Lesson 6

The key points to remember from the chapter would be effective managing of media relations would produce a positive effect on both parties. What is media relations? It is effectively knowing what the media wants and giving them adequate information to maintain that line of friendship.

The term 'media' is very misleading. There can be the newspapers, magazines and internet sources that is included in the term. The different forms of media need different source feeding. Firstly, the PR practitioner must differentiate the different types of media tools that will be made available to the media. They include media releases, media kit and media conferences.

I think a media conference would be the most difficult to tackle. Getting the media to be present and sending out the various messages would be tough.
Being able to give out all the news at once and still answer the media immediately on the issues is one challenge for PR. The six scenarios identified by Wilcox and Nolte as situations for media conferences to be held are what we can observe in our society now but there are times when one of the six will take centre-stage by being the majority.

Take for example the current Malaysian elections and the it's counterpart in Taiwan. Both countries are in the midst of electing their cabinet and president respectively. The first point of conference held to make announcements to public/communities is happening almost everyday.

Not long ago during the Edison Chen explicit saga, a media conference was held by the man himself. He only spoke his speech and the press was not allowed to field any questions. His press conference might be an exception as it does not have journalists fielding questions.
In the video of his conference, the set up was exactly that of mentioned in the text on page 278.

Ultimately, it would be the important news or 'big-shots' that can hold conferences and for normal everyday news matters, a simple media release would be sufficient and also, a good PR team to answer queries brought up.