PR: How to Stay Relevant, for Dummies!

 The world of Public Relations is messy, tumultuous, and difficult to navigate. When I think of Public Relations, I usually think of people helping celebrities get out of the fire of social media or being "cancelled." I also see them as the face of most celebrities since they, like I said earlier, usually are the person who makes the statements if a celebrity is in trouble with the public. 

The problem with Public Relations, based on what I have read, is that it is difficult for PR specialists to remain relevant both in the public eye and in the PR community. The need for PR specialists comes and goes through the necessity of them, but without scandals or national issues there is no reason for them. This is why they have to do everything possible to stay relevant. 

In the article, "Seeking Relevance: PR and media during the COVID-19 pandemic," it talks about how many opportunities arose for publicists to weave their way into the media with a comment here or a comment there. The article also touches on how the pandemic opened up new avenues for publicists to specialize in that they had never heard of or tried before. It also highlights some steps on how to stay relevant and why it matters. Some of the tips included are as follows: Relevance, tools beyond words, thought leadership, leave bread crumbs, be respectful, and to remember there is a next time. These key points are meant to help publicists work well with journalists and vice versa on covering topics. 

A majority of the article also touched on why publicists need journalists just the same as journalists need publicists. Without these two working in tandem, gaps in stories could develop because of a key part of one side of a story being lost or not even being spoken. There are a good amount of topics that publicists and journalists have and will collaborate on as well as be able to help each other network to find other sources. 

These articles have come out recently to bring awareness to the drop of actual journalists and the replacement of publicists and PR representatives. This replacement has caused an alarming uptick in what is deemed "corporate journalism." This term is in reference to PR teams and representatives being the writers of major news stories and effectively dismissing the journalists as the middle men. These publicists are taking their own information and writing pieces that read like a corporate meeting letter, not a story. 

Source: Quartz

This image shows the dramatic decrease in news editors and reporters who would be considered the middle man in journalism with publicists and the news. On the same note, PR staff has had a rapid increase in recent years, and thus beginning the process of removing said middle man all together. 

This new wave of journalism can prove to be problematic because now we will not be getting full, researched stories that can cover multiple topics. Now, we as readers will be treated as consumers because of how the PR staff and the publicist write their articles. 

Finally, another article that highlighted the relevance problem with the convergence from journalists to PR representatives is the article from PRNews, "PRSA Chief Blasts Hope Hicks' Self-Confessed White Lies." This article touches on how the need for relevance and the need for attention from news organizations can lead to the use of lies and manipulation in order to garner media attention. In the article, it even states, "... lying to the media, is typically referred to as PR."

This statement is a great representation of how media works today as well. This also brings into question whether or not the wave of corporate journalism could be detrimental to the trust in media in general. If publicists and PR representatives have been lying or manipulating their ways into relevance, what is going to stop them from publishing something completely false based on the sheer fact that someone said it was true. Anyone can state a "fact" and if a PR staff writing takes it at face value, that could lead to lawsuits, bad reputations, or worse.