PR gets real time access to news making agenda

Last week The Province newspaper took the unprecedented step of live-blogging their daily morning news meeting.

Erik Rolfsen, the paper’s digitial news editor, facilitated and live-blogged the discussion as the various editors gathered to talk about upcoming stories and the breaking news of the day.

Rolfsen encouraged the public to participate in the discussion either via Twitter (#provincenews), Facebook, or by posting comments directly into the live blog feed.

For PR professionals, The Province’s decision to let allow the public a look at its inner workings is truly exciting news. In the communications industry, we are constantly looking for ways to connect with the media and familiarize ourselves with what is on their ever-changing agenda. Live-blogging provides us with an opportunity to do just that.

A technique that we often use in media relations is “issues hijacking,” whereby we piggyback our client onto a current issue, trend or hot topic already in the news cycle, and position them as an ideal spokesperson. In the past, this was challenging as it was a reactive strategy. We would see a story in the news and have to act quickly to contact the reporter who had filed the story in order to determine whether or not they were doing a follow up story, and if they were, to pitch our client as a spokesperson.

Now we will be able to see what stories The Province is planning to run before they appear in print, and therefore will be well-positioned to incorporate our clients into the story as it’s developing.

So not only do we now have insight into the stories the reporters are developing, but we also have a way of directly reaching out to the media outlet by commenting on the live blog, which is really half the battle in media relations.

I wonder though whether The Province is worried about getting scooped by other media outlets. Just as PRs will be eagerly monitoring the live blogs for ways to get their clients in the news; perhaps other media outlets may also be looking to swoop in and take a juicy news story. News is an extremely competitive business and I have to ask whether this gamble to let the public into the inner workings of their newsroom will pay off.