PR Staff Relations with the Press

Occasionally, the room where convention materials are mimeographed for distribution to delegates must double as the press room. That gives reporters the advantage of getting information as it rolls off the ma­chines—though this may not serve the interests of the public relations department. In addition, the working habits of the organization's public information staff and the working press may not coincide. So, it is best to have a separate room for each function. As we have already noted, televi­sion and print press have different needs, so it also is advantageous to set up a room separate from the print people where TV crews can store their equipment and hold electronic interviews.

It is a good idea to designate one or more members of the PR staff to be available in the press room regularly—holding briefings, providing background information, or simply hearing the suggestions and com­plaints of the reporters concerning services they need.

As far as equipment is concerned, even a minimal press room should be equipped with typewriters, telephones, typing paper, pencils, storage space, a dictionary, press kits, publicity photos, drinking water, and—if the budget permits—envelopes, stamps, and simple refreshments.

Carefully keep track of those who attend every event or press confer­ence. Good records help you decide whom to invite to your next brief­ing, press conference, or special occasion.

Be sure that each person who attends one of your organization's events has been greeted properly by a member of the organization, and either introduced to a sufficient number of other guests or provided with an identification badge. Similarly, assure that someone is at the door to offer a farewell to each guest and to determine if transportation has been arranged.

For the PR department, the event does not end as the press de­parts. Whether it was a simple news conference or a one-hundredth-anniversary ball, the next morning the staff should conduct a full review of the event's success or problems. A checklist with the names of every member of the press should be maintained to note who at­tended, who did not, and what reasons were given. Follow-up mail­ings should be ready to go within days, along with additional fact sheets in the case of a developing news story, and perhaps souvenir photographs in the case of a gala reception.

And finally, the media must be monitored to find out whether the event generated news coverage (and thus is worth repeating in the future).

Is it ever proper—or even possible—to call a news conference for the pur­pose of criticizing the press and telling it to clean up its act? Will the or­ganization that tries it regret the decision to take an adversarial stance?

Brown University's Robert A. Reichley, vice president for university relations, did just that when the media were having a field day with the story that female students at the university posed nude for photographs and were arrested on prostitution charges in an off-campus apartment. Tabloid coverage implied that Brown itself was where criminal activity took place.

The university's top spokesperson took it straight to the press in his news conference. Saying reporters had a "magnificent inability to focus on what the real issues were," he attacked the media for placing undue emphasis on the university's role in the affair. At root, he pointed out, was an ongoing belief by the media that Brown University is an un­orthodox place.

Reichley's approach worked. Most reporters were more careful of their facts in succeeding coverage, and the university got better press as a result. In this case, the intelligent demeanor of the spokesperson paid off, along with a consistent pattern of handling the press fairly, the staff also must have the authority to cut red tape and expedite ac­cess of the press to important sources.

Using Radio

Radio, the first of the electronic media, was "new" in the 1920s, when it began to offer an alternative to print information media. Subsequently, broadcast television became the novel medium—then cable and the VCR, along with the computer and the many programs and database services that turn a personal computer into a medium of mass communication.

Does that mean that radio's days are past, that the medium is a relic of a bygone era when people listened to it carefully for up-to-the-minute news and to hear events as they unfolded? Not if you think about what radio is and does today. Radio is another person talking to you. Radio is local. And the cost of radio is comparatively inexpensive per message, which permits an organization to repeat something. Radio, in other words, is a very important medium for the public relations practitioner to consider.

Let's begin our discussion of the way radio fits into the public rela­tions campaign by analyzing the formats it offers, from paid advertise­ments to public-service spots.

Paid Advertisements

If you want to dictate the precise content, time, and date of your mes­sage, you'll have to pay for advertising space. The size of your budget will determine what kinds of paid spots you can afford. It costs more to buy drive-time spots, when millions of commuters are listening to the radio, than it does to buy late-night time, when insomniacs are the main audience. It costs more to position your spots before the local news broadcast each evening than it does to buy a package deal for thirty or forty repetitions of the same spot when the radio station selects the posi­tions—perhaps guaranteeing that a certain percentage of them will fall in prime time.

Perhaps radio's greatest attribute is its utility in sudden or emer­gency situations, when it is necessary to get a quickly prepared message to the general public or specialized publics on short notice. When the air traffic controllers' union went on strike, seriously disrupting air service across the nation, the airlines quickly bought time to broadcast simple spots in which a calm and authoritative announcer explained which flights would be operating normally, which service would be curtailed, and what telephone numbers area residents should call for various types of information—one number for flight crews, another for ground per­sonnel, another for passengers with flights scheduled on that particular day, and still another number for general information.