It's not all bad, I swear.

We have spent all day bashing public relations or bashing journalism. There is such a blur now that the relationship and content between the two industries is almost the same.

But is it all bad?

Yes, there are way too many public relations practitioners who are doing the dirty. Whether it be by lying, or simply with holding the truth, lots of journalists are getting caught out using information from PR people that isn’t right. Journalists are also making their own mistakes – mainly by not checking their work.

We all know the horror stories.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel!

I’ve looked into different campaigns before that have been spun by PR people, covered by journalists and the world actually becomes a BETTER place!

One of these topics is something very close to my heart, blood donation. It may be deemed one of those 'softer' issues, but one in three Australians will need donated blood. Shockingly only one in 30 regularly donate (doesn't that sound PR-ish). So it's an important issue that will more than likely affect you one day. 

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service has a cunning and effective PR team.

You only have to take one look at their images and copy to realise they know how to work it. 

Like little Ivy. Now, despite how much you hate needles how could you say no?

Journalists then have their job to do. They get out the 'human interest stories' about blood donation, to let people in on the almost constant crisis state of blood levels.

Here are 2 different stories on blood donation, just from my local paper, The Maitland Mercury.

Students in A-Positive mood

Wanted: 180 blood donations

If you type blood donation into their search, pages of it come up! 5 pages to be exact. I would bet my dwindling savings account that a lot of these stories were generated from PR releases. 

Is it overkill? Maybe, but we have finally found a PR/journalist relationship that is doing some good!

Here is some other stuff on the journalist/PR relationship-

This isn’t the most upbeat, vibrant and catchy video you will ever watch but it is a good discussion on public relations and journalism working together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysBGbIG6NtE

This is not really relevant to the post but still interesting -  http://ojs.lincoln.ac.uk/owps/article/view/3