Chapter 10 Johnston and Zawawi, Drew, S. (2001) Oral Presentations, Van Emden, J. and Becker, L. (2004) Speaking as part of a group.
I think the important points to remember from this week’s readings are that:
The Australian media is owned by only a few large corporations (i.e. News Corp, Fairfax, PBL) so make sure you stay onside with these guys!
One study showed that 30% of 2500 newspaper articles tracked were wholly or partially based on press releases. Of these 20% were used verbatim or only had minor changes made, showing how effective good writing skills and an understanding of writing for the media can be. (Macnamara, in Choice 1998:29)
Media relations are two way. Practitioners not only give information to the media, but they also take it, using the media to stay up-to-date with current events, opinions and trends.
Elements that make a story newsworthy are: Impact, conflict, timeliness, proximity, prominence, currency, human interest, the unusual. (Conley 2002:42)
Other elements include: sex, disaster, money, drugs, animals (Granato 1991:34), the
‘underdog’ and ideals of a ‘fair go’.
The readings made me think differently about PR practice/theory in the way that practitioners need to have an understanding of the media to make it work in their favour.
Being able to write media releases which incorporate news values and are written in the inverted-pyramid style have a much greater chance of being used by the media than releases that a journalist has to completely re-work.
It is also important to understand the hierarchy of the newsroom and only contact those relevant to your story. I.e. The finance section editor if it concerns a story to appear in the financial section of the paper.
When supplying material to each medium, each medium’s needs need to be considered i.e. television news needs VISION!
When writing for media also remember the intended audience. The media are only interested in stories that readers would be interested in.
The two readings concerning oral and group presentations gave good insight into how to approach presentations and how to engage with audiences which will hopefully be useful in two weeks!
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2 comments:
Hi Brianna
Your summary on week 7s readings were very brief and to the point, which I really like. You seem to have come up with the same points as I did in relation to monopolisation of media groups, newsroom hierachy and the structure of a media release. Good to see that we're on the same track.
Ngaio
Hi Brianna
I thought you summarised the sponsorship chapter very well, you highlighted the major points and I liked what you said about learnt from the sponsorship reading.
Sarah
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