PR Predators

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Features/Beware-of-PRedators-


According to Lloyd, who is also a contributing editor to the Financial Times, the PR industry has been able to take hold of the digital revolution and make it work for them. Thanks to social media, business corporations have turned into media corporations.

He added trust in media is seen as very fragile right now. Businesses are taking advantage of that opportunity as they try to gain the public’s trust through clever PR. The PR industry is well aware of that fact, so they want to become the public’s “trusted source.”

Just take a look at a recent PR News webinar titled “How to Build a Brand Newsroom from the Ground Up.” According to the course’s description, “Our trainers will also demonstrate how to create and distribute polished content and how to become a trusted source of information for your customers and your industry. You need an operation that generates journalist-quality content in a timely fashion that is flexible and can stay on message. You need a newsroom.” Journalists reading that should certainly raise their brows.

Here we have a PR webinar offering lessons on how to become a trusted source of information and how to turn an operation into a newsroom. We already have trusted sources of information (they’re called journalists); we already have newsrooms (it’s called the media), so the PR industry needs to get off our turf.