 Way way back in the day. I used to work in the Radio field as an on-air personality and one of my favorite songs of all time is Drift Away by Doby Gray I think it's just an amazing song. I love it. I've loved it since I was a kid I love the the message love the harmony love everything about it And then when I was working in radio back in this this song came out in 1973 Well, even before I was born, but then in 2002 There was a remake by a guy named Uncle Cracker Uncle Cracker, I can hardly even say his name in that line because I just did not care for Uncle Cracker He's one of my least favorite musicians, but he made this remake and covered the song and it became immensely popular and we played on the air and I said to the general manager one day I hate this song I hate that he's taken this great song and and that the people are only gonna know it because you know He redid it and he said that one the general manager said to me Yeah, but people are gonna know it because he redid it because he put it out there again That song was not in front of people and nobody was ever gonna know that great song by Doby Gray until this Uncle Cracker remake came out and people heard it again and fell in love with this song again. So, you know Had to be put back in front of people and so all of this is to get around to the idea that That much the same is true in public relations Doesn't matter how good a campaign you're running doesn't matter How good your messages or how much you believe in it if nobody hears about it So we've got to use in public relations the news media to get information out We've got to have a good relationship with the news media and understand the function and how it works and how we can best use it In our public relations efforts So let's take a quick look at the news media and how it relates to our functions as public relations practitioners So a couple of first questions. We need to ask ourselves first Media relations the same thing as public relations sometimes you will say, you know, what's to say, you know You get publicity people and that's public relations and it's all media relations. Well, no, that's that's not true They're not exactly the same media relations is a part of public relations, but it's not the whole deal There are other things involved in public relations, right? So media relations is an important function of public relations It's not the whole deal, but it is a an important segment there So it's a piece of what you do in public relations The second big question we need to ask it and as a first question that we need to understand is Basically, what is the purpose of the media? What is the function? What is the purpose of the media and people will give you lots of answers? They'll say well the media is there to entertain or to persuade us or to inspire us to educate us to inform us all of These things and in fact, that's not the purpose of the media The purpose of the media is very simply to make money. We've got to remember that We've got to keep that front and center. They have a job to do they have a role to play You know stakeholders that they've got to Provide a profit for so we do need to keep in mind that as much as the media may perform those functions of Informing us and entertaining us and those types of things. Their main purpose is to make money. It is a business just like any other So they're there to make money So we need to think about what is the state of the news media as well as public relations people We need to understand. What is the state of the news medium first? Well, we need to understand that there it's in constant evolution The news media is changing. It's just like any business. It doesn't stay the same The way it performs its function and what function it provides, you know, how segmented it is now These are all parts of evolution. We've gone from you know, having a couple major networks with a one-hour news program That's fairly straightforward fairly neutral in stance to having All kinds of specific news media channels that really have a particular function in You know serving a certain audience whether that's an ultra conservative audience or ultra liberal audience or somewhere in the middle But it's very segmented now and this is a constant evolution We've gone from print media now to electronic media to social media and the role that it plays But so then the news media is in constant state of evolution. We've got to keep up with that We've got to understand what these functions are We also need to understand that the media is pervasive Not just the news media, but all media is pervasive. It is is with us all the time. We always have access to it Especially in in our in our current, um, you know, the state of technology We have access to all these things. We're being constantly bombarded by the media It is pervasive. It is a part of every aspect of our lives pretty much at all times The media also serves an important function We need to keep that in mind. They they are an important piece of this puzzle They have a role to play they serve an important strategic function for us in public relations They get our message out. They help us or they reach a particular audience. They help us identify and and craft a message for a particular audience So they they perform for us in public relations and the media and access to the news media Serves an important strategic function. It's important to remember that in the news media relationships are key The news media is made up of people and so what kind of access you have and what kind of Functions you're going to get from that news media is a is a product of the relationship that you have with the people Controlling that we talk about gatekeepers people who decide what goes on the air. What doesn't what makes it in the news What doesn't what's an audience going to hear about and what they what are they not going to hear about? That's determined by people and so we need to have relationships with the people who are creating that need to Have functional professional relationships with the people who are responsible for determining what the what's going to be Covered in the news media We also need to understand that there are ethical standards at work in the news media that the that as journalists and as public relations practitioners We should all be abiding by this this idea of first of all what is right and what is wrong and so we want to stay away from things like Like you know pay for play. We don't want to you don't be you know That's advertising when you pay for for placement or whatever we don't want it We don't want to try and bribe people in the news media We want to build those relationships But we're not going to cross those ethical boundaries and and we don't want to ask them to do that either to cross those ethical boundaries So so we need to understand that there are specific ethical standards in the news media And and if we're dealing with somebody who doesn't Subscribe to those ethical standards then we ought to question whether or not they're a good partner for us Quite honestly, so we want to seek out those people who have those ethical standards So we need to understand what the news media is about what their function is and and how that fits into What our goals are as as practitioners and