Media Relations

Sound media relations practices were critical to public relations campaigns long before most people even knew what a “public relations campaign” was. Mary “Mother” Jones used good media relations techniques when she traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1903 to support the textile workers' strike against the mill owners and to help focus attention on the tragedy of child labor. Mother Jones and the union organized a “March of the Mill Children” from Philadelphia to President Roosevelt's summer home on Long Island to dramatize the problem.

The marchers held press conferences, made press tours (Mother Jones and the children visited journalists to tell their story), made speeches, granted interviews, pitched feature stories to journalists, and put writers in contact with sources.

Modern media relations experts—whether in agencies, groups, corporations, or not-for-profit organizations—use these techniques, plus a few others:

• Distribute videos to Web sites and broadcast outlets.
• Ask journalists periodically about their information needs.
• Make sure journalists' names are on listservs (messages sent by electronic mail to keep interested individuals informed about an organization's activities).
• Prepare media packets (collections of leader profiles; information about the organization, group, service, or product; statistics; reports; news clippings; and similar materials).

Another modern activity—preparing managers to interact with journalists in interviews or news conferences—is a tad controversial, but it helps spokespersons to communicate more effectively. And it helps journalists because sources are prepared; they frequently bring along media packets to help journalists do their jobs.

Ethical practitioners are committed to keeping the media informed for a couple of reasons: (1) Practitioners can reach some of their publics only through the media. This is less true today, when professionals use the Internet in some instances to communicate directly with publics, than it was in 1903, when the newspaper was the only game in town. But still, some messages can be conveyed most effectively through the mass media. (2) Journalists are going to write about newsworthy groups, organizations, and individuals no matter what. They want to talk to the principals involved in newsworthy activities, because principles of objective journalism demand that, but the stories are going to be written with or without input from those involved. Good practitioners understand that it is far better to have input than not.