Public Relations and Communications From Theory to Practice
Chapter 12: Media Relations
2. The role of media relations
Media relations is the name given to the fundamental core of a public relations professional’s role, which is to liaise with the media to ensure favourable media coverage on behalf of a client. This media relations can be pro-active where the public relations professional approaches a journalist or reactive, for example in times of crisis, when a journalist may contact the organisation in question to verify information or to answer questions pertaining to a story. To follow are some examples that demonstrate media relations in action.
In early 2018, Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm that was working in partnership with Facebook, used the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook profiles without users’ permission. The information was allegedly used to target US voters with personalised political advertisements in the US presidential election. When the information was revealed to the media by a whistle-blower, it emerged that Facebook had known about the data breach for a number of years prior to it being made public. It also emerged that hundreds of millions of further users were likely to have had their private information accessed in the same way. A
#deletefacebook movement was founded and billions of dollars were wiped off Facebook’s stock market valuation, making it the first major crisis Facebook had experienced in its 14 years in business.
Chapter 12: Media Relations
In the days following this crisis, Facebook’s renowned Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg was nowhere to be found. He remained silent for five days until he eventually came forward in a Facebook post in which he acknowledged that the misuse of data was a ‘breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it’
(Wong, 2018). In a follow-up interview on CNN in the United States, Zuckerberg apologised and stated that Facebook were making changes to ensure there was no repeat of the data breach (Wong, 2018).
When it came to this seminal time of crisis for Facebook, its response in the media was key to its short-term and long-term reputation. In its response, Facebook firstly chose to make a statement through social media and its own social media channel. Secondly the CEO took part in media interviews, including one soft interview with CNN which took place in a relaxed setting. No doubt Mark Zuckerberg used his media contacts and knowledge of the media to devise a clear strategy for his response in order to control the message and his and his brand’s reputation.
This was not the last crisis however to befall Facebook. Over the following years, the organisation was repeatedly associated with hate speech and of playing pivotal roles in serious events such as the storming of Capitol Hill in the United States on 6th January 2021 (Wagner, 2021). In October 2021, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee testified before a Senate Committee hearing in Washington following the leaking of documents to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in which it was claimed that Facebook ‘put astronomical profits before people’ (Milmo, 2021) and that it failed to act on evidence that demonstrated that the Instagram app was damaging to the mental health of teenagers. According to the WSJ the documents demonstrated ‘how the company’s moderation rules favor elites; how its algorithms foster discord; and how drug cartels and human traffickers use its services openly’ (McKinnon
& Tracy, 2021). The testimony made worldwide news. Zuckerberg refuted the claims in a blogpost in which he said: ‘I’m sure many of you have found the recent coverage hard to read because it just doesn’t reflect the company we know. We care deeply about issues like safety, wellbeing and mental health. It’s difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives. At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognise the false picture of the company that is being painted.”
Frances’s claims have renewed calls for regulation for the strengthening of regulation of the tech industry. However, in the article in the WSJ, senator Amy Klobuchar highlighted the power of the tech industry when she said: ‘There are lobbyists around every single corner of this
Chapter 12: Media Relations
building that have been hired by the tech industry. Facebook and the other big tech companies are throwing a bunch of money around this town and people are listening to them.’
In the immediate aftermath of this crisis, Facebook’s share price dropped sharply by 4.9%. It is worth noting at this point however, the impact that previous crises have had on Facebook’s reputation. Reputation as we have seen in previous chapters has a significant impact on profitability of an organisation. The first crisis that befell Facebook however appears to indicate the company is bucking this trend. As Wagner (2021) states: ‘the gap between Facebook’s public reputation and its financial success has never been greater’. In the New York Times, three years after the first crisis and approximately one year after the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, Ovida (2021) wrote: ‘This is a company that’s embroiled in a different scandal each week and that people say they dislike, yet its products are used by billions of people, and businesses spent like crazy on ads during a pandemic to reach them.’ In the same article, Ovida writes that Facebook’s revenues reached nearly $86 billion in 2020 and the vast majority of this sum came from ads on Facebook and its other apps, including Instagram. Both Ovida and Wagner attribute Facebook’s success in 2020/21 to the shift towards online shopping and reliance on apps like Facebook during the pandemic.
The long-term reputational issue for Facebook might be a little different however following its latest crisis involving the whistleblower, Frances Haugen. In 2020, Reptrak reported that Facebook had ‘a bloodied nose and two reputational black eyes’ and attributes this beaten up image of Facebook to its association with ‘hate speech’ and its loss of revenues from major corporates such as Starbucks and Pfizer for example as a result (Reptrak, 2020). The reputational experts at Reptrak proffered that the association between hate speech and misinformation in the long term may damage Facebook’s reputation as advertisers will not want to be associated with this negative activity. Wagner also cautions that new legislation on the horizon that threatens to make apps like Facebook legally liable for media content could have detrimental effects for the brand and its contemporaries. A strengthening of legislation regulating the tech industry now looks more imminent following the revelations of Frances Haugen.
- ‘No Time to Die’ – James Bond film release
In September 2021, the stars of the newly released James Bond film, ‘No Time to Die’ stepped out in London for the premier of the film which was finally released over a year late, due to the restrictions imposed on the entertainment industry worldwide by the COVID-19 pandemic. The stars of the film were interviewed by the media who were waiting on the red carpet to
Chapter 12: Media Relations
photograph them and interview them for online and TV channels. Around the same time, the stars including actor, Daniel Craig who was playing the part of James Bond for the last time, were interviewed by media all over the world to coincide with the various releases of the film in individual countries. The media activity or media relations for this film would have been managed by the PR or publicity firm for the film makers with the objective of ensuring that coverage for this film was achieved in each country as the film launched. The media relations strategy in this case is to achieve blanket coverage and visibility for the film and its stars worldwide in order to create awareness of the film’s release and in the long-term to secure attendances at cinemas with some help from an advertising campaign to elicit a direct response (in this case, ticket sales) from the audience.
