Читать книгу The Bonner Business Series – Media Relations - Allan Bonner - Страница 7

What we think of ourselves isn’t the same as what others think of us. It’s the same with companies, organizations and institutions.

Even insiders can have different views of an organization. Managers and employees are often at odds. Now broaden the frame of the picture to include customers, shareholders, competitors, suppliers, regulators, plant neighbours, financial analysts, fired employees and their dependents.

At any given time there may be several different assessments of the organization ranging from “wonderful” to “awful.” Often these views balance out. Occasionally one becomes more noticeable than the other. If it’s a positive view, everyone’s happy and the organization prospers. But if it’s negative, heads may roll and the organization may lose stature and money.

Because the news media appears to be so preoccupied with the bad stuff, most people are wary of it. Indeed, news organizations are often accused of ignoring the good to concentrate on the bad, even if the bad makes up a very small part of the whole.

Well, yes. Who, after all, is going to rush out and buy a newspaper or tune into a radio or TV program to learn that everything worked the way it should that day? Reporters and news outlets focus on things that break down, crash or fail through accident or design — because that is what people are interested in. It sells newspapers and swells audiences.

However, interspersed with all the bad stuff there’s also a range of other material. Some of this material is good, some contentious and some of interest only to certain people. This is the “news” area that provides most of the public relations opportunities for people and organizations to tell others about their goals, their products or their beliefs. Unfortunately it also contains pitfalls for the unwary.

A company may be delighted to attract the attention of a major news outlet because it uses a revolutionary production technique only to find the story that appears is about the preponderance of women on the shop floor and the preponderance of men in the board room. Could this have been prevented?

There are no guarantees that organizations and people will always get positive news coverage. Even Mother Theresa had some critics. But it is possible to influence the balance of coverage by:

•Analyzing your situation: identifying weak spots as well as the strong

•Arming yourself with plenty of positive information

•Being prepared to answer difficult questions as well as easy ones

•Knowing something about the news people you are talking to