Friends in Comms: No hard feelings, just hard news

In my six-year-long stint as Editor of exchange4media.com, I can, with immense pride, say that while I am not friends with a single Comms Head in our industry, I am not enemies with them either. I have managed to keep it professional with more of a love-hate relationship. While they have showered love each time e4m has carried a positive story, they have also cursed me for every negative one.

The reason I was forced to write this piece is my desperation to make our work relationship better. We need to begin by accepting that we are professionals doing our respective jobs, and we need to respect each other’s boundaries. We have to work on a give-and-take relationship with realistic expectations from each other.

Expecting me to “flash” every news item that you believe is important and to take offence if I don’t, is not just immature but unprofessional too. Some of you have even tried to avenge later in your ways, but I am not sure if it has worked better for you. Hence, in the hope that we can now collaborate, I have put down a few ways, which I believe can improve our work relationship. 

‘Make content worthy’

You are free to pitch in your ideas and sell every story to me, but instead of focusing on content, some of you just throw in names or warn me of consequences if we don’t toe the line. You have also pestered me with non-stop calls, messages and emails.

Trust me, it doesn’t work. Make your content worthy and it will all fall in place effortlessly. Each time you pitch in a weak story, you lose merit. Please take a look at the content on e4m and invest time to understand the kind of stories and releases that we put up.

On any regular day, we put around 40 news stories on the exchange4media website. Our decisions are not driven by what your client wants but by our editorial policies. We don’t write for you alone but for a larger audience that believes in the authenticity of our content. Hence, as Editor of exchange4media, it is my prime duty to ensure that I provide my readers with credible and topical content, and not how you want to pitch it.

Two-Way Process

Let’s make it a two-way process. Don’t come to me only when you need me. Be available even when we need quotes or bytes or confirmations on a news development. Many of you call incessantly when you want something, and conveniently chose not to reply to mails or pick up calls when we need help. I do understand your constraints but this is something you need to resolve with your leaders internally. And even if you don’t have a response, have the basic courtesy to communicate so. Don’t blame the reporter if he/she interprets your silence as acceptance of the claim. Please remember that you are in the business of communication. Keep it clear and not abstract.

Winning the Trust

Find your ways to win the trust and make this a long-lasting relationship. No matter what, we will need each other again for something the very next day. Some of you make commitments out of the desperation to hold back stories but rarely live up to them. It will at best work once or twice. We at exchange4media put 10-15 original stories (excluding press releases) on our website every day despite the limitations of our domain. So, we will come back to you very soon. Please work on building credibility. Keep your promises and this will help us take you more seriously.

Respect Boundaries

I know you are in love with the press releases you draft with so much effort. You also take approvals on the same from your seniors/clients before sending it out to me. But that doesn’t mean I will use it as it is. Some of you take offence when we change the headline and remove unwanted adjectives to get straight to the point. Again, at the cost of repeating myself, I must tell you we too have a job to do. And our job is to look at copies rationally and not from a sales or client’s perspective. And I am most pissed when some of you message and tell me what should be the headline or the intro of my story. Please respect our boundaries. I am not your spokesperson; I am a journalist and would want to handle my copies independently.

Before I wrap up this article, I want to thank each one of you for helping us out daily in so many ways, and I believe we do the same too. The purpose of this piece is to make things better for both of us. I will be happy if you chose to come to us with your suggestions on how we can make it better for you. Let’s collaborate!

PS: For press releases, pls don’t call me. Just mail them to e4mdesk@exchange4media.com.