Text Discussion

1. Discuss how publicity works.

2. Discuss the difficulties involved in writing and placing publicity stories in the media.

3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of publicity.

Read Text 3 and do the tasks.

text 3

A Reporter's View

Let's look at public relations work from another perspective. James B. Meadow is the society writer for the Rocky Mountain News and is on the receiving end of large amounts of material from public relations and publicity people, most of which is in the form of prereleases.

"The motives behind the diligence of these PR agency people and publicity chairs is to generate mention of the event in my column," Meadow says. Such mention helps boost ticket sales to fund-raisers. Although he does not use too many of the prereleases in his column, they do serve a purpose. They help Meadow set up his calendar of reporting. He tries to cover as many of these events as he can.

"What I like to have is the date, some background information on the event and a telephone number for a contact person I can call for a last-minute fact check," he says.

"Invitations are the grist for my mill, and I get them in all shapes and sizes. Some come rolled up in ribbon, some stuffed in plastic bottles. Some come in bags festooned with balloons and streamers. Occasionally, some are accompanied by a toy-soap bubbles, a water gun shaped like a machine gun for a ‘Gatsby Gala’.

“Does it work? Sometimes. But just because I read theirs first, and just because I'll smile at the creativity that went into it does not mean that I will give the event advance notice in my column or cover it and write about it”, Meadow says.

He has too many invitations to handle. His choices, he says, are often dictated by the guests. “Just about any fund-raiser for the zoo, public library, botanical gardens or art and history museums invariably brings out the old guard”, he says, and so his attendance at those events is important. Some events are held to raise large amounts of money, and he attends these. He also goes out of his way to attend events sponsored by minority groups. For too long, he says, these groups have been ignored by the press.

1. Match 1 – 5 with a – e to form expressions from Text 3.

fund background advance minority publicity

information notice chair raiser group

2. Now match the expression to these equivalent expressions:

1. highlighting the events in the past that explain why something has happened;

2. someone who is in charge of a publicity department;

3. a statement of opinion, esp. for a newspaper or magazine, about an event that is written beforehand;

4. a number of people within a much larger group;

5. a person or event that collects money for a specific purpose.

3. Find in Text 3 equivalents for the following Russian words and phrases:

предварительный просмотр печатной, теле- или кинопродукции в рекламных целях; раздел в газете; увеличивать; освещать события; изобретательность; присутствие; стараться что-либо сделать.