Press and PR

Issue 40 / October 2010

The times, they are a-changin’

Reading through this month’s issue of JAM, one of the things that I found most fascinating was discovering that the lament for the end of newspapers is older than I thought. In her regular column (on page 4), Heather Maitland writes that newspaper proprietors were already complaining about an oversaturated market at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when there were only five newspapers in circulation. Then, in the 1960s, television, which had just been invented, was blamed for the decline in mass-market tabloids in the US.

Now, mutatis mutandis, it’s the internet that takes on the villain’s role. Some might say that the internet is a much more powerful force than radio or cable television, and that the threat it presents to the printed word is more substantial and real than that of earlier technologies. Others argue that paper is just a medium, something that can be replaced, and that the web is making the news more accessible than ever before. All agree that there is more than one side to this debate, so in order to add to it we asked media, PR and arts professionals to give us their opinion on the future of the press. You can find their thoughts on page 18 – and you can share your own online by joining the conversation on Twitter (follow @amadigital).

The rest of this issue is devoted to exploring how you can deepen your understanding of the media and use it to your advantage. On page 6, Anna Vinegrad writes about how to plan and implement a press and media strategy that really works; on page 8, Stacey Arnold considers the relationship between PR and marketing and its implications for arts organisations. Alex Saint argues that profile raising is better done in partnership (page 16); Roberta Doyle offers insights and top tips on fostering good relations with the press (page 20) and Claire Solery shares some of the learning points that came out of this year’s Communicating the Museum conference (page 22).

The middle pages are dedicated to the AMA’s annual review, a summary of findings from Encore, our coaching scheme for senior arts professionals, and AMA retreats, our brand new intensive professional development programmes for arts marketing professionals.

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions for JAM? Please email the Editor.