Chapter 10

After reading this chapter on public relation I got a better understanding of what media relations actually means and how is it implied. Media relations is known by the fact that it can be seen – that would mean when the PR team deals with media the outcomes can be seen. Media relations are performed while handling a crisis or contacts are required with the media to sponsor a special event or getting full media coverage. Media relations also might mean dealing with media personals or even national events. One important fact that the chapter pointed out is that media dose have power and it should never be used in a wrong way also it should never be under-estimated.
Media seems to be all about how much monopoly a company has over a certain public. Bug businesses having more power over the public would mean having more control over what the public know. But this has also lead to debates about cross-media ownership and even foreign-ownerships, the debate would be about how much media is ok for just one company to control. This has usually resulted in wanting diversity, regulations and technological coverage to be included. Although there are not many players but still media seems to grow in both publications and the broadcasting segment.
In the 1900s Habermas stated that ‘PR has become one of the most important influences on journalism as it is now practice. I believe that is true as more and more news stories have had some involvement with the PR teams. But as I found out PR is not only the ones influencing the media, media also influences the way PR is dealt with. Research needs to be done to be able to stay up to date with the current happenings around the town, nation or the industry. To be able to do this media monitoring is needed which can be done by reading, watching or even listening to the media everyday. The relationship between media and the PR is about having to be able to help each other.
Simple facts that make news:
Impact, conflict, timeliness, proximity, prominence, currency, human interest, the unusual and last but not least money.
if a PR practitioner is dealing with the media it is very important to know that media in particular. This would mean knowing their deadlines; there is no point having braking news if the PR team is not able to meat the guidelines of that media outlet and cant reach the in time to make it into the 9’o clock news. It is also very important to know who is in the media department; such as the editor and chief photographers or even the reporters. Different media rep. have different styles it should be known by the PR team what type of what is their style and what do they like dealing with before storming them with a story. It is vital to know the target audience, no point writing a juicy celebrity gossip for 4 year olds. There are many media tools available PR teem should use these communication methods to deal with the different media reps that they deal with in their day to day work. There are media kits which includes fact sheets, background information, feature articles and profiles this helps the job to be easier so that there is no need to start from scratch.
Last media relations point that the chapter talks about is media conferences. This allows the press to have a better idea about a story or have further information out to the media. It gives details about whom to invite to the conference, where to hold it, how to invite the press, and when to hold the conference.
The relation between media and the PR department is a curtail element. To deal with media the PR practitioners should be up to date with current happenings; they also need to use their interpersonal skills to deal with the media. but the most important attributes to having a successful relation is to plan, organize, and having a good grip over writing.

Chapter 4 & 5

First of all I would like to say that chapter 4 was the most difficult chapter I have come across so far. But after reading the topic about legal environments I did not know that legal rights were such a big deal for the public relation team, but the chapter has clearly shown how important laws are to PR practitioners. I understood that law is a big part of public relation practitioners in their day to day work.

In chapter 5 the author has tried to explain about how ethics is related to public relations. More and more organizations are making sure that they have good ethics both inside and outside their organisation. It is a must for the community to see a company is acting ethically or else they would not buy their products. Therefor more organizations are now paying attention to the ethical standards they have.

Law is something that sets the rules on how people are to treat people and conduct their way of doing business. It is an individual’s job to make sure he/she knows who they are to be in the bounds of the law because if the law is broken things might get very difficult. So to be able to play safe people need to come up with strategies to minimize their chance of taking a legal risk. As mentioned by the author PR is about communication, counseling/advising and managing the business but al these needs to be done in a way where legal risks are evaluated and strategies are planed to manage them. PR practitioners should be aware of the law protecting the administrative justice. As we all know PR is a job that includes a lot of creative work that would be an asset to the organizations, thus to keep it from being copied by others actions needs to be taken in other words law needs to be used as copyrights or property law.

