PR & Journalism – Everything changes but you

Excuse the Take That song lyric, but I was going to do a blog post on some of the best and worst examples of PR in 2012 but (a) that wasn’t very original and (b) Apple Maps was bound to feature (yawn!).  So I was delighted to see that the PR Buzzword report for 2013 had been published, which was a lot more interesting.

The report highlighted the PR jargon and practices that inflame journalists and there was a lot of chatter about it online from both PRs and journalists regarding its merits. What it did highlight is that whether we like it or not, there is still a lot of PR bad practice out there.  So it is understandable that journalists get annoyed, especially in today’s online world where they are expected to write anywhere up to 5 or 6 stories per day.  From reading the report what is clear is that beyond the age old complaints about “have you got my press release?” calls, use of language does seem to be a big bugbear.  It makes me wonder how many potentially interesting PR stories haven’t seen the light of day as a result of resembling a buzzword bingo scorecard.  So the ability to pitch stories in a way that will interest journalists remains a key skill.

That said it isn’t all one way traffic. Lorna Gozzard, blogging for PR Week, has stuck her head above the parapet to list what journalists do to annoy PRs – many of which did seem to ring true from my experiences of PR.

What is clear is that journalists and PRs still do very much have a love/hate relationship. But if things are really going to improve for the better it really does take two to tango – then again we’d all have to find something else to moan about :)