PRSJ RECOMMENDS CCN TO BE THE PROFESSIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ARM OF THE FORCE

PRSJ RECOMMENDS CCN TO BE THE PROFESSIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ARM OF THE FORCE

Kingston, August 5

The Public Relations Society of Jamaica (PRSJ) rejects calls for the immediate dismantling of the Constabulary Communications Network (CCN) but instead supports the findings of the Ministry of National Security Jamaica Constabulary Force Strategic Review, which proposes that the JCF “Undertake a thorough review of the mandate and functions of the Constabulary Communications Network to ensure they are aligned with future requirements of the police service and the public it serves”, (See recommendation 59).

We believe that the CCN is best placed to emerge as the professional Public Relations arm of the Force that will successfully nurture meaningful relationships with its stakeholders.

We wish to use this opportunity as a reminder that the PRSJ advocates for integrity and truth and not “spin”. The professional Code of Ethics of the Society puts it thus: “A member shall not engage in any practice, which tends to corrupt the integrity or channels of public communication; and a member shall not intentionally disseminate false or misleading information and is obligated to use ordinary care to avoid dissemination of false or misleading information.”

The PRSJ welcomes the new standards that have been adopted for the release of material by the CCN and commends its body of work under past and current leadership. It has broken new ground by providing timely information to the public on a range of issues, through a cadre of staff who have been trained with media skills. The PRSJ also commends the CCN for the important role that it plays in recording events and scenes that are necessary for police work. Journalists also benefit when CCN staff is stationed with them as they have special insights on security protocols.

The PRSJ considers the tape showing a shooting at Buckfield, St Ann involving members of the police to be truly serious. While the PRSJ supports the Commissioner and his team in subsequent actions taken, it relies on CCN to establish the relevant context of the incident so that hasty conclusions by misinformed sections of the public will categorically be avoided.

The incident in itself is a strong reminder of the power of the new and burgeoning "social media" and will keep the CCN on its toes.

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CONTACT:
Delmares White
President
The Public Relations Society of Jamaica
Cell contact: 399-1627
prsj2009@gmail.com

Gerry Mc Daniel
PRSJ Spokesperson
Cell contact: 564-2541
 

Public Relations Society of Jamaica (PRSJ)

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/gojamaicapr/

Blog: http://publicrelationssocietyofjamaica.blogspot.com/

Code of Ethics: http://publicrelationssocietyofjamaica.blogspot.com/2010/03/prsj-code-of-ethics.html

Is it Really RIP For The News Release? - Clea Mayne - UK

Is it really RIP For The Press Release? - Clea Mayne comments from the UK

Here in the UK, I still send out press releases, but many of my press contacts are on my Linkedin so we also swap news that way. Interestingly, I find UK journalists use Linkedin to push out their own news stories even more than PR people use it to circulate press releases. This is all about increasing internet presence for their bylines I expect...
 
Other PR people I've worked with regularly issue a press release that automatically sends a truncated version on Twitter and other social media. This is particularly so in the consumer sector, travel news --- anything that lends itself to short format announcements. In this area of PR it can also help to use Facebook to reach journalists, especially if you're planning an upcoming event e.g. a conference, a product launch, a concert, launch of a cruise ship. They can go to one place to get all their facts etc, plus receive alerts. 
 
Since I work in financial services, and much of my work is B2B, my news content is generally subject to strict regulatory compliance. As a result, I still find it safer to use a written press release format and journalists in my sector don't complain. I'd say my releases are shorter than they used to be when I first started in PR. I rarely go over three short paragraphs, and the third paragraph is usually a quote.  
 
The point of the press release format these days is more about uniformity when posting the release on the company website. The version that goes to the journalists is text in an email. By now, I thought I'd have been issuing press releases as html or as a click through URL but text within an email is still the most popular format.    
 
Over the past ten years or so, UK business journalists increasingly base more of their content on 'views' rather than news. e.g. "Is this the right time to be investing in gold?" This means many of us in my sector spend far more time issuing commentary than we ever do sending out news releases.  
 
If I'm issuing (typically investment) commentary, it's a pdf document produced for clients on a weekly or monthly schedule.  Depending on the topic,  I'll either offer it to one journalist exclusively or issue the commentary to a wider list with a bullet point summary written in the email. I spend far more time these days writing three to five email bullet points than I do writing press releases. A journalist can read the bullet points and know in 5 seconds whether they want to click on the attachment or not.
 
What I expect is different in the UK, is that news rooms depend on PR content even more than they did in the past. We're talking about many, many different media titles just based in London alone. All these news rooms have been downsized many times over, as they compete with the internet. Remaining journalists have to file more stories every day than ever before. One business journalist at Sky News says that her daily routine involves filing her stories for television, plus writing and posting her blog, plus regularing Tweets, plus going into the Sky radio studio to produce daily alerts which go out in syndicated news to all the radio stations that subscribe to Sky for content. 
 
Likewise, many newspaper and magazine journalists (including the weeklies and monthlies) are filing daily news stories on their websites. These stories go out as alerts (often free) to subscribers. I've had journalists call me up and ask me to get my clients to go online and comment on the journalist's blog so it impresses the editor, and increases the journalist's ranking on the website. 
 
I imagine this isn't happening in Jamaica because it's expensive to host a website with this much activity --- streaming etc. But the newspaper model here is definitely changing toward being online-focused. There is talk that at least one daily newspaper will go online-only in the near future.
 
I'm interested to hear about how things go in Jamaica.
 

PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTITIONERS PUT STRENGTH BEHIND NATIONAL ISSUES

News Release 

PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTITIONERS PUT STRENGTH BEHIND NATIONAL ISSUES

From Practitioners

Kingston: May 11, 2010

The recently elected Executive of the Public Relations Society of Jamaica (PRSJ) has committed itself
to build capacity for development issues.

President of the Society, Delmares White, noted that most active PR practitioners are employed in the
Public Sector and so are positioned to make a difference to the successful implementation of development projects and programmes.

“The first goal of the Society is to serve the interests of the members and in these times, this dovetails with public issues such as health, employment, and media issues,” says Ms White.

Speaking from her outlook as an emergency response communications and training professional, she

says, “We can design or review Crisis Communication and Control plans for times of disasters, which dovetails with the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management’s (ODPEM) national/regional programme. There are more than 100 public relations practitioners in the public service. Surely, their collective experiences can support not only each other, but also programmes of national importance. The PRSJ’s new arrangement is that general meetings will be used to present and discuss real live situations as case studies and provide an opportunity for consultations.”

PRSJ President White also said that the Society is actively seeking to reinforce the use of culture in a greater number of communications plans.

“We aim to reinforce Brand Jamaica in our PR designs. We will forge partnerships with Public Sector and Private Sector Organizations towards greater collaboration,” she said.

The first consultation meeting is scheduled to take place on May 19 when Information and Public Relations Officer at the Broadcasting Commission, Nicola Morrison, will present the Commission’s experiences in the training and recruitment of citizen media monitors. FAME FM producer, Carlette DeLeon will also give a hands-on presentation on social media tools and techniques.

The Public Relations Society is the indigenous association that represents professional public relations

practitioners in Jamaica.

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CONTACT:

Moderator

prsj2009@gmail.com