How PR practitioners help bring out the good news

MANILA, Philippines—To add my two cents worth to the topics discussed at the 18th National Public Relations (PR) Congress, I picked up the September 21 issues of three major newspapers and scanned every section from the front pages to the back.

With a lemon-colored highlighter, I marked down every article that I believed could have originated from a PR agency or from a corporate communications department of a company.

My intention was to figure out how many stories were PR-driven and how many were not.

PR-sourced

From the three mainstream newspapers I counted more than 80 stories altogether, or some 27 stories from each, that I was sure were PR-sourced including the following:

A report about 9,000 Paco residents benefiting from a wastewater pipe project;

An article about Congress approving the P569-million OPAPP budget;

A story that Miss Philippines’ Shamcey Supsup will design a business center;

A report that the Camarines Sur Marathon has a slot for the Boston Marathon;

An announcement about the 2011 Smart Taekwondo Tilt;

A feature story about managing stress in the workplace;

A feature article about Globe Postpaid PowerSurf;

A photo caption about DRUPA visiting the Philippines;

A story on PhilHealth recognizing 54 hospitals as Centers of Excellence;

A business news about BDO issuing additional Tier2 Notes;

A headline news about San Miguel Foods joining Agrilink;

A report about SEAOIL sponsoring Franchise Asia 2011;

A news item about Mandaluyong City being a Tesda Kabalikat awardee;

An announcement about UE on its 65th Foundation;

An article about FedEx Express employees undertaking environmental projects;

A full-page story about Lepanto celebrating 75 years of responsible mining;

A story about the Korean Film Festival at SM Cinemas;

An announcement about a seminar on investability of mutual funds;

An article about EastWest Bank holding an appreciation night in Cebu;

A Cebu Pacific story about seat sales to Malaysia;

A story about UST hosting a film and literature festival;

An article about Peza officials defending pay hikes;

A story about a franchise show that is expected to generate P50 billion worth of business;

A report on Porsche’s new 911 Carrera;

A note on the DLSU fashion show: Green and Bare It;

A story about the fuel-economical Ford Fiesta;

An article about a college student who gets a free trip to Singapore;

A motoring article about 10 improvements in the 2011 Fortuner;

An article about BDO raising P3B through sale of additional debt paper;

A story about Petron urging the government to put a cap on VAT;

An announcement about the 48th PMAP Annual Conference; and

A story about a Canadian mining firm increasing its nickel estimate.

These are just a few examples of newsstories that I believe were directly PR-prompted.

Of course, I included a few articles with bylines because I know reporters appreciate sufficiently interesting “pitches” from capable PR writers who can skillfully tell stories about their client’s marketing and corporate activities.

There are obvious reasons why our daily newspapers are filled with PR-sourced articles.

Stories about a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR), vision and leadership, financial performance, workplace environment and products and services are more credible when they are written about than when they are advertised.

From advertising to PR

That explains why more and more marketing executives are moving a bigger chunk of their promotions budget from advertising to public relations.

In recent years the relationship between PR practitioners and the media has become one of cooperation and interdependence.

Editors have realized they need professional PR men to assist in delivering good news to the public. As long as there are skilled PR practitioners and reporters who are pressed for time, PR-driven news reports will be welcome at most newspapers, radio stations and television channels.

Even the large staff of big-circulated publications and highly rated broadcast networks cannot cover all the bases all the time. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Asian Wall Street Journal, GMA 7, ABS-CBN and other “information factories” welcome editorial contributions from PR practitioners.

But PR men need to understand how the press works, what the public reads and what the editors look for. They need to appreciate the lifestyle interests of each newspaper’s readers to make the power of the press work for them.

Positive stories

“When a dog bites a man, that’s not news; when a man bites a dog, that’s news,” said the late Joe P. Bautista, editor in chief of the pre-martial law Manila Times, who was our professor in newswriting at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Santo Tomas.

“That is why the majority of reporters tend to write more about man-bites-dog controversial subjects than about the good news,” Bautista said.

Positive stories such as the CSR projects of mining and energy companies are, more often than not, written by writers of PR agencies who become in effect the extension of the editorial staff of newspapers.

Of course editors still receive press releases that are clear attempts to get free ads that should have been bought and paid for. But this is getting fewer and far between.

Before the editors start their daily grind, they have to go through a pile of press releases in addition to the news items filed by their reporters.

If they can put out only eight stories in their section, you can imagine their difficulty in sorting out the mountain of stories on their desk and quickly deciding which of the stories should be published. That’s the situation the editors face every day.

It should come as a relief, therefore, that professional PR practitioners can and do contribute well written stories to newspapers and magazines.

(The author is president and CEO of Agatep Associates, a public relations firm, and group chairman of Euro RSCG Manila, a marketing services and advertising agency affiliated with Euro RSCG Worldwide.)