In my opinion, chapter 15 is the most useful chapter I’ve read thus far. While all of our readings have been interesting and helpful, I feel like I am taking some tangible knowledge away from this content. I can actually apply this information to the real world. As always, it stresses that you can only start a media kit with the medium you are targeting already in mind. There is a variety of media kits depending on what medium and what situation it is needed for. Public relations practitioners must be prepared for all of them.
Web sites: All about access
Now that we live in a digital world, organizations must go above and beyond to make sure that their website provides any possible information necessary. Some companies offer up to 65 features! I can’t even imagine what all of those could be. I found it really interesting that a lot of companies have a “dark” web site that is only available during crises. I also couldn’t agree more with the top-five elements rated as important on an organizations web site. They are: Press releases, search module, PR contacts, photographs, and product information. These ratings are so accurate in my opinion.
Which kit to use?
The chapter went into a lot of the different contents of kits depending on what it was being used for. Media kits for special events seem to be the most thorough and heavily loaded. “Media kits for a crises” depends on a lot of preparation. The kit is made up before the crisis obviously, considering that crises are usually unpredictable. Crisis management has to be the hardest situation for PR people. Not only do they need a complete media kit ready but they need news conference materials ready, as well as knowing how to react correctly. While I was reading this I thought of the beef recall that recently happened and wondered what their crisis media kit looked like. Were they actually prepared? Were all the right materials in the kit? One thing I did notice throughout the different media kits was that a backgrounder seemed consistently important in all of them. I suppose this is because no matter what the situation calls for, having something explaining the character and roots of the organization is very important.
Blogging
While I read about media credentials and what constitutes media today I realized how prominent blogging has become. It has become a forerunner of media and news. So it may be predominantly subjective but there are so many blogs that you can weed out what you don’t want to read. I also find it amusing that I am talking about blogging as I am joining the bandwagon of bloggers. If you had asked someone a decade ago what media was I can bet money that blogs wouldn’t even be an option, let alone believed to become one in the future. However, today, especially the youth, go to blogs to get their news.