The decision that the public relations team makes needs to be in context with the legal environment, and there should be assigning of the risks involved as public relations relies on trust, honesty and having a positive image. They need to find out how harm can be minimized by negotiating strategies with their lawyers. One important fact that all of us need to keep in our minds is to protect our reputations, be it a company or person, as legal issues can affect o at some point damage reputations and relationships. So to avoid this from happening the PR team needs to work from the beginning by paying attentions in the way they are promoting a product or in an advertising campaign. Many times when companies have a damage control situation they look at the PR department to fix their problem. At the same time it is the PR team’s job to be well aware of the legal rights of the case or client they get involved with.
If a case dose get to court there is the contempt of court that needs to be followed. This states what can be published or even how people are to conduct themselves in court. At tat point PR practitioners are to inform their clients on how to handle press and make sure they don’t give out a judgmental statement that can be used against them in court.
Properties in public relations are known as real, personal and intellectual. Real property is referred to land or fixed assets, pr needs to look into this rights with they wanted to get into a property or do a show at a location. Personal property includes things like cars or office equipments. This is not that important but if needed ca be shows as the proof of ownership. Intellectual property law protects the property right in the creative segment. Copyright is an important factor when comes to creativity, no one would want their own idea being used by their rive organization. Thus it protects and gives the rights the owners for their work. So f someone wants to put something on the internet they would need to get the permission of the copyright owner.
Contracts in the public relations are a way of defining relationships. This would be employing a staff or ordering from suppliers. Contrasts are usually stander unless additional information is required. As businesses are becoming global so is the public relations legal environment and this is increasing a form of electronic contacts. Be it electronic or traditional form, contracts are good ways of setting the barriers on how the business is to be conducted and it also helps in clearing up any uncertainty.
Public relations must work within the legal and ethical environment. By do so they need to have a good systematic way of dealing with the law and the ethical standerts they follow. If this is achieved they would surely reduce they chance of getting into a real legal mess or losing customers from bad publicity.

Chapter 11

Internal and community relations are two important factors to public relation. As told in the chapter these two areas are ‘highly valued by organizations’ and considered as the 1st and 2nd priority for public relation for the organization. I would shave to agree with the author, if employees and the audience are not happy with the organization’s work there is surely to be some bad word out about them.

“Trust, honesty and community” are values that public relations need to embrace. It is very important for organizations to communicate with their internal audience (employees) and make sure that they are aware of the happenings. Research has shown that if employees know what they have to do to achieve a goal they would work hard to get it done. On the other hand if an employee has no clue about what they are doing for the organization they would be unhappy and this would act as a major disadvantage for the company. It is not good enough if organizations say that they care for their employees it has to be shown.

The internal publics are known as the organizations employees and association’s members. Organizations have people who are working to achieve the organizations stated goals so if these people do not get credit or get noticed for the job they are doing, they are not going to be very happy. Without them organizations will have no culture and will have a hard time to reach targets in a organized way. Now the employees of a company are not only the full time staff it also consists of the part time members, one bad word from anyone and the company might suffer. This is not just a statement but this has happened before unhappy members of the organization might just go to the press and say something bad or tamper with the products of the company which would result as a major damage for the organization. This can be avoided by circulating information and spreading knowledge to the employees. It is sometimes important to have a good communication with union leaders and representatives. To build a strong relation with employees a key fact would be trust, one way is to communicate the information and another would be to involve them in decision making. With introductions to new technology it has become easier to communicate but seems like the old face to face formula is still the most effective way to communicate. There are also other ways to keep employees happy and informed:
Newsletters
Notice board
Memos
Awards
Events
Intranet
Interpersonal communication

Community is also an important part of public relation. If the public is not happy they might not purchase the service or product of that company. So raising community actions groups can work for the community relations program. This can be archived by consultations; here the company would build a two way relation with their community. Another way would by filling the gap by communicating with their audience and giving out information. They would also scan the environment; this means they would gather information on what the community actually thinks of the organization and how they would improve. If al this dose not work negotiation can be use to come to an understanding between the organization and the community.

In this chapter the author was able to show a clear picture as to how important internal and community relations are to public relations. It once again has made me understood that PR is a very vast with many areas to the job but as a PR practitioners it is their job to make sure all is well inside and outside of the company. This would mean to have a good communicative way with the internal and community audience. Like the author has said “strong internal relations will serve to enhance the organization’s overall operations and outcomes.

confusion:

daer melanie

i got confused about which chapter to study this week, so mistakenly i did chapter 7. I will read chapter 11 asap and post my blog. sorry for the confusion!

maleeha