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?

Works Cited

Waters, R., Tindall, N., Morton, T. "Media Catching and the Jounalist-Public Practitioners Relationship: How Social Media are Changing the Practices of Media Relations." Journal of Public Relations Research, 2010: 241-264.