Media relations

Media work ( or media relations ) refers to the task field of public relations, and on the provision of information to the mass media (press, radio, television and online media ), the use of electronic media for the targeted placement of own embassies as well as the production distribution of media products through organizations relates. The main claim of group media relations are journalists. The work refers explicitly to the press, is spoken of press work.

Medium to large companies and other organizations aimed specifically at the media relations departments that are part of the Communication Department in the normal case (besides the customer communications, internal communications and investor relations ). This division is often called the press office, although the work may also refer to television or radio journalists. Other facilities of the media are working press centers, for example at trade shows.

PR agencies offer as part of their service portfolio also work for media organizations, especially companies in.

Instruments

Instruments of labor are press conferences and media events journalists, press invitations and press releases. Because of the limitation of these concepts to the area of the press, is also spoken by media messages, in order to incorporate all journalists. In English-speaking thus is used instead of Press conference also news conference.

Objective and target groups

Editorial publications increase the chance that reports on the organization and thus a general relevance is achieved. In the media work the differentiation of two target groups deserve special attention. A distinction is made between recipients of media messages and journalists. Editors from all media are dependent on information from a variety of sources and only few of them are based on large editorial staffs and fixed correspondent networks. Media service providers act as intermediaries between companies and receiving editors.

Surroundings

The competitive environment is divided into four classes of providers: PR agencies, niche -specific press service Mater Services and Press Release distributors. These can differ as to the extent of their range and their alignment.

PR agencies

PR agencies are service providers whose services and revenue generated from it result primarily from activities in the field of public relations. In this they differ significantly from advertising agencies and consultancies. In general, the market vary according to service offerings, industry specializations and different strategic orientations.

Press service

The offer of the press service corresponds to the consumer-oriented public relations.

Mater services

Mater services use a very specific field of public relations. The publications are usually achieved in weekly newspapers / advertising papers and partly by paid ad spaces. The offer includes departmental and themed material that can be used as a ready- wrap printable template. The created in this kind contributions in an editorial garment can be imported directly into the page authoring program of publishers. This approach has to deal frequently with the accusation of surreptitious advertising, as is often clearly informed without journalistic initiative on companies, their products and services. Publications in editorial optics that actually are but ads must be appropriately labeled, to distinguish it clearly from editorial work.

Press Release Distributors

Under Press Release distributors are companies that specialize solely in the delivery of the company's own press releases. That is, there are no changes made to the press releases made , but only assumed the dissemination of these texts to the media.

A business model is to offer information portals on the Internet, in which press releases can be placed.

Criticism of the press work

The cooperation between the media and the press service is often frowned upon by critics and interpreted as surreptitious advertising. The German Press Council has written in this regard a decision by a specification makes the following within its statutes in Directive 7.2: " The responsibility of the press to the public dictates that editorial publications not by private or business interests of third parties, or by personal economic interests of journalists and journalists are affected. Publishers and editors defend against such attempts and make a clear separation between editorial text and publications for commercial purposes. For publications relating to a self-interest of the publisher, this must be recognizable. " Surreptitious advertising is defined in this sense as information that goes beyond a vested public interest as well as an interest in information of the readers. The boundaries between justified reader interest and surreptitious have become increasingly blurred and the liability of the publishing guidelines of the German Press Council is indeterminate. In the context of consumer-oriented public relations advertising-free products are sought that include the journalistic categories timeliness and soundness of information as a guideline. The articles should indicate to the reader that they are objective and self- researched and clearly are distinguishable from advertising.