It’s sad because it shows how little (some) PR folks really know about and understand news organization operations, structure, exposure, employees, etc. Much of the negative comments and stereotypes here are rooted in what I’d call outdated knowledge, limited to no experience/exposure beyond college theory and/or one’s bias. Reading these comments gives me the impression far too many PR folks are stuck in a time warp. They wrongly believe we’re most valuable and greatly pigeon-hold to writing.
 
Marketing/branding/client relationship, etc., are areas with which journalists have varying degrees of experience.  Digital audience-building, online traffic growth, messaging and marketing are areas journos have a plethora of experience. In assessing and evaluating numerous corporate Websites, the latter is one area where PR folks can learn a lot from journos. I’d be rich if I charged the number of times journalists have counseled
PR folks on effective messaging, branding and other challenges. That’s
not to say these PR folks are unqualified. But I point this out to
enlighten those who are clueless to what journalists bring to the table.

If you are encountering mostly base-level reporters with limited experience or journos who did nothing but write, I could excuse some of the comments to an extent. I say that because if you’re going to post comments (huge generalizations) about a group of people, you’d better have more than tangential knowledge about the group. And good Lord, your knowledge should be accurate and current.
The best and strongest journalists have a far more diversified background shaped by choice, overall life experiences and the news organizations that have employed them.

  Misplaced is the concern journalists do not have c-level exposure,
working on teams, leading projects, managing up, negotiating,
relationship-building. Leadership is a verb, and it’s more than a title and the number of cases or stories you’ve written.  To say a top-notch journalist who has extensive amount of strategic and financial planning along with other skills can not be the head of a communications dept. or good managers  is akin to saying CEOs can only come from within a company or one industry. It’s akin to saying PR folks cannot and should not ever head a PR/Marketing department.  That just isn’t reality.

Weaknesses exist among professionals in both disciplines. But I wouldn’t narrowly define one group based upon a myopic perspective.

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’….)