Why Journalism Schools Should Get Rid of PR

December 28th, 2008 → 4:05 pm @ Bob

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Ten Reasons Why PR is Better Suited for Business Schools

If Ben Franklin was alive today, he'd be a social media street hustla. I used to have a negative reaction when I heard or read about news journalists harping on why journalism schools should get rid of public relations emphases.

I couldn’t quite figure out why until recently. At first, I vehemently disagreed with the notion, usually adopting the knee-jerk attitude of painting these journalists as arrogant and holier-than-thou, which, frankly, is what this view is borne from – the oft exhibited air of superiority of their profession, an attitude news journalists have in common with PR folk.

But I’ve come to agree with the prospect of public relations becoming less journalism oriented and more business focused.

Here’s why:

1. Public relations is inherently a business function in most organizations, usually broadly defined as a communications role of some sort, often comingled with, under or above marketing functions. Moreover, if the PR person is “at the table,” it can effectively be argued that PR is indeed a management function. This alone has little or nothing to do with news journalism.




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2. Journalism skills needed by public relations students can be obtained usually with about a year and half’s worth of journalism courses – with one major exception, the constant need to improve writing skills, something business students sorely lack – news writing, editing, reporting and so on. In other words, these courses can be taken regardless of whether the PR sequence resides within a journalism or business college.

3. PR skills combine good writing with good business practices, such as setting goals, writing plans and engaging with audiences. News reporters are often antagonistic toward what are really the newsroom profit margins – the sales, marketing, advertising and other business functions.

4. Public relations as a symmetrical communications function is hand-in-glove suited for the evolution of online, social media. News reporting, on the other hand, is too often asymmetrical in nature, with reporters not being trained, nor encouraged, to engage in two-way dialogue.

5. Public relations professionals are (slowly, at times) embracing and celebrating new media. The latest issues of the PRSA newsletter were ripe with social media articles and Twitter was a front page feature.

6. The news journalism paradigm, meanwhile, is suffering under the onslaught of the increased democratization of communication by the masses – Craigslist, which has single-handedly decimated newspaper classified advertising, is a favorite example – as we witness news institutions going bankrupt, suffering mass layoffs and being forced to be online-only. Some other examples of this: A reporter once complained to me about being trained in the newsroom on how to podcast. “I don’t want to podcast,” he said in disgust. And: Amazingly, my alma mater still has a “print journalism” sequence, from which I graduated in 1995 when online conservations were already a norm. The school was still doing wax paste-ups when I was there too. I had to ask special permission to do my page layouts in Pagemaker and on computer. And one professor was still referring to computer monitors as cathode ray tubes.

7. Public relations hiccups at considering bloggers and self-anointed journalists as valid outlets, but PR pros are getting it and rather quickly – or they are facing public ridicule when they do not.

8. Journalists, on the other hand, are still figuring out where they fit into the scenario [Edit 12/30/08: here's a good example] and some continue to be hostile to bloggers, seeing them as competition and refusing to link to their content when it is the bloggers, unencumbered by news-room structures and pressures, who are breaking stories left and right and thereby driving the temper of news today.

9. Good public relations does not value media placement as much as it used to. We are instead relying more on our own blogs and a mix of other outlets to target our core audiences.

10. Finally, and most importantly, the reason for moving PR out of journalism and into business schools is that it serves as an important career lesson for news reporting students. Consider it: If, say, advertising and PR sequences constitute 50 percent of all journalism students, and these students were to be moved into a business school, the associated resources would fairly go with them. These would include the full time faculty, the part time faculty, the endowments designated for PR and advertising and an equitable share of non-designated endowments and other resources, such as computers, professional journals and so on.

Journalism schools would become shells of their former selves, just as newsrooms are today. The real-world lesson would therefore be priceless for those seeking news reporting degrees and careers.

A new era is waiting. Let’s begin.

Tags:  chaning newsrooms, gannett, Journalism, newsroom transparency, pr, prsa, Public Relations, social media