Head shakes and sighs.
That's what I get when share my opinion with colleagues in PR that I think news is, has been and will always be at the heart of our business.
If they are a corporate type: "We're a management discipline. We're about aligning organisational behaviour with stakeholder expectations."
The marketing types: "We're all about leveraging earned, paid and shared channels to create engagement with creative content."
And all types; "We are way beyond media relations."
I don't disagree with any of that.
But I still believe it's our grasp of "the news" - what it is, how it's made and where it fits between organizations and people - that differentiates us from the rest of the wide world of consultants, marketers and creative gurus.
And if news is our bread and butter, journalism - real, accountable reporting and writing and editing and producing - is the oven.
Which is why, to get to the point, I think all PR people need to understand journalism and where it's headed.
I'm not sure I fully accept the suggestion below that one form of journalism - newspapers - should have stuck with print in the face of digital disruption. But I do think titles that at least try to deliver real journalistic content - independent, verified and fact checked - will find a way to survive and even thrive.
And for PR people, that would be a good thing.
The key to the newspaper future might reside in its past and not in smartphones, iPads and VR. “Digital first,” the authors claim, has been a losing proposition for most newspapers.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/newspapers-digital-first-214363
