner is interested in developing and maintaining relationships through strategic communication,” Ms Abigael Jemutai stated in The Standard recently.
Ms Jemutai is greatly mistaken. Journalists and PR experts rely on the decisions and actions of an organisation to work. The decisions and actions form the raw material for the messaging.
Secondly, while differences exist between the journalist and the PR expert in the handling of their work, both deal with information and communication. All are engaged in gathering and conveying information about an organisation or an issue for different purposes.
The journalist and the PR student undergo nearly the same training experience. Because both deal with information and communicate it.
They both study communication from the broadest possible viewpoint. Both study the functions and effects of communication in society.
There are no communication functions for journalists different from those of PR experts.
Both the communication technologies human beings have developed over the centuries for building, maintaining and restoring relationships between individuals, within and across institutions and cultures.
The study programmes also expose students to the cultural, economic and political underpinnings of communication. The assumptions are that all communications occur in a cultural, economic and political environment. Students must appreciate this to work for and not against society.
The thrust of this article is that PR experts need the knowledge, skills, tack, and judgement of journalists to help an organisation communicate purposefully with their stakeholders. The serious business of PR is reflected in the careful messaging of issues—issues that are grounded in their value proposition and the interests of the public.
In the final analysis, public and private organisations, politicians, and businesspeople need wordsmiths. They need journalists. They need PR experts. They need people trained in journalism and media studies.