As a program manager for a major market station we had a complete plan in place to promote the station, reach an audience, plan events, tweak it along the way, use quarterly ratings as one measue of success, hold stakeholder meetings, plan promotional campaigns for the station and just about every other element you can think of when trying to do a bang-up PR job. All the tactics were there from print to radio to TV, live events, and partners to help us achieve our goals and it had to be done on time and on budget with a mix of in-house and out-sourced creative. Online content had to mesh with on-air, the brand had to be consistent, and our image as a journalist leader kept intact.

All it took was a Ouija Board, a pair of dice, some glue, paper, and a few crayons and I had a plan for the station.

And I would never dream of turning down a ohance to noodle around the results over a beer !

Mike

P.S. An Aussie woman just mopped up in women’s Olympic aerials. Who knew you could play so well on our snow !

I think your definition of a ’strategy’ is different to what an holistic public relations/communication strategy is, but that might take some nutting out over a beer somewhere! Don’t forget, the main point I am making is that ex-journos should not be parachuted into the head of the PR function role. They don’t have the conceptual or practical training to do the job effectively.

Ex-journos can make great PR professionals! See a post going live in the next 24 hours pointing out some reasons why this is the case.

It was probably also a good idea I sat down and thought it through because as an ex-journalist I took issue with many of the comments and now as a PR person found some of the tone quite dismissive.
In a nutshell, a good, seasoned and successful journalist is all about the qualities that make for a good PR person. They have to know about audiences, respect them, know how to tell them a story, and how to have them asking for more.
If the journalist moves up in the ranks to a senior level he or she knows how to manage and develop a strategy because You can’t grow a readership or audience without one.
Journalists (the good ones) don’t closet themselve in a cubicle and tell the world what they think they should know, they figure out what matters to people and actually try to make a difference by laying out the facts for people to make decisions or expand their world view.
In the end I really like Craig Badings response that “it depends on the person”.

So let’s not generalize to the point where we have ‘journalists can’ or ‘journalists cannot’ do the job. It depends.

Mike

I think it is totally dependent on the person. There are many great PR names out there who are ex journalists. That said, for a journalist to be parachuted into a senior comms role in an organisation is very 80s. It is a risky move given the myriad of skills required for communication professionals these days and for all the reasons so eloquently and passionately put in some of the preceding comments.