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April 2007

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Peter Parisi <[log in to unmask]>
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Wed, 4 Apr 2007 15:03:35 -0400
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A few kind words about PR

How about we talk about career possibilities for young journalists in
the current market? Goodness knows, it wants some strategizing.

The news about newspaper jobs has not been good. It has been a
consistent tale of cutting staff and closing bureaus. Then this week,
Sam Zell, an investor known as "the grave dancer," bought the Tribune
Corporation, which owns an honor roll of fine newspapers -- the Los
Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, Newsday and
others.* He is called "the grave dancer" because he buys up companies
within troubled industries, radically cuts costs, and after some few
years sells them for a big profit. He knows nothing about journalism.

Massive, nationwide layoffs of experienced journalists surely cannot
gladden the heart of young journalists like those subscribed to this
list with graduation on the near horizon. But, in  a kind of sad
irony, there may be some good news for you guys in these layoffs.
Hiring relatively low-paid newcomers fits right in with the
cost-cutting that is largely pervasive in the newspaper industry.

So it's really necessary these days to take a large view of employment
possibilities for people infected with the desire to dig up dirt and
craft compelling sentences. Which brings me to PR.

Journalists and public relations people start life in a kind of
cat-dog animosity. There's good reason for this. Journalists see
themselves as truth-tellers, who served the public gathering and
reporting the straight dope. Journalists see PR people as
spin-meisters committed to twisting the truth to benefit some specific
corporate or governmental special interest.

When you look at the situation a bit more closely, journalists are
more involved with PR people down there typical professional narrative
lets on. Estimates vary, but about three quarters of news stories have
a significant start in, or presence of, PR material. Then, you often
find highly experienced journalists going over to the PR side when
their kids' college tuition has to be paid or they're sick of toiling
for mediocre money. This might be viewed as a forgivable sellout but
it makes the point that the journalist's ability to recognize news
angles and pitch them in appealing, credible journalistic style is
fundamental to the enterprise of public relations.

But does working in PR have to be a sellout? Let's look at public
relations from a broader, media studies angle. As we all know, we live
in a media-saturated culture. The "world" we inhabit is less a
palpable physical-biological entity lying "ready-made" before our eyes
then it is a stream of images, terms, narratives that form "the
pictures in our head."

Are there not many causes  you believe in, not because you get paid to
do so, but because they resonate with your ethics and your social
concerns? Think of environmental causes, public education, welfare
rights, decent housing, a political party or any other issue that
engages you.

There are numerous nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and
other groups out there struggling to win media attention for good
causes. To do this job, you must have solid journalistic skills that
cut across media. For instance, you might need to understand, not only
how to write a credible news story but how to set up an outdoor press
conference so that light and angles are right for the TV guys. You
need to exercise imagination to create an event that will get
attention. It was progressive PR people who conceived the "sweat-shop
fashion shows" staged in front of Gap stores a few years ago, bringing
attention to the plight of underpaid and mistreated workers in the
developing world.

I would argue that this kind of communications work can be every bit
as socially beneficial as journalism. (I would admit that it is often
not very well paid.)

What should you do if you want to pursue this possibility further?

As I hope is clear by now, you don't have to enter a completely
separate track from journalism. You should first take all the
journalism that your schedule will permit and work to amass a
portfolio of clips. They would "count" for potential PR employment as
much as they would for journalism. Secondly, we offer a course on
Public Relations. Take it. Third, use some internship credits (maybe 3
-- you can count up to 12 toward your degree) to get experience doing
public relations with an organization you respect. Lastly, look for
opportunities to play a public communications role for campus clubs or
other organizations you might belong to.

It's all just a supplementary job-seeking strategy in a tough market
for people, who, like journalists, want to foster communications in
the public interest.

*Two winners of the 2006 Aronson Social Justice Journalism awards work
for papers owned by Tribune Corp. (the Los Angeles Times and the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel.) they will be on campus to accept their awards
at 5 p.m., April 17 in the Eighth Floor Faculty Dining Room of Hunter
West. In addition to discussing their wonderful work on uranium mining
on Navajo reservation land and AIDS orphans in Haiti, they will have
interesting things to say about the newspaper industry at the present
moment.

Peter Parisi, Ph.D.
Dept. of Film & Media Studies
Hunter College
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021
212-772-4949

"People don't change; they just find out who they are." -- Ray Skean

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