Clarke Caywood Ph.D.,
Professor, Medill School, Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. He is author of The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Marketing Communications, 2012. Inspired by Handbook Chapter by Smith and Caywood
One trend that suggests journalism and public relations have
a future in organizations other than traditional reporting. The trend is seen
in Technorati (2011) trends in blogging on the subjects of business and
technology. They increasingly dominate non-hobbyist sectors of the blogging
field providing journalism style content and a promised degree of journalistic
credibility. Technorati stated that
Professional Part- and Full-Time bloggers represent 18% of the total group.
Independent bloggers use blogging as a way to supplement their income, or
consider it their full-time job. Technorati also notes that corporate bloggers
make up 8% of the blogosphere. They blog as part of their full-time job or blog
full-time for a company or organization they work for. These bloggers primarily
talk about technology and business in their blogs. Thirteen percent of the
blogosphere is characterized as entrepreneurs or individuals blogging for a
company or organization they own. 84% of these bloggers blog primarily about
the industry they work in, with 46% blogging about business and 40% about
technology. http://technorati.com/social-media/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2011-introduction/http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/10/are-blogs-losing-their-authority-to-the-statusphere/globally.
http://blogs.msdn.com/alexbarn/archive/2005/10/08/478598.aspx. Blogging, twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Avatar
sites, even newspapers, magazines and broadcast will demand more outlets not
necessarily lead by traditional journalists but by a new career path of
PRournalists combining PR and journalism as modern content managers and
providers.
Public relations and journalism as “Prournalism” - First C: Content
The first issue of “who will provide content” is a
contemporary topic that is argued by surviving members of the press, by
researchers in the automated delivery of journalism and by investors in new
media systems. If a precipitous decline
in the numbers of traditional news hunters and gatherers means a relative
decline in content; then new sources for news content, information and even
entertainment content will have to be developed, staffed and supported. The
content will certainly be needed for the rapidly increasing numbers of newer
channels of communications. However,
while traditional journalistic channels are dying in some countries, they are
growing rapidly in others such as China.
The growth and demand for content includes the growth of advertising and
public relations to feed the dragon. Journalism has always been an experimenter
in new media as has public relations. From a mirror perspective, both fields
have served the public and their audiences with useful content and often
credible communication standards. Caywood and Smith in Caywood, 2012.
The future seems to be the logical placement of traditional
journalists and new journalists into a wide range of organizations from
hospitals, to NGOs, to churches, to government and politics to the largest
potential content provider - business.
New “third party journalists” may be former journalists and new crops of
young journalists able and willing to deliver content. They will likely deliver
this content from their catbird seat in many legitimate organizations with huge
quantities of digital information to share for free. Editors in surviving journalistic pipelines
may be charged with determining the credibility of the content of the wider and
wider range of content providers. This may be more proactive than simply
tossing away the past high percent of public relations generated content.
Second C: Credibility
Credible content and context may be most critical during a
crisis in any institution. Based on the research literature of the value of
communication during organizational crises, it is fair to suggest that each of
the institutions in crisis or calamity conditions would benefit from professional
communications. (Englehart in Caywood, 2012). Academic fields such as public
relations and organizational communications define themselves in thought and
practice as offering to retain, regain and maintain the reputation of
organizations and their leaders using behavior and two-way (or more)
communications.
The field of public relations is defined as “the profitable
integration of an organization’s new and continuing relationships with
stakeholders, including customers, by managing all communication contacts with
the organization that create and protect the brand and reputation of the
organization. Caywood, 1997 and 2012 (Kindle Edition 2009/2012) and “Public
relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”
PRSA, 2009,) There must be trust and credibility in that relationship. In the past decade most of our cherished
institutions have lost their credibility as defined by trust (Edelman Trust
Barometer
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79026497/2012-Edelman-Trust-Barometer-Executive-Summary)
or according to the public view (Pew Research
http://www.people-press.org/).
All institutions are loved, abhorred or not noticed by one
stakeholder group or another at some point in time. Who will speak credibly about the missions of
our social, economic, political and governmental organizations? It seems
reasonable to suggest that the students from journalism/advertising/public
relations programs with their long tradition of credibility and content
development through teaching of journalistic knowledge and skills can provide
an educated and trained source of institutional creditability and content.
United States
