By Darren Gilbert

Why? It’s because PR is about building meaningful relationships with the public. And what better way than to build relationship than through a medium that allows two-way conversations?

It’s a point which Gillian Cook makes on the content marketing blog, Quaturo: “It’s the value of two-way communication that helps build mutually beneficial relationships. Starting a discourse, managing and sustaining relationships … that’s what it’s really about.” You should be able to hear the same answer if you talked to anyone involved or interested in the industry. You’re also likely to hear that PR has changed. Now, I don’t mean the fundamentals have changed – that should never change.

Instead, the changing media landscape has allowed for the development of new communications tools and thus new angles and channels for PR professionals to manage and maintain relationships. Cook continues, “The explosion of the internet has placed more power in the hands of the user and the way we consume information has changed thanks to fragmented media sources.” This idea of a fragmented media can be a frightening prospect and especially so for a company that is not well versed in PR and its possibilities.

It can also be confusing, a point which Simon Hatcher of Hughes PR makes in a post on the company blog. “This could lead to a new age in journalism,” Hatcher says, “and one which PR professionals will need to embrace.” There is an argument that this ‘new age’ of journalism is already upon us and David Meerman Scott points out in a blog post on Web Ink Now that with such a landscape, any smart PR professional will be able to figure out a way to communicate directly with the public. That should be a given considering the fact that part of a PR professional’s job is to work out strategies to connect with the right people at the right time.

Hatcher continues; “Working with the media will continue to change for PR people as journalists become multi-disciplinary and now file stories for multiple channels.” It’s a point which Burrelles Luce VP, Tressa Robbins, agrees with on the blog, CommPRO.biz. “In this multimedia environment, text is not always enough. Engage their senses – use images, podcasts, videos to amp up the virtual volume. PR professionals must adapt to the ‘new’ journalism, more as a service rather than a product that is platform or format specific.”

“The PR industry needs to be able to make the journalist’s job easier by having all the relevant content on hand,” continues Hatcher. Now, this is not to say that PR professionals should be spoon-feeding journalists. Do that and you’ll be on your way to creating a media that expects news to be given to them. Instead, there needs to be a balance; a “mutually beneficial relationship” as Cook puts it.

Hatcher says it well: “PR professionals need to support and champion a strong and robust media and work with journalists, not in an opportunistic fashion, but in a way that’s credible and gives consideration to the long-term interests of the media, the community – and the client.”

What do you think? Should PR make a journalist’s job easier? Tell us below.