Title------Critically examine both the tensions and shared interests in the relationship between public relations practitioners and journalists.
As public relations and journalism, the PR practitioners and the journalist are always related to each other nowadays. Both of them are important factors of the modern mass media, which aim to influence public opinions since the early twentieth century (Coombs and Holladay, 2010). In order to sharp citizen’s opinions, Charron(1989) mentions that the PR practitioners and journalists often prefer to work together and share information as cooperation. The dependent relationship, as Coombs (2010) explains, the PR practitioners scheme to cover through media, while the journalists are exploiting…show more content… From my point of view, the weak image of PR people is significant among journalists, for instance, some reporters regard PR people as the “pet peeves” (Hoffer, 2004:5) for two reasons: 1) the journalists are always disturbed by the calls and emails from PR people no matter the topic is necessary or not; 2) the PR practitioners’ request of signature on the print set the journalist’s nerves on edge. The attitudes of journalists, possibly are the reasons that several agreements are reached among separate media in some exceptional circumstances, so that the PR strategies will be avoided (Charron, 1989) .
PR practitioners, however, who vigorously deal with the information without interpretation or subreption, often feel disappointed and innocent when they are misunderstood by journalists, for instance, sometimes journalists may complain no well-edited stories in PR practitioners’ hands and take PR as an obstruction for granted (Butterick, 2011). The PR interviewees in Charron’ research (ibid, 1989), explain that PR officers are prefer to influence the journalists. For example, the PR officers use their resources to convene a crucial press conference extremely close the deadline of journalists, obviously it is hard to report news without PR’s materials. As a consequence, some journalists may report the PR practitioners’ views directly. Furthermore, providing “information subsidies” (Gandy, 1982) is another way for PR