- ‘No Drama’ - Switzerland Tourism Board campaign
In mid-2021, as the Western World started to slowly edge its way out of the restrictions imposed on it by the COVID-19 pandemic, travel started to open up again with free movement of people more possible due to the rollout of the vaccine. With this increased movement, countries around the world started vying for the attention of potential travellers. In Switzerland, the Swiss Tourist Board enlisted the services of one of its most famous natives, the international tennis star, Roger Federer, along with the internationally acclaimed Hollywood actor, Robert De Niro, to promote Switzerland to a wide audience. A clever video ad was recorded with the two celebrities comically discussing the virtues of Switzerland and the ad was distributed across social media platforms and promoted via a media relations strategy that resulted in the campaign being written up by various outlets. For example, in an article in Forbes in May 2021 entitled: ‘Watch Roger Federer And Robert De Niro Team Up in Hilarious New Switzerland Tourism Film: No Drama’, Duncan Madden wrote: ‘…. the Swiss Tourist Board is going the extra mile to inspire you, hiring the big guns and pouncing on the country’s natural beauty as a source of contention in a comedy-gold pairing of Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer and Hollywood icon, Robert de Niro’ (Madden, 2021). The media relations for this ad campaign may have involved the writing of a press release to explain the ad campaign and the distribution of this to the media to coincide with the ad campaign launch. Although not privy to the strategy involved in this media relations campaign, it can be assumed that it also involved an invitation to travel journalists and influencers to visit Switzerland and to record their experience for publication/broadcast on various online channels and on social media.
- The French Open – press conference or no press conference?
Chapter 12: Media Relations
Sticking with tennis, in May 2021, the then world number two tennis player, Naomi Osaka pulled out of a major international grand slam tennis tournament in France following a row about her media obligations. The organisers of the French Open tournament, Roland-Garros, had fined Osaka $15,000 for refusing to speak to the press during the tournament. Osaka had decided not to take part in the media activity associated with the event because she said that the interaction with the media caused anxiety to her and had a negative impact on her mental health. Her sudden departure caused ripples throughout the tennis world and generated a conversation around the obligatory press conferences in sport and whether or not they are actually still relevant in the social media age. As one journalist said: ‘it’s not that Osaka isn’t a highly effective communicator. She is – whether on social media, posting statements via her Notes app, or via the masks she wore at last year’s US Open to highlight the names of black victims of police brutality. But not everyone communicates in the same way’ (Ryan, 2021).
Osaka’s issue is a very modern one relating to modern-day media relations and how it is conducted in the social media age and she was not the first sportsperson to raise the problem.
In the States, NBA star Kyrie Irving was fined up to $35,000 for breaching media rules (Carayol, 2021). The controversy demonstrates the importance of celebrities, who are brands in their own right, in having good relationships with the media. It so raises the question of how media relations are managed at major events in the age of social media. As the media has evolved, celebrities, including sports stars, have more control over their own image. Through their own social media platforms, they can freely communicate their own thoughts and beliefs and their image without relying on the publicist or a press conference to do this for them. This raises the question if the way the media relations is managed around major sporting events such as tennis, needs to evolve to be more appropriate in the present day.
- Activism and anti-vaccination campaign
Another example of media relations in action comes from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland. In 2016 the WHO backed a campaign from the HSE in Ireland to raise awareness of the benefits of young girls in taking the HPV vaccine to help prevent cervical cancer. The campaign was developed in response to a sharp drop that had occurred in the uptake of the vaccine from 87% in 2015 to only 50%
in 2016. The drop-off is thought to have been caused by a campaign of misinformation from an ‘anti-vax’ activist group who claimed their daughters had developed side-effects after receiving the vaccine. The high-impact campaign from the group was rolled out predominantly across social media and resulted in a significant drop-off in those receiving the vaccine.
Chapter 12: Media Relations
In response, the HSE, backed by the WHO, enlisted the services of activist and cervical cancer patient, Laura Brennan. In the time before her tragic death from cervical cancer, Laura became an advocate for the vaccine and fronted a large scale nationwide campaign to inform people of the benefits of the vaccine and to explain how her situation and prognosis could have been so different had she been given the vaccine. The multi-media campaign ran across multiple channels and succeeded in reversing the downturn in the vaccine uptake and increasing uptake from 50% to 70%, a reversal that in the words of Dr Brenda Corcoran in the Health Service Executive, was ‘extremely unusual’ (Power, 2016). The campaign demonstrates the powerful role of activism in public relations and the role that opinion leaders such as Laura Brennan play when an organisation is communicating with the public through the media.
These different situations demonstrate media relations in action. The Facebook issue was a crisis that required very specific and immediate engagement of a media relations programme.
Naomi Osaka’s situation was a reputational crisis of her own making but demonstrates the power of a person or sportsperson in this case, as a brand and the critical role that media relations pays in the life or the brand of a sportsperson. The launch of the ‘No Time to Die’
James Bond film is an example of pro-active communications in which media coverage is sought to raise awareness and support advertising. The HSE / World Health Organisation campaign is an example of activism, both on behalf of the anti-vax group and from the HSE/WHO in the media campaign it ran to dispel the misinformation.
Media relations at its core is the art of engaging with the media and marrying what it is that the organisation wishes to communicate with what is in the public interest. The secret to good media relations is in the creation of interesting content that captures public attention and helps the organisation achieve its goals. Media relations is at the very core of public relations and is vital therefore to understand how it works.