I was moderating a PR News session in Boston on communicating with journalists, and I thought it was going rather well. We had two veteran PR pros and two veteran journalists (one a broadcast journalist, the other a newspaper reporter), and we had some disagreement. The PR pros talked about the value of building relationships with journalists, and the journalists said, essentially, that they don't have enough time for relationships with their family members and old friends, let alone relationships of any kind with PR practitioners.
"Just send us something we can actually use," was their message.
Afterward, a few of the attendees were disturbed that the four speakers weren't in perfect alignment, which I found surprising. Edifying, but friendly, conflict was what I was after. That's how you get to the truth of things.
"Shouldn't they have been in sync before the session?" an attendee asked me. What I didn't tell this person was that the two journalists had in fact had the opportunity to see the PR pros' presentations ahead of time and had been asked to offer their unvarnished opinions on the PR pros' viewpoints.
The opposing messages on the podium made clear—to me, at least—that there are conflicting yet equally valuable truths about media relations. Journalists bristle at the feel-good PR lingo about "trust-based relationships" and just want to see pitches and news that's valid and useful to them. Yet, at the same time, the journalists are blind to some of the valuable relationship building at work.
In fact, the journalist who was most skeptical of relationship building was there solely because of the networking skills of one of the PR pros on the panel. She follows her own advice and belongs to every journalists' association in the region. She puts herself out there physically and, yes, builds relationships. It was through this network of relationships that she made contact with this journalist and invited him to the session in Boston. His mere presence was proof that building relationships works.
Two conflicting truths do not cancel each other out. They coexist uncomfortably side by side, making life more interesting.
—Steve Goldstein
Twitter: @SGoldsteinAI