‘PR Newswire Service, the only hope for African Corporates’…Agada
Published by PMM Ventures on Tagged UncategorizedThe fortunes of African corporate entities especially as it concerns publicity management and media access within the continent, will not reach its global potentials if the companies continue to ignore the services of indigenous PR Newswire agencies. This was the submission of the chief executive officer of Nigeria’s only technology PR firm Private Media Mart limited, Mr. Ejiofor Agada at the recently concluded electronic media content and technology event DISCOP 2011 held in Nairobi Kenya.
The three-day DISCOP Africa event, which was launched in 2009, is a meeting-centric market bringing together international suppliers of television content, with programming acquisitions executives representing African broadcasters, pay-TV operators, journalists and alternative content distribution platforms.
As the keynote speaker representing Nigeria, in his presentation titled: ‘Stretching The Boundaries of Modern Newsgathering: The PR Newswire Model Approach’, Mr. Agada reflected on the changes that has occurred in the process of newsgathering within the last one and a half decades across the globe. He explained that, “though the basic tenets of news states that it is what the media gatekeeper say it is, with the editor concentrating mainly on certain determinants or ingredients in measuring newsworthiness, changes recently recorded in the role of business concerns in political and economic landscape has altered the trend of newsgathering” he said.
This, according to him, has made it imperative for the corporates to maximize the publicity and media access of their information to the larger audience by utilizing online PR newswire service that target African media practitioners. Citing the situation whereby European, Asian and American business interests are utilizing PR newswire service to distribute news content within their regions, Mr. Agada explained that if their African counterparts do not tow the same line, they will continue to be at a disadvantage in the global information flow ratio.
This is because news sources for the journalist, which was formerly, restricted to the efforts of the individual journalist through research/investigations, interviews, scoops, and media briefings/conferences, has so far been enhanced by the importance and use of PR Newswire service by corporate entities. Citing PR Newswire service as the ‘next step’ after the advent of conventional news agency service, Mr. Agada explained that the rise in the use of PR newswire services, which started as far back as 1954, can be related to the emergence of the New media (internet, mobile).
According to the CEO of Private Media Mart Limited (which also operates the only indigenous African PR Newswire service – NewswireNigeria®), “PR Newswire Serviceis now a generic term to describe new media formats (usually on the internet) hired by corporations, public relations firms, governmental and non-governmental institutions to deliver news and multimedia content to journalists, consumers and investors who access the content via the Web, RSS, e-mail, satellite, equities terminals, and mobile”. While pointing out the overall influence of such agencies in that genre in Europe and America, that has not only increased options of news sources for journalists, but also increased the distribution of corporate news on the internet, Mr. Agada lamented that African business concerns are not utilizing the benefits of PR Newswire services.
Differentiating the conventional news agencies from the PR Newswire service providers, he explained that while the former was established primarily to reduce the cost of international news gathering, News agencies can also be corporations that sell news for profit or non-profit based, that mostly target media houses. But with PR Newswire services, the originator of the news are the news-makers themselves and the target are the individual journalist. Thereby making the journalist a ‘receiver’ of news rather than merely a ‘searcher’ of news.
While challenging the African Media practitioners to look towards this service for all content – print, online and electronic, the Tech PR expert opined that PR Newswire service will only grow bigger with the currently growing internet penetration in the continent, with African local content being the differentiating factor.
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- ‘PR Newswire Service, the only hope for African Corporates’…Agada posted on Sep.10
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