Wherefore art thou, Canadian media?

CTV cuts 118 jobs

Last night I attended an excellent evening hosted by Douglas business magazine in Victoria. Highlighting the Top 10 businesses to watch in Victoria, publishers also announced their new city lifestyle magazine YAM.

This is interesting news in challenging times. Earlier the same day, CTVglobemedia Inc. announced the layoffs of 118 staff at stations across Canada, including 18 at A Channel in Victoria. Just three months ago, Victoria’s other station, CHEK, layed off 19 staff and is for sale.

What’s the underlying story? Well at last night’s  event I ended up in the corner with a knot of local journalists and the subject naturally strayed to the current state of the media. It didn’t take much to agree that media is in decline, but we didn’t all agree on what’s next.

I fear newspapers are soon to be dead. Too bad, because I love spending weekend mornings in bed with a pot of tea and a stack of newspapers. But during the week, I depend on RSS feeds and my favourite news sites. Citizen journalists aren’t just a bunch of yahoos…many are professional journalists who are contributing to news sites as events unfold from around the world. This may be the new economic model, and the new social model. Heck, you’re reading a blog, aren’t you?

What does this mean for PR? More social media, yes, but we need to integrate these tools into other areas of PR. We also need to ensure that we remain accessible to ALL  people we need to consult and inform, otherwise our results are seriously skewed.

May debates!

I can’t even begin to tell you my glee at the power of public voice and two-way communications in getting Elizabeth May of the Green Party into the leaders’ debates.

The website PR Ethics defines two-way communications:

James Grunig, one of the leading public relations scholars in the world, proposes his model of two-way, symmetrical communication as the best way to achieve ethical decisions. He bases his theory on the following assumptions:

• Collaboration, working jointly with others, is a key value in ethical decisions.
• The process of dialogue with different people allows for both listening and arguing.
• Not everyone will get what they want, but dialogue will lead to the most ethical outcome.

This approach requires the public relations practitioner to balance their role as advocate for their client with their role as social conscience.

The Green Party  launched a great social media campaign on September 7th, including blogs, You Tube posts, and a Facebook site dedicated to the topic which enlisted 6,084 members in a matter of days. My son, an avid Green canvasser, received an email with links to an online petition. Today’s Globe and Mail and several Canwest papers ran editorials asking what the big deal is. Canadians mobilized to be heard.

This morning first Jack Layton, then Stephen Harper and finally the network media consortium gave into public pressure. In 2007, public opinion polls showed 77% of Canadians favoured Green party inclusion  in  debates.

Does two-way communication in PR work? You bet. And my glee arises from the fact that good PR allows citizens a voice in their communities and the opportunity to shape their future.

In fact, I’d bet my APR on it. Thanks James Grunig.