public relations So best practices for the news media a couple things here. First, we want to monitor the news media We want to know what's going on. We want to develop those relationships We want to pitch to the news media. We want to help shape that agenda and understand that they shape the agenda So when we're monitoring these things, we want to just keep an eye on what's happening in the news What's going on in the world? How does that affect what we're doing? How does that affect the messaging that we bring through the news media? We have to have to develop those relationships again We use the new media develop relationships with our with our publics in public relations But also we need to develop relationships with the correct people and the correct media outlets So that we have access to those things and can get our message out effectively We also want to pitch to people when we need to learn the art of the pitch And and not only the pitch but what is going to make that pitch more Practical for the person we're pitching so when we're thinking about you know We're pitching to somebody in a in a news type thing Is this a long form or short form thing, you know type of media outlet Is this somebody who's going to have to try and get this message across in 140 characters? Or do they have an hour? Is this an hour long podcast? We need to pitch our specific agenda and let them know first of all what we're about And what we can bring to the table what we can offer because again, they've got a job to do The easier we can make that on them and the more appealing we can make it in terms of How it will affect their audience and their appeal to their audience Then the more effective that pitch is going to be so we need to be prepared to to pitch And we need to have our our ducks in a row and be able to pitch effectively to media outlets And we need to understand that the news media Shapes the agenda so we want to shape that agenda as well We want to use our message to shape the agenda toward you know positive or negative whatever it is We're trying to achieve with that campaign or just informative aspects. So we want to Consider what we want the end goal to be and then try and shape the agenda toward that So how do we go about measuring impact for things in the news media? How do we understand what our return or investment is in terms of public relations? Are we getting anything out of this of there a variety of different ways that we Can measure impact and that are used to measure impact some people do what you call advertising value Equivalence so they would say okay if we get X amount of inches in print Then that's equivalent to if we were to buy that same amount of square inch You know material in the paper then that's what we're getting out of it, right? Or if we you know we're on the air on a news show for Two minutes. Well, what would that cost us if we were to buy that? Advertising time for two minutes instead of getting it for free through that then that's the advertising value equivalent So basically it's saying what's the going rate for that media? And what are we getting although we're not paying for it? What are we getting and what would that equate to and so some people, you know, just do a straight up It's the equivalent of whatever that would cost us to to to purchase that that time or that that that that square inch Or square footage in that media. That's the advertising value equivalent So that's one way that we can go about measuring impact But some question exists as to whether that's an accurate reflection Because not all not all media time is the same and so our media impact is the same So is it really the same as if we were to purchase that advertising? And so it's not a very accurate necessarily account for that There's also been developed what we call a Barcelona principles And it's called that just because it was developed at a conference in Barcelona Years ago and so they they identified these seven elements and you can check these out They're just called the Barcelona principles that say these are the ways that we measure impact And it's a it's a more structured way to identify, you know, what's the equivalent impact of Of this public relations effort and what are we really getting out of it? So that's another kind of more structured way and probably more accurate reflection than straight up advertising value equivalents So you can check out these Barcelona principles and look at these seven things and and see how they identify How we would measure the impact of of public relations efforts Sometimes people will just go by impressions too In terms of, you know, how many people is this reaching impressions? Basically just say how many people are going to see this And and so every time if I'm promoting an organization and it's in a newspaper How many people are going to see that newspaper? That's an impression. So we measure by Impressions how much access and how much how many people are those people are going to tell and how many How much is this going to get out? It's just going to have a ripple effect And so that's what we would use for impressions again, not very scientific But but it is one way that you know some people will say well, look we got 17 mentions in this paper and those are probably going to be shared, you know through 5,000 subscriptions and those people are probably going to tell people so we've got, you know, the x amount of Impressions that we made through this one article or through this one news outlet so the real In the end though the answer is how do we measure the impact? We really don't know exactly. There's no exact scientific way to to measure Precisely what impact you're having to this public relations effort I mean, you could you could do something and a tweet goes viral and then how do you measure that? How do you measure the impact of that and and then what's the monetary equivalent of that? So we do the best we can and a Barcelona Principles Pride provides us the most structured An orderly way to do that but but really then it just depends on what your goals are too If you're just looking to get the name of your organization out Then impressions may be more valuable to you than any kind of monetary return on investment So the answer is when we're measuring impact it really just depends on the situation depends on the goals depends on What you're working towards there so What we do know though is that the news media is important to our function It's the media relations are a critical function of public relations Especially today's world where we're constantly You know in touch with the media and our and our publics are constantly in touch with the media We have to do an effective job of monitoring and to the best of our ability managing the impressions and the and the impact that we're having in that news media so It requires some of our focus and some of our effort as public relations practitioners If you have questions about the function of news media and the intersection of that with public relations Please feel free to send me an email message. I'd love to hear from you there in the meantime I hope that you will consider the function of news media and the important role that media relations plays As we look at it in the overall scope of public relations