How A Journalism Degree Or Job Lends Itself To A PR Career – 10 Yetis Insight

I, controversially, do not have a degree in public relations. I went to university with the impression that, once I graduated, I would become a journalist, ensuring everything I learnt from my three year journalism course was being put to use.

But alas, this was not to be, during my three years at the University of Gloucestershire, I realised that my passions lay elsewhere. I didn’t want to be sitting in front of the camera doing a news report or writing on ENPS. I instead felt myself compelled to dip my toe in the world of PR and see if it was a better fit for me.

Before I started at 10 Yetis Digital I only had one weeks’ worth of PR experience. All of my other experience was related to journalism, be it through my degree, my college paper experience or my work experience at Immediate Media. With this in mind, when I got the call saying that I was joining the 10 Yetis Digital team, I was obviously excited but I was also incredibly nervous. I didn’t think I could possibly keep up with the rest of the team, with such irrelevant experience.

Turns out, I shouldn’t have worried, a journalism degree or journalism knowledge goes hand in hand with public relations and here are just some of the reasons why:

You understand the industry

When you work in public relations you often spend a fair amount of your day emailing, calling and just generally trying to appease journalists at publications your clients want to feature in. If you have prior knowledge of the journalism industry, these interactions will be a piece of cake for you.

You’ll understand their day-to-day roles, what kind of news they are searching for and how stressful newsrooms can be (news producing days at my university often left students in tears.)

Those who studied journalism also know all paper demographics off by hand, which makes pitching stories so much easier. You can streamline your approach, only targeting journalists that you know will be trying to target a certain type of audience.

You know news

For three or more years you were forced to find the best story for your news bulletin, radio show or website so when you arrive at your new public relations job, you’ll have the best nose for news.

If a client comes to you with an idea you don’t think will be of interest to journalists, you’ll be able to tell them right away and come up with a way to make said idea more newsworthy.

It’s likely that, if clients know your journalism background and insight, they will fully trust your input on ideas.

You know to be polite

Most PR’s know to be polite – we definitely don’t want to anger a client or journalist – but those who have a journalism background will know just how stressful the industry can be and therefore, we will be sympathetic to their repetitive calls, emails and chases on a lead.

As mentioned earlier, even during university newsroom days people would have breakdowns when the deadline was drawing ever closer. Imagine that feeling but every day or every week and it suddenly becomes understandable as to why some journalists do not have the time to talk to you on the phone or they sound short after their fifteenth PR call of the morning.

Sympathy is key in these situations and can often act as an ‘in’ with that journalist.

Networking comes naturally

If you did journalism at university or if you had a journalist job prior to starting your PR career, you will find that you have many media connections that you can utilise.

For example, many of my fellow students have decided to stay in the journalism industry, with some working at property publications, regional publications and some even bagging a job at national outlets straight out of university.

These friends from your heyday will become important to you very quickly when you realise they work at one of your clients target publications. Ensure you keep in touch, keep them sweet and old friends could become best friends very quickly.

Confidence boost

Every journalist job and degree are different but for me, the course at the University of Gloucestershire truly boosted my confidence in more ways than one. I was shoved in front of a camera to read news, thrown onto the streets to interview unsuspecting (and often rude) members of the public for vox pops and made to give presentations about magazines, radio shows and ethics.

These exercises, although terrifying at the time, gave me confidence in my professional ability which has been invaluable at this job.

The confidence has been used in client meetings that might not have gone completely to plan, it’s been used to ring journalists that are known to be frantic on deadline day and it was originally used to go into a brand new industry, with equally confident colleagues surrounding me.

Going from a journalism degree or career is the perfect fit for a public relations job so if you’re interested, I say go for it. No regrets.