Convention of Media Organizations

I was today invited at the Convention of Media Organizations, a seminar talking about how the crisis is affecting mass media. The same issues came into discussion, the one that we have all felt from the beginning of the year.

Some numbers were mentioned:

• Advertising dropped with 35% in TV, 53% in print media and 40% in radio
• 1500 journalists were laid off (I heard that in the UK the number reached this year 3000 people)
• Salaries decries by 50% in some editorial offices
• Around 20 law suits were started, journalists against media groups

Some journalists present at the conference talked about how the Government can help in this situation, other, more pessimistic or if I may say, more realistic, said that media most not search for help from the Government, because the Government at this point has no interest to help.

The discussion turned also to the Internet, as a solution for media, and an intervention of Ciprian Stoianovici (head of news department at Radio 21 and member of The Association of Romanian Journalists) I found very intriguing. He said that the Internet will never reach the informational level as the print media reached last year, not event in 50 years. The motives are technology problems and penetration of the Internet – few use Internet in comparison with media.

Another subject Ciprian talked about was in relation with the “morgue of the Romanian media” (interesting description). Everybody expected from the crisis to divide good media from bad media (the publications with unsound involvement) – after the crisis good media would have survived. Unfortunately things look a little bit different = good media is slowly dying. He said that spring will come and find half of the media existing now. If we look at what recently happened in media, I am more than willing to believe him.

All these effects of the crisis on media have direct impact on PR. And when I say direct impact, I am thinking about the day to day communications activities but also about “media campaigns” that have as main objectives blackmail – as a tool for survival. The freedom of expression and the freedom for information have nowadays new meanings.

We are facing sad times here. Journalist are put in the impossibility to practice objective journalism (either they are forced to act in the economical advantage of the media owner or they are forced to search for other jobs), PR people must find alternative communication channels and tools to fight off hungry media and the population has less and less access to real information.

Effect of crisis on media

It started at the beginning of the year, or at least at that point it was noticeable. It got worse in summer and it continues ... the crisis has strong effects on mass media. After publications started to reduce the editorial staff, cut down salaries and any other bonuses, reduced the number of pages and focused more on online...now, mass media owners are using a management buyout solution in order for publications to survive. The discussion is more like “dear editor in chief, if you don’t buy this publication I will close it”...interesting approach, at least this is what happens now with all lifestyle publications of Realitatea Catavencu. It seems that Tabu would be difficult to save...Anyway, crisis strikes again!

The effect of the crisis on media is intensively felt by PR people as well. Now we have fewer publications to pitch our stories to, and in addition, journalists are more focused on advertising than on finding the story. It is said that 20% of journalists today are involved in signing advertising contracts. This is depressing! We see it every day, it is harder to put our story into the media, but as I told one of my colleagues yesterday: we are the lucky ones, we witness first hand these changes, we face them, and we get ahead of them.

PR in Romania is now maturing, PR people learn to be more in touch with journalists needs (or at least they should), they become more creative (because the first hand story is no longer of interest for media) and they need to find alternatives to print media, if they want coverage. Interesting times we are facing! :)

My PR bucket list

I broke the first rule of blogging – writing constantly :) I was in holiday for two weeks, and the weeks before I had no time to do this….so, as it turns out, I am not a professional blogger :)

Why am I writing in English? Because I want to talk to you about a professional bucket list, and one point on my list is “my blog to be a point for reference for students”...why not international PR students :) ?!

So, let’s talk about my PR bucket list, like in the movie with Jack Nicolson, interesting movie

1. To coordinate the communication strategy of multiple countries, inside a global company or a global PR agency
2. The be on speed dial on CEOs cell phones when it comes to crisis management
3. My blog to become a helpful support for PR students
4. To pitch a story that will be picked up by international media
5. To be the initiator of a TV show for one of my clients
6. To manage the PR for my own spa hotel

That’s it, until now. The list will probably change in time, new items will be added, and old ones will be deleted. How does your list look like? Regardless of the profession you are in...