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Why PR is higher education’s best friend during the crisis by Diana Blamires

  • 30 April 2020
  • By Diana Blamires

This guest post has been kindly contributed by Diana Blamires, the former Head of Public Relations at the University of Buckingham. She can be found on Twitter @diana_blamires.

Nothing is more important than PR right now.  While universities shudder on the brink of possible disaster, PR is the best card in their hand. Though projected overseas student numbers are dismaying, many domestic students are still undecided and they are curious about what will be on offer at their chosen institution once the virus has abated.

PR teams need to recognise there are opportunities to get their message out but they must adapt. Many journalists are home schooling and working. Newspapers are struggling to run remotely. They have furloughed reporters and are short-staffed due to illness. Reporters’ inboxes have exploded – one national news correspondent tweeted that she had 6,000 unread emails. A look at the home news section of a paper reveals non-Corona stories are squeezed into a few paltry pages – the advertisers have fled so overall pagination has plummeted.

Education journalists are frustrated that many of their stories aren’t seeing the light of day. Some specialist BBC reporters have been asked to cover general news – it is all hands to the pump.

PRs need to dig deep and develop the persistence of an Apprentice contestant on a sales task. The early bird catches the worm – home schooling journalists are up at first light working before they hear the patter of small feet on the stairs. Send your pitch at 7am or even better – give it to journalists a few days earlier under embargo. Then, if there’s breaking news – such as UUK’s bailout package being agreed – the journalist has written your story up a day or so earlier. On the day, there’d be no time to do it with such a big story to cover.

When pitching, if you don’t get a reply to the first email don’t be afraid to try once more. If you have the journalist’s mobile, send a text. One education journalist said she doesn’t have time to read all her emails at the moment so suggested texting.

Creative thinking is vital. A few weeks ago I had to get a higher education news story out. Three national education correspondents wrote it up but, as an insurance policy, because there’s so much Coronavirus news, I went to all the online news editors too and some took the story. At 5pm that day, the country’s biggest education story broke – for the first time, schools were to shut. The education reporters’ pieces were ditched but – luckily – the online pieces had already been scheduled to go out and, amazingly, two appeared.

PR staff have to radically rethink content. While universities are effectively shut, journalists don’t want to run stories about plans for a great new approach to Freshers’ Week – board games instead of beer, for example – which may not even go ahead. It would also be deemed insensitive to run a story proclaiming how lockdown is working brilliantly for a particular group of students because of the struggling majority.

Higher education stories are getting into the press though. Oxford University at the forefront of producing a vaccine couldn’t be a better illustration of making the best possible use of PR – highlighting higher education research at its best. Medical students at the University of Buckingham and other universities have graduated early to help with the crisis – huge media pick up. The University’s Vice Chancellor, Sir Anthony Seldon, has been in the press talking about why January starts, offered at Buckingham and elsewhere, might be the solution rather than deferring a year. If your university is doing something unique or interesting in relation to the crisis or an aspect of it, such as home schooling, journalists are all ears.

Other articles making the papers are great research stories. Papers need light and shade. At the moment there’s so much serious news they crave quirky stories such as the University of Buckingham psychologists who discovered the eureka moment is often preceded by a Homer Simpson “D’Oh” disaster when things have gone horribly wrong.

With so many universities in such a precarious state, we desperately need PRs to hold a mirror up to all that’s good about the sector. We need to show the Government exactly why it’s vital for the cultural fabric of the country, as well as the economy, for the sector to have a large injection of state aid in order to preserve and enhance the future for our great higher education institutions.

HEPI’s previous work on how universities communicate with the world beyond their gates includes Return on investment? How universities communicate with the outside world by the late Richard Garner, who was once the UK’s longest-serving education journalist.

3 comments

  1. Charlie says:

    It’s remarkable that someone who considers themselves an expert in PR is so tone deaf to the fact that a statement like “Nothing is more important than PR right now” is only laughably inaccurate