THE relationship between Public Relations (PR) and Journalism has been highly debatable and sometimes controversial.
But Journalism and PR have a symbiotic relationship which when managed professionally cannot only benefit many organisations and news media bodies but society at large.
However, it is the abuse of the relationship between PR and Journalism that has led to some acrimony and conflict between PR and Journalism at the expense of the public which both serve.
The purpose of this article is to show the similarities, differences and relationship between PR and Journalism and, in the process, highlight how best an organisation can attract support from Journalism.
This article has been conceptualised from various media reports which reveal that some organisations resort to hiring reporters (termed PR agents) to write favourable stories for them whenever such organisations smell a rat from  some or all their PR publics.
In short, the article is reminding organisations and their PR practitioners of the need to be more strategic and pro-active in their respective operations in order to attract high and positive publicity from news media organisations.
In this article words like Journalism, mass media and news media organisations will mean one and the same thing and will be used interchangeably.
Reacting to ‘Do Passenger bus crews need PR orientations’ which appeared in the Sunday Times of Zambia on 16/2/2014, Clara in Kitwe said passenger bus crews are in dire need of PR orientation.
She added that actually passenger bus crews also needed orientation in road safety. Clara said it was unfortunate that minibus owners gave their vehicles to people who were not trained in driving and, therefore, had no driving licences. She advised passenger bus drivers to exercise more patience and to have enough rest to avoid high rates of road traffic accidents in the country.
Clara advised bus drivers to consider an English expression ‘better late than never’ when carrying passengers. “There is no need to rush and destroy many lives of innocent people,” Clara said.
She said to the best of her knowledge only a few bus services provided good PR and their crew had respect for passengers. Clara prayed that traffic police and Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) would do something to prevent people without driving licences driving vehicles with passengers.
The relationship between Journalism and PR is as old as each one of them. In fact, before PR came into being, Journalism was also doing some forms of PR. As a result, forms of PR practice have been there from time immemorial.
This is why, nowadays, one finds that most of the PR jobs are occupied by those who were trained in Journalism. It is only when PR was established and developed as a profession that some people started training in PR and are now also practicing professional PR.
Even when PR was in its infancy, it was discovered that it couldn’t perform its functions well without the news media organisations.
PR depends on Journalism to disseminate information to its various stakeholders who come from different socio-cultural and economic backgrounds. Journalism depends on PR to gather information that is in public interest for dissemination to the public.
It is from such background that PR cannot do without Journalism and vice versa. This is why it is said that PR and Journalism have a symbiotic relationship.
Moreover, to understand the relationship between Journalism and PR well, we should also consider qualities of good PR and those of Journalism.
PR is honest, objective, factual and fair. PR serves public interest. PR is also strategic and pro-active. In the process, PR promotes mutual understanding, integrity and goodwill between an organisations and its stakeholders.
Journalism is honest, objective, factual and fair. Journalism disseminates information that is in public interest. Journalism is mostly tactical.
To Journalism, dissemination of information that is in public interest is the objective. To PR dissemination of information that is in public interest to stakeholders is the means to achieve the objective of promoting mutual understanding, integrity and goodwill with stakeholders.
So when one analyses the qualities of good Journalism and those of PR, one discovers that they share the same qualities with minor differences.
Therefore, to learn that some organisations are hiring journalists as PR agents to write stories that are favourable to them makes one ask:
In which context is such a practice done?
When a journalist honestly and objectively gathers facts about a certain organisation, and is fair to the stakeholders concerned, and disseminates that information to serve public interest, then Journalism is supporting PR.
But if the concerned journalist is not honest, is subjective and is, therefore, biased against public interest through decorating an organisation with fabricated favourable information, then in this regard, Journalism is not helping PR. This is because good PR stands for the truth.
Since Journalism collects information that is newsworthy, and what is newsworthy is what is in public interest, and what is in public interest is what people want to hear, journalists can advice organisations concerned to plan strategically in order to create newsworthy information and events which they (reporters) can gather and disseminate at the right time.
Hiring reporters as PR agents is not helpful as members of the public can read between the lines that this is not PR but propaganda.
The difference between professional PR and propaganda is that the former is honest, objective, factual and fair and, therefore, promotes integrity while the latter is manipulative, disregards truth and is deceitful.
Propaganda serves the interests of the sender of the message. Therefore, propaganda, compared to professional PR, is unfair and selfish.
Fabricating information to show that an organisation is doing well is not a solution to a looming crisis.
In most cases, it appears because PR is not strategic, Journalism has no newsworthy information to disseminate.
As a result, because of poor PR planning, both an organisation and a reporter conspire to ‘cook’ a story to sound that both are working professionally.
Such an approach to PR and Journalism is unprofessional and, therefore, unethical.
Therefore, the solution to professional, effective and efficient relationship between PR and Journalism is not to fabricate information to hood-wick stakeholders that all is well. The professional approach for Journalism and PR to support each other is basically reminding
each other of what is in public interest.
This means that PR practitioners should not always resort to tactical means to come out of a perceived looming crisis but should always be strategic in their plans. This means that organisations should plan three to five years ahead on what will be newsworthy at a given time for journalists to cover and report for the benefit of an organisation concerned.
For example, Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) organised a facility visit for some stakeholders to see what the company was doing to address customers’ concerns and in the process satisfy customers’ needs and expectations. control that the firm faces. This is a good case study of being strategic in attracting support from not only Journalism but also from stakeholders.
PR and Journalism shouldn’t depart from their good qualities and core function of serving public interest.
Therefore, each time a journalist and PR practitioner are performing their duties, they should ask each other: “Is this honest, objective, factual and fair? Are we promoting mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics? Is this promoting the organisation’s integrity or is it propaganda we are doing?’
While one understands the circumstances under which most journalists and PR practitioners work, one can still emphasise on professionalism in our PR and journalism practice.
It is from this background it has been argued that PR practitioners are resident PR consultants in an organisation. PR practitioners should be objective.
They should promote a strategic and pro-active approach to the organisation’s management in relation to PR publics’ needs and expectations.
And the more the business environment becomes competitive, and the more the PR publics become enlightened about their rights and operations of an organisation concerned, the more PR practitioners and their respective organisations need to be more strategic and pro-active in their organisational management.
Such situations might demand for more professional PR practitioners and high calibre top management and chief executive officers in each organisation. The best organisations can do is to be fore-armed.
Be prepared for such status as the business environment is always dynamic. Be pro-active. Attract high calibre personnel at all levels of your organisational hierarchy to meet any unforeseen challenge (s) ahead.
When an organisation is always strategic in serving public interests, it automatically has effective media relations.
Effective media relations is not an event. It is a process. An organisation that has strategic plans according to the needs and expectations of the stakeholders at any given time is pro-active and has effective media relations because reporters are attracted to what is in public interest.
So for journalism to support PR practitioners and their respective organisations, the latter should be pro-active and strategic enough at all times.
(The author is a PR Trainer and Consultant. For comments and ideas, contact: Cell: 0967/0977 450151; E-mail:sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk)