New journalists

for the new media

How to honorably
take their minds over
What is a journalist?
 „The conductor of a public journal, or one whose
business it to write for a public journal; an editorial
or other professional writer for a periodical”
(Webster Unadbridged, 1913)
 „A person who practises journalism, the gathering
and dissemination of information about current
events, trends, issues and people” (Wikipedia,
2008).

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This...

• „The Journalist”, Thomas Rowlandson, 1786

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...became THIS

• Reuters Mobile Journalism Toolkit, 2008

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Then & now
• Write • Gather
• Think • Copy
• Speculate • Establish facts
• Transmit • Receive
• Phisically go to source • Virtually go to source or,
(legwork) rather,
• Goes to information • The source gets close via
e-mail, press release, CCTV
etc. (fingerwork, eyework,
earwork)
• Information comes to him
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Contemporary journalist
News agencies
●

●
Rolling news televisions
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Radio

+ News sites
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Blogs
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E-mail
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Mobile/fixed phone
(SMS, talk)

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Evolution
●
The emphasis stands now on factual, and the amount of facts the
journalist is to choose from is overwhelming
●
The knowledge is acquired via proxy – be it the internet, radio or
something else
●
The journalist is color-blind - reality or realities described via words and
images are faint, far-away
●
Distance can be overcome but can't be erased via the „information
superhighways”.
●
The journalist is more dependent on his sources than his predecessors.

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New PR approaches: DO's
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Go for journalists' sources to influence journalists: blogs are easy to reach and unexpensive. Press
agency journalists are valuable
●
Look for attention, rather than for total control – it's very difficult simply to be published
●
Be very responsive to journalists' requests, no matter how exotic or hard to fulfill they might be. You
can always build something on responsivity
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Be concise. Serve the plain news - if you have none, your efforts are useless
●
Intellectual flirt: disclose a small piece of info to arise journalists' curiosity
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Go multimedia – send the full pack (pictures & audio & movies)
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Look for redundancy without repetition – send your message via various channels in various forms
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Break your topic into pieces and negociate them as exclusive separately with various journalists
●
Take over a broader area of a journalist's interest with neutral, newsworthy messages and then use
the channel created to disseminate your own message, assuming again it's a powerful one. Become a
valuable source on various topics first, and then use the attention you've got.

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New PR approaches: DONT'S
●
Don't insist – journalists' patience is decreasing
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Don't try to bury the problem by delaying the answer. Journalists armed with
mobile phones and internet are very effective in finding their info elsewhere
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Avoid „marketese”, messages stuffed with weasel words are hard to digest,
at least for journalists, no matter what copywriters might think
●
Never try to impose an unique form for your message. Repetition is
advertising, PR is diversity
●
Don't lie. You might easily fool a journalist connected to you only via optic fiber,
but consequences are dire once the lie is discovered. And it shall be.

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Thank you
●
www.comanescu.ro
●
office@comanescu.ro

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