Media + Relations

By, George, I think I've go it!

Maybe I have figured out what media relations means and how it works. Here's my conclusion: media relations. Profound, right?!

It seems that people have a different view of what media relations is, and by people I include myself. I think for my years of studying public relations, I found too broad of an area and didn't realize that media relations is a very small, though very important, aspect OF public relations.

It's really not all writing, story telling and "spinning" as most people like to tack on to the list of what PR people do. It really is relating to the media.

I spent my time in the press box observing. Luckily, it's one of the things I like to do best. There was an array of things going on in there. To my right we had the Astros media. Though we were below 10 broadcasting booths, we still had some reporters and radio people that were part of the press box. There were also photographers down there.

In the middle where I was sat the official scorekeeper, closed caption typer (that's a seriously politically correct job title, I know), public address announcer, pitch-charter, media relations and GameTracker.

To the left were the visiting media, Associated press writers and a handful of Astros writers who spilled over.

So what were the media relations people doing? Relating!

We really are more of facilitators than public relations people in the area people think. We do not spin, or story tell, we give facts in their most basic form: statistics. We can look up everything and anything, and we are at the media's beckon call. We can produce files, media guides, box scores, player injury updates, counts, home runs, records all in a snap when it is requested.

That's really it. We're relating. We make sure the media has what they need, when they want it and as quickly as possible.

I don't think I can break it down any more basic than that. Unless you want to know the statistics on my typing speed in explaining this. Which is 71 WPM ;)