New Journalists For The New Media

New journalists for the new media How to honorably take their minds over

What is a journalist?  „The conductor of a public journal, or one whose business it to write for a public journal; an editorial or other professional writer for a periodical” (Webster Unadbridged, 1913)  „A person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people” (Wikipedia, 2008). New journalists

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This...

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„The Journalist”, Thomas Rowlandson, 1786

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...became THIS

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Reuters Mobile Journalism Toolkit, 2008

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Then & now •

Write

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Gather

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Think

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Copy

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Speculate

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Establish facts

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Transmit

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Receive

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Phisically go to source (legwork)

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Virtually go to source or, rather,

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Goes to information

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The source gets close via e-mail, press release, CCTV etc. (fingerwork, eyework, earwork)

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Information comes to him

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Contemporary journalist News agencies ● Rolling news televisions ● Radio ● News sites ● Blogs ● E-mail ● Mobile/fixed phone (SMS, talk) ●

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Evolution The emphasis stands now on factual, and the amount of facts the journalist is to choose from is overwhelming ● The knowledge is acquired via proxy – be it the internet, radio or something else ● The journalist is color-blind - reality or realities described via words and images are faint, far-away ● Distance can be overcome but can't be erased via the „information superhighways”. ● The journalist is more dependent on his sources than his predecessors. ●

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New PR approaches: DO's Go for journalists' sources to influence journalists: blogs are easy to reach and unexpensive. Press agency journalists are valuable ● Look for attention, rather than for total control – it's very difficult simply to be published ● Be very responsive to journalists' requests, no matter how exotic or hard to fulfill they might be. You can always build something on responsivity ● Be concise. Serve the plain news - if you have none, your efforts are useless ● Intellectual flirt: disclose a small piece of info to arise journalists' curiosity ● Go multimedia – send the full pack (pictures & audio & movies) ● Look for redundancy without repetition – send your message via various channels in various forms ● Break your topic into pieces and negociate them as exclusive separately with various journalists ● Take over a broader area of a journalist's interest with neutral, newsworthy messages and then use the channel created to disseminate your own message, assuming again it's a powerful one. Become a valuable source on various topics first, and then use the attention you've got. ●

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New PR approaches: DONT'S Don't insist – journalists' patience is decreasing Don't try to bury the problem by delaying the answer. Journalists armed with mobile phones and internet are very effective in finding their info elsewhere ● Avoid „marketese”, messages stuffed with weasel words are hard to digest, at least for journalists, no matter what copywriters might think ● Never try to impose an unique form for your message. Repetition is advertising, PR is diversity ● Don't lie. You might easily fool a journalist connected to you only via optic fiber, but consequences are dire once the lie is discovered. And it shall be. ● ●

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Thank you www.comanescu.ro ● offi[email protected] ●

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