http://www.saxton.com.au/default.asp?sd8=426
A bit out of date: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Curro

Another example is Indira Naidoo, although I’m not convinced she found her PR feet as well as Curro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Naidoo

You’re right, a journalist doesn’t operate in the space you are talking about, but they aren’t the ones suited to become a top PR person.

A media manager who drives a successful product however does that 2-way conversation more often than you’re giving us credit for.
We did stakeholder consultation with the audience all the time and some of our performance measurement objectives made it a must. It was stakeholder consultation on how we as a broadcaster were performing and serving. (Issue discussions were quite seperate) When was the last time Toyota, Nike, or the International Olympic Committee opened the door, invited people in, and said “how are we doing in fulfilling our promise to you?” And those are organizations full to the rafters with PR professionals.
Does Daily Bath & Body beauty products actually have daily meetings that includes the employees on the street and in the stores who can say “guess what I heard them say about us yesterday “.
Media does that every single day as part of a story meeting. Feedback simply never stops because as you can see from the interest in this and other blogs, everyone feels they own a piece of the media because they watch it, read it, and listen to it.
Some of that conversation is formalized like the stakeholder sessions and the rest is a lot less informal but the feedback is ongoing and in some cases instant.
I’m not lost in wonderland and know full well that media gets it wrong, doesn’t react well at times, and needs a new model to stay afloat.
Lots of industries are in the same boat though and the conversations they are engaging in are still about me,me,me but all dressed up in new ribbons and bows.
Media does get it.
They are just often pretty lousy at getting it done.

Mike

Just a couple of points, inevitably for Mike…when you talk 2-way communication I don’t think you are doing so in the spirit of two-way symmetrical communication as espoused by Grunig et al. A discussion where views are heard is not enough. At the end of the day we are talking organisational as well as stakeholder/target audience/public etc change. There is no way known that journalists operate at a strategic level in that space.

And secondly, whilst I hear the odd murmuring about journalists these days really getting the conversational nature of social media and being less broadcast-oriented, you know what, I think this view is primarily bollocks. Sure, it is changing, but ever so slowly. The media has a long way to go before it really figures this out. And maybe when it does figure it out, it will decide it can’t compete on any Murdoch-type level and will focus on other more commercially viable business opportunities.

But hey, Mike and Catherine, keep going. Love your work!

Ouch. I’m wounded.

Newspapers and newscasts are put together by a team ranging from writers to hosts to producers to technicians. It is all about the teamwork. A good editor or producer is always coaching their presenters to get the best possible performances and in some cases the bigger egos need to be treated with an even greater level of people skills to get the best performance,the best camera shot or get the print piece to tell the best story.
We don’t take them out of J-School and hope they are already the best to be let loose on the world with no care and maintenance.

In a highly creative environment full of stars, wanna be stars, and behind the glass or editorial desk talent, you better be able to coach performance and get a team moving to produce a product that is the best your group can do.
Then there are the freelancers and stringers which such a loose connection to the media outlet that it is all about coaching.
I’ll even give a little ground up on the organizational culture point, but not on coaching and teamwork.
Which brings us back to hiring policies. If HR dep’ts or CEOs hire an editor or producer without checking first to see if they had a smoothly running newsroom or production team that is a hiring issue, not a journalist vs PR issue.

(Time zones can be so valuable to slip in a final word, waiting to greet you much later.)

Cheers from Canada where we are preparing our barbs for London in 2012.

Mike

Do journalists make good managers? In my own experience…no, they don’t. Their professional experience is not one that lends itself to team work, or coaching good performance out of the people you’ve got or negotiating the best outcome when faced with opposition. They rarely understand change management and organisational cultures; their own culture is too ingrained to be left at the door. Do all PR people make great managers? No way! My worst managers were at one of the world’s largest PR agency.

BUT, I do think that the difference is actually philosophical.

Looking at the same set of facts, journalists will tend to take one view and PR people another. It’s the “glass is half full” PR attitude, and the journalists’ “the glass is half empty”. Good PR’s determination to get two way symmetric communication means that they realise the other side has to win, too. That doesn’t sit well with most of the journalists that I know. Maybe that’s why journalists and PR tend to define their mutual dependency as a cat and dog fight; two different species!

Craig: What makes you think that a good media manager isn’t experienced in 2-way communication models? A specific news item or print story is certainly 1-way. But once we got past the the early part of the last century successful audiences got to know the value of 2-way communication. By the time we hit the 80’s and 90’s 2-way was vital to figuring out what worked and what didn’t. I produced a late night phone-in show and it was SO all about community and 2-way conversation. In fact my host started each hour off with a “we’re hear to talk” type of introduction and that attitude carried on through e-mails, online, and phone calls. The station did public meetings either about specific community issues to give us a ‘news’ reading on the audience, or believe it or not, about how we were doing as broadcaster.

And to all:
If your boss doesn’t communicate well, is not well organized and doesn’t have a plan that is an HR or maybe even a governance issue. That is not a PR training vs Journalist training issue.
Or is everyone really and truly telling me that every bad experience or boss they have ever had is a journalist. If so, then I bow to you all and am humbled by the wit and wisdom of a profession blessed by having no bad ‘uns.

Mike

Carmen, my thoughts are with you. Yes, what a number of commentators on this discussion – here and in numerous other digital locations – miss is that journos are a bit aggro and condescending in general. Supercilious too. Not an attitude that washes in PR, where we are about placating, accomodation and seeking to soothe. Totally different headspaces. PR cannot afford to have too big an ego. Journos seem to thrive on it.

Sean: scholarly paper? You damn me with faint praise! (LOL) An ex-journo can of course make a great PR boss. I am an ex-journo, like you. Not that I am necessarily a grat PR boss, but points from para 1 apply here too.

(And yes, I get the capitalisation of ‘Excellent choice’….)

All the senior comms execs I’ve worked with are former journalists, most of them print-based. They, to a person, think of media relations first in any discussion of strategy. This is not necessarily a criticism, as most business execs have little understanding of the corporate communication role beyond media relations, in particular, crisis. It’s often said that successful crisis comms are where the PR folks finally gain respect from senior leadership.

Journalists know what a story is, and how to look at media with a jaundiced eye – it takes one to know one. My own radio journalism background has helped me immeasurably in my career, and my PR knowledge is entirely on-the-job.

It seems to me that it is the Excellence Theory definition of organizational PR that you’re adhering to here — a management function that is led by a manager who is a member of the dominant coalition. Journalists won’t often fit that bill — but as with many specialties, they’ve advanced to management because of technical expertise. They’re not the first and won’t be the last.

I would offer that organizations can function well with media relations-oriented comms leadership, but are nearly bereft if they don’t have that skill set. A savvy ex-journo who knows how to staff her team with strategists and specialists who fill gaps in her experience is an Excellent choice.

I’ll make the statement – going out on a limb -I don’t like reporting to former journalists.

I’m in a middle management agency role and without fail, each time I have had the pleasure of having a boss that is a former journalist – they are HORRIBLE people managers, extremely disorganized, EXCELLENT at crisis communications and MEDIOCRE at best in strategy.

I like working with them, because they keep me on my toes, but when it is crunch time their shortcomings hurt in an agency. They just do. There is more to public relations/corp comm than creating a story. In my experience, all of the former journalists I have ever worked with haven’t proven me wrong yet.

I can’t wait to meet one that can show me a different experience because that would be the holy grail for me.