On the intersection of journalism and public relations
CBC Radio veteran, J-Source contributing editor and new CanWest Fellow Ira Basen recently sat down with public relations pro Judy Gombita to talk about the relationship between journalism and PR.
During his time with CBC, Basen pitched and began to develop a workshop for journalists to better understand the world of PR and the media-savvy folks in that industry who are trained to get their messages out. But as Basen told Gombita:
I had been looking at this as a tale with clearly identifiable white hats and black hats, but I realized that the story I needed to tell was not us versus them (i.e., journalism vs. PR) but us and them; that what these journalists needed to know was not how evil public relations practitioners were perverting the news, but about all the ways that we, as journalists, were becoming enablers of spin rather than warriors against it, and how we were part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
Basen and Gombita get into a more in-depth discussion about the relationship between journalists and public relations professionals, about “marketing journalists” and “brand journalism.”
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