Is PR Still About Media Relations?
My colleague to the North, Brendan Hodgson, raised an interesting point in his latest blog post yesterday pertaining to the 2008 Bulldog Awards.
Apparently there was one particular part of the brochure that left Brendan scratching his head.
“Who better to assess the work of PR professionals than the most important audience for your work? Our 20 journalist judges are tough but enthusiastic supporters of media relations excellence.”
Is PR really still primarily about media relations? Granted, I work in the digital practice of a large agency so my day-to-day experience is significantly different than most in the field but yet I’m still left to wonder if an organization such as the Bulldog Reporter should be defining our key influencers so narrowly.
I will concede that top tier media is still a major force in shifting public opinion. Whenever I present on the media food chain, I generally always show how an issue can move from an online conversation to a feature in a publication like the New York Times but that doesn’t mean that the Times is the most important part of the equation. In fact, I put much more stake in the mobile phone enthusiast who spots some information about the new Blackberry on the FCC site than someone like David Pogue or Walt Mossberg, who become the last person in the chain to report the news.
So who would be the best panel to judge an awards showcase like this? Journalists? Analysts? Consumers? Maybe it should be a mixture of all of them.
