The Hunter and the Prey
The PR hunter stalks its prey,
carefully researching the prey’s deadlines, personal schedules, and preferred
form of communication. The perfectly crafted news release quivers in the box,
waiting anxiously to hit its mark. All the while the PR hunter waits for the
perfect opening before–BAM! The pitch blows up in the hunters face. The pitch
lacked the substance and the strength to hit is mark and the hunter falls back
to re-group for the next shot.
Suddenly, the prey picks up a bow
of its own. The string pulled taunt, the arrow dipped in questions, and the aim
precise. The hunter takes a direct hit, stumbles and then falls under the sheer power of the informational over-load packed into the
shot. Unprepared for the turn of events the PR hunter dies, a slow painfully
unemployed death.
According to an article in the
Journal of Public Relations Research titled: Media Catching and the Journalist-Public
Relations Practitioner Relationship: How Social Media are Changing the Practice
of Media Relations (wow, that’s a mouth-full), the traditional form of pitching
has become old-school. No longer termed media pitching, now it’s
media-catching.
While the authors agree the most
vital component of the journalist-practitioners’ relationship is open, two-way
communication, they see the individual’s roles shifting. In fact Toddb Drefen, a principal at SHIFT
Communications, created a social media press release “to allow for readers and
observers to interact, contribute, and build on the content presented by
organizations”. Drefen viewed the traditional news release as ‘‘the banal,
unhelpful, cookie-cutter press releases of yore (that) have outlived their
pre-Internet usefulness."
The article examined how the
increase of social media has made the journalists’ job easier. No longer do
they need to wait for the PR practitioner to draft a news release, telling the journalist
what is important. Now the journalist can Google a topic, look on a website,
and decide what information they want. Then journalist can decide if they want
more information and if so will contact the PR practitioner directly. If the
practitioner isn’t ready, the journalist may find other sources for their story.
What does that mean for us? The
same core principles and skills apply, just the hand-off changed. Being
prepared, the paramount skill required, allows for easier adaption and
reaction. The article discusses the practitioners’ need to focus on all the
social media outlets used by the client and make sure the information they want
to share is clear, updated, and manageable.
The most important aspect of the
article is understanding something Bob Dylan knew, The Times They are a-Changin.
The PR practitioner once owned the message, spent time crafting it into a
perfectly worded masterpiece, and deploying it only to those found worthy. Now
the message needs to always be on stand-by, ready to be fired at will.
And so, the
hunter became the hunted. Does extinction lay in the future or will evolution
create a stronger, faster, more nimble PR practitioner ready to handle the next
phase of media Darwinism?
