Comments on: I’m in the gray, working with public relations

By: Kids Virtual World

Kids Virtual World — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:26:18 +0000

This is a good position if your final goal is to be a journalist. Right now you're finding out the best way to reach people, a very important tool to understand.

By: Douglas Galbi

Douglas Galbi — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:04:30 +0000

For thinking about the difference between journalism and public relations, you might ponder the career of Frank Presbrey. He moved rapidly between publishing a public-spirited news weekly, Public Opinion, to being a content marketer for railroads, cruise lines, and other travel businesses.

By: mikemcguff

mikemcguff — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:00:34 +0000

You might be safer in PR during the recession. Move to news when things start recovering.

By: Megan Taylor

Megan Taylor — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:13:59 +0000

Patrick,

Thanks for the encouragement.

It’s not a question of if I get back to journalism, but when. And the answer is ASAP.

And I like my job. I’m just afraid that journalism employers will paint me with the same black brush PR got stuck with.

So I’m careful, and I find other opportunities to do journalism – like writing for MediaShift.

By: Patrick Thornton

Patrick Thornton — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:04:38 +0000

@Megan,

Congrats on the job!

If you do enter back into journalism, I think you’ll find that you learned a lot of valuable lessons at your current job. Moving forward, journalists will need to know how to market themselves and their content. The days of just producing content are over.

Don’t be ashamed of PR. A lot of journalists call it the dark side for a variety of reasons. Some of it is a coping mechanism. They have to justify their long (often odd) hours, low pay and poor job security with something.

The thing is PR isn’t all bad and journalism isn’t all good. A lot of what they teach you in j-school about the nobility of journalism is false. Most newspapers, for instance, will not go after a prominent advertiser or they will hedge their coverage and headlines quite a bit.

My advice would be to enjoy the job you have and look into a variety of freelance opportunities.

By: Megan Taylor

Megan Taylor — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:18:59 +0000

Thanks, Angela.

By: Angela Grant

Angela Grant — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:56:00 +0000

I don’t think this is something that you should be ashamed of.

I’m sure that you tried your hardest to get a journalism job. The sad fact is that our industry is sick, sick, sick. If they were hiring ANYONE, it should definitely be people with your skillset.

Another fact is that everyone must eat. You have to earn money where you can find it. Once the journalism industry turns up, and they begin hiring again, I’m sure that they’ll understand what happened.

In the meantime, it sounds like you’re gathering even more marketable skills!

I don’t think this will hurt you — If anything, it will help.

By: Megan Taylor

Megan Taylor — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:06:13 +0000

Thanks Paul. And you can’t steal my posting topics before I even write them! More on that ethics stuff another time.

By: Paul Conley

Paul Conley — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:56:53 +0000

Hi Megan,
Congratulations. This sounds like a great opportunity.
One of the things that has changed in the past few years is that the old black-white divisions in media are fading. Much of the world is gray. And those gray zones may be the most exciting places to be right now.
For example, the most interesting part of my world (B2B journalism) has become content marketing, where custom publishing meets marketing meets public relations meets journalism. My friend Joe Pulizzi runs a great site dedicated to the subject at Junta42.com.
I trust that you’ll do good work wherever you may be. I trust too that you will keep the black-white divide intact in the one place it must be preserved: ethics.
Good luck.
Paul