Can you spot successful media relations efforts?

One of the most popular and exciting aspects of public relations is "media relations," the broad process of working with the mass media to generate publicity for people, organizations, causes, or events. And, among public relations practitioners, it's almost axiomatic that effective media relations efforts will generate positive media coverage. If this is, indeed, true, how obvious are the results of these efforts? Can you readily spot news stories that were triggered by a public relations practitioner rather than being the unprompted and unsolicted reporting of the news staff?

If you haven't thought about this before, I'm hoping this article will prompt you to think about it now. And, even more than thinking about it, I hoping you'll be prompted to begin looking for evidence of media relations each day as you read, watch, and listen to the news media. There are at least two distinct benefits of this type of observation.

1. You become more aware of just how much of the content of the major news media actually derives from public relations sources. -- Most studies report an average of about 50 percent.
2. By paying careful attention to the stories about organizations similar to yours, you may pick up tips that will make your own efforts at getting media coverage more successful.

Admittedly, there's some guess work involved in this type of analysis, but it will probably be much easier than you expect once you get used to doing it. By carefully studying the news coverage you normally attend to any way, you should soon spot clues that suggest some of the stories were provided in their entirety as "news releases" or were otherwise pitched, planted or cultivated by a public relations person who wanted them to appear in the media.

Some clues are more obvious than others. Here are a few you can begin looking for in any news story in any medium.

• The story may actually say information came from a news conference, press briefing, or other special event. Or, without being that specific, the story could refer to information that was "announced today" or to a report that "was recently released."
• There may be quotes attributed to a spokesperson or other public relations practitioner. But, don't jump to conclusions about this. It's possible that the reporter asked the PR person for a quote, but it doesn't happen often. Lots of reporters will ask PR people to provide them with an informed source, they usually want quotes from those sources, not from the PR person. Good reporters usually prefer to talk to directly involved subject matter experts -- engineers, accountants, sales managers, police officers, or line executives -- rather than a designated spokesperson.
• The story might refer to "an exclusive interview" or describe internal workings of an organization (physical or procedural) that could not have been obtained without special access or inside information.
• You might have seen essentially identical stories -- not simply different stories about the same event -- in more than one news medium.
• A story that doesn't directly focus on a particular company but which, nonetheless, quotes several people employed by that company might have originated as a release from that company. For example, a story about volunteerism in the local community in which 5 of the 7 volunteers who are interviewed work for the XYZ Company could very well have been orginated as a feature release by XYZ's public relations department.
• A story which quotes only one or two people but which includes unusually long quotes, especially "warm and fuzzy," vapid, or up-beat and glowing ones, might also have originated as a release.
• In trade magazines or special sections of a newspaper (e.g., an annual home improvement section), a story about a new product that just happens to appear on the same page as an ad for that product may be more than a coincidence. There's a good chance the story originated as a release or a pitched idea that ended up as a placement because of the ad.

Remember, these are only clues and should be thought of as such. Sometimes a story originated by the media without any public relations involvement can come out looking like those cited above. That doesn't matter. What's important is to remember that there is nothing wrong with any of these practices from a public relations standpoint. Favorable news coverage is one of the most desired goals of all public relations practitioners and their clients, and it's almost impossible to go wrong by getting positive media coverage.

On the other hand, there are hard-core, traditional journalists who might consider some of these practices "lazy" or less than ideal from a journalism perspective. They might even consider a reporter who uses them to be unethical or to have violated journalistic standards. So, to avoid offending such people and to be sure you don't cast helpful and friendly reporters in a bad light in their colleagues' eyes, it may be best to not talk about any of this in the presence of reporters, editors or other media people.

For further discussion of media relations see Working with the media and other related articles in my Online readings in public relations.