There’s tension in the PR and media worlds, between the stories we’d love and the ones 
they want to write.
Good PR is the art of finding common ground. Your client or company gets mentioned, the journalist likes the result, it’s a great article, and everyone goes home happy.
Great PR is about taking reporters to a place they never even considered.
Sure, it’s much easier just to give the press what they want. But what if all they want is Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump?
It’s not just the political press. I’ve had many conversations with PR folks from varied beats, the refrain they hear is that reporters just want to write about Trump. Give them something with Trump.
I’ll try to put politics aside for a moment. I won’t just focus on the first three words of the title.
I’ll ignore the irony of the media obsession with the man who’s called them the enemy of the people (here’s a story about a New York Times reporter from the tech beat who tried to tune Trump out for a week; Farhad Manjoo says he’s “inescapable”). I’ll even cut them some slack, after all, the media just serve up what they think we want to read.
Let’s face it the man has hijacked our attention spans and conversations, which inevitably turn to the latest Trump-driven episode. Bigly.
So, does PR strike a Trumpian bargain? Do we hold our noses and write pitches that align with whatever he lobs at the latest news cycle? What do you think?
There’s a larger story here, about the responsibilities of the press, and PR’s role. But right now I’m just venting as Trump is eating the media world, and taking much of the fun out of PR.
Oh well. Perhaps I can take some comfort in the fact that this blog will be more widely shared and read given the topic.
Crap.
