Give and Take: Public Relations and Journalism

Bob Speer - News Editor, Chico News and Review

We will sometimes take a press release, rewrite it, maybe make a phone call, add a little bit to it and do it as a short news item. And usually in that situation we use maybe a quarter, or a fifth of the original release. We're just culling the really meaty part of it, if its newsworthy and it often is. You get press releases from the district attorney's office, or the local hospital, or the school district and they're newsworthy.

Shana Daum - Director of Public Affairs and Community Relations, San Francisco Giants

I think for so long the relationship between the publicist and the journalist was often one that maybe was contentious, maybe twenty, twenty-five years ago. I don't think that is any longer the case. I really think the publicist needs the journalist, the journalist needs the publicist. And I think there's a much better understanding of how the two work because you see so many journalists going in to public relations where at one time it was kind of taboo. Where now, we all benefit by working together.

Bob Speer

My experience is that former journalists makes the best ones because they understand what a journalist wants. So people who understand how journalism works, we get back to you quickly, realize you're under deadline pressure, who can write a good informative press release, those are the best ones.

Mickey Huff - Project Censored

The same people in this country that sell toothpaste are the same people that elect presidents. They're the same people that sell something. If I'm selling a widget, or I'm selling an ideology. I mean, that's back in turn of the twentieth century with George Creel and Eddie Bernays. I mean, that's what they were hired to do, they went from being hired to sell a product to, "I want you to sell this war. I want you to sell the overthrow of the Guatemalan government." Eddie Bernays did for United Fruit.

Shana Daum

That's not what this industry is about. I think the people in this industry that, the professionals, that have...I keep using the word integrity...are those that understand the importance of communication and if you use it right, how beneficial it can be for your organization. As an organization when you're faced with controversy, or a crisis communication type of event, you always hear the publicist has got to put the positive spin on it and make it look good. But I think, that always I cringe when I hear that positive spin because not everything you can put a positive spin on. And I think that you have to really determine the situation and you have to be honest. The way that we've gone about it here is we know at the Giants we've definitely been in the firestorm of a lot of recent controversy with usage of steroids in major league baseball that as long as we can protect and lose the integrity of the Giants. And, you know, we all made mistakes. We all made mistakes and hopefully we all learn from those mistakes and as an organization and an industry will move on, and we are moving on.

Dino Corbin - Partner and General Manager, Deer Creek Broadcasting

Part of public relations also decides mitigating issues that they may have to deal with that happen to a team are some of the positive aspects of using your business to make the world a better place to live.

Shana Daum

You don't just do community relations for the publicity. You do it because it's the right thing to do, and then you tell your story if you're making a difference. We have this unique power to reach people with important messages and as an organization, and I'd say major league baseball as an industry, realizes that and embraces working with community groups to give them a voice.