Media Relations ≠ Public Relations

Each year, the Oxford English Dictionary — kind of the Miss Manners of all things etymological — adds to its hefty entries by including newly approved words. Last year, for example, the OED saw fit to officially sanction close to 100 new words — or new definitions of words — not to mention at least that many of what it calls “sub-entries.” The words range from the “what took them so long” (e.g. cheerlead, T-bone, as a verb, and Oompa Loompa) to the profane to the obscure (e.g. aggrupation, foefie slide and yobbism).

The point is that words and their evolving meanings is not some static science, and even the stuffiest traditionalists among us must recognize the constantly changing and growing nature of word use.

Understanding that, I have been feeling the need of late to push back on semantic lines that are being blurred within our profession. As we discuss the new tools at our disposal with clients — content management programs, blogging, platform boosting, metrics for determining ROI, etc. — there are those that stop us to point out that they “still want public relations.”

And that’s when I wince. What they mean to say is that they still want “media relations.”

Admittedly, there was a time perhaps when public relations and media relations were close to synonymous. Within our own firm for many years, more than 90 percent of our client work was in helping tell our clients’ stories through placements in the news media. For all practical purposes, public relations was media relations.

That has changed, and as we have talked about ad nauseam in this blog and elsewhere, today public relations has evolved to being so much more than strictly media relations. The fact is, public relations is all the tactical elements at our disposal — yes, media relations, but also blogging and boosting and Facebook live and influencer outreach and webinars and on and on.

This is not intended to incite any yobbism out there. But it’s a distinction I think worth remembering.