Journalism vs Public Relations

Journalism and PR are two different things, none less important than the other. On one hand, journalists seek to cover news, whereas on the other hand PR Professionals try to get their client’s news published through journalists.

A journalist’s job is to research for stories, gather information and then file a news story of a particular beat for the organisation that they are working for. Different beats covered by reporters are crime, political, education, health, business, technology, science, international, lifestyle, entertainment etc.

A PR person’s duty is to write press releases about their clients, it can be any new idea for a story or about an event, to look for news opportunities for their clients, how to fit them in a particular story and get their coverage done. They need to craft a good press release which gains a journalist’s attention and compels him/her to publish it.

A PR person should have good media contacts, through which they can easily get coverage done and mellow down any type of negative news of their client. This leads to client satisfaction and successful PR.

In situations of crisis, in any type of an organisation, media persons rush to cover it for the simple reason that negative news catches more attention and they gain more popularity but at the same moment, it is duty of that organisation’s PR side to manage the crisis effectively and retard the journalists from publishing negative story of their client.