The Value of Newspapers for Public Relations

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to study the extent to which public relation staffs accept the use of newspapers as a mean to foster public relation. A survey amongst 132 organizations from both the government and private sectors, revealed that most public relation staffs agreed that newspapers were the important mean of mass media communication. Of all persons canvassed, 39.85 percent considered that newspapers gave good co-operation with public relation work, whilst 17.64 percent were indifferent. The remainder thought that some of the other 32 types of mass media communications (e.g. television, radio) were more appropriate. Managers and executives were more interested in newspaper items. It was found that 54.01 percent of public relation staffs complied information from newspapers. Of these 7.30 percent took clipping but did not keep them, 17.87 percent took and collected cuttings whilst 24.82 percent actually kept cuttings in a filing system. Public relation staffs found that 68.18 percent of people read newspapers intensively and utilized the information so obtained whilst a further 14.39 percent only scanned newspaper for items of their particular interest. Only 43.94 percent of people trusted that the news were satisfied by newspaper, whilst 49.34 percent were moderate.