- Source : realpublicrelations.blogspot.com
I was on the phone the other day with a seemingly bright young guy. A recent IIM graduate who is now with a reputed (so far) financial services company.
“Our current media mechanism isn’t structured well so I want to set it right,” he told me with enthusiasm that is usually inversely proportional to age.
“Our company is launching a new product and we want to ensure it gets good coverage,” he began, as I steeled myself to listen to the spiel we journos hear only a few hundred times a week. Little did I know how unusual the call would turn out.
After droning on for a few lines, he suddenly said something I would remember for a long time.
“So how much do we have to pay to get the news published on the front page of your newspaper?” he demanded, his tone-very much business-like, no doubt tutored well by one of the best business schools in the country.
I cringed the moment I heard it. Rewinding and playing it a few times again in my head only made it worse.
“What pay?” I blurted out feeling the sense of an impending disaster of a conversation.
“Payment Ma’am,” he replied in the same tone. “Cost to get our news item on the front page headline.”
“There is no such cost” I muttered under my breath and cut the call. I took a moment to compose myself before slumping into my seat with disbelief.
Is that what people think about newspapers???!! That we are some kind of a non-glossy 20 page advertising pullout where the highest advertiser gets the front page story! Had all those hours of forgetting to have lunch and running from pillar to post for quotes come down to this? That we are now viewed by a section of people as selling our main editorial space for cash!
I had a sinking feeling that maybe in all those countless press conferences we attend each week, sifting through endless heaps of “urgent” press releases in our inbox promoting companies and their products, perhaps we have forgotten to promote what we stand for over the years.
Perhaps in the race to break stories and gossip about our competitors (yep, everyone does it) we forgot to reiterate what we stand for, why we exist and how we function( pls, a crash course in this for the IIMs).
- Source : thelinc.co.uk
If the “elite” educated Indian could view newspapers like this, I am sure we are looking at a pool of thousands of people who think the same. This does not spell good news to the industry, which is already struggling with high input costs and a sluggish readership.
Maybe its time to re-introduce ourselves, or even re-invent ourselves in the way we present our industry to the audience. It does not need to be an outlandish outburst of promotion or anything. It could be as simple as climbing down a few floors from our ivory towers and listening (actual ‘listen’ listening, not just press conference listening!) to what people say about us without expecting to file a story out of it!
Like the IIM guy I am also tempted to make a statement like “I want to set things right” but at the moment as all of my colleagues are, I am occupied with far more pressing issues. You see, all of us journalists want to make difference, which is why we came to the profession in the first place. However, such is our lives that on a Sunday evening, all I can think about is –
What story am I going to file for the Monday page!!
disclaimer :Waat to do, we journos are like this wonly! 
AHa! that’s like a jaago india jaago…! nicee..
It’s definitely the time when media needs to know and do what they are supposed to do…unfortunately people forget that it’s not entirely upto correspondents or journalists to make the changes the way they want…over last few years, the so-called “business-led media barons” have changed the rules of the game. Top management (read editors who are closer to businessmen and politicians and wants to save their pay and “image” at the end of the day) always directs their junior journos to “keep track” of stories their “readers” (read those businessmen and politicians) want…experience speaks….