Spotted an interesting piece by Richard Stokoe, Head of News at the Local Government Association, about the role of public relations in local government (article online here).
The general feeling in the article is that local government public relations (or, more accurately, media relations) is predominantly defensive and reactive, focussed on defending reputation.
One of the real challenges I have in local government public relations is rooting out the great story angles that exist in the council - there are probably hundreds of such stories around the organisation, but many of the practitioners responsible for them don’t realise they’re doing something newsworthy - they just see that they’re doing their jobs.
Public relations practitioners working in local government don’t just need to be adept media handlers or skilled wordsmiths, they need really strong interpersonal skills to build productive working relationships with local government officers. Without these relationships it’s virtually impossible to hunt down those great story angles that can help improve the council’s reputation.
译文:
Richard Stokoe公开发表对政府公共关系的看法
我们注意到Richard Stokoe在地方政府联合会发表的耐人寻味的言论登上了新闻头条，该言论探讨了关于公共关系在地方政府所扮演的角色。（点击此处看文稿）
他通篇言论的观点认为当地政府的公共关系（或者更确切地说是媒体关系）主要是防御性的和反应性的，他们以保护自身的声誉为中心。
我在地方政府处理公共关系遇到的一大挑战就是在对议会的大量新闻报道中搜寻有价值的。关于议会的新闻报道有成百上千条，但是很多负责报导的人只知道做好他们的本分工作，并没有意识到那些新闻报道的新闻价值。
为政府工作的公共关系人员不必是内行的媒体人或擅长文字创作的人，他们真正需要的是能够与地方政府官员建立有成效的工作关系的人际交往技巧。 没有这些关系，我们根本不可能找到大量可以提升政府声誉的有价值的新闻报道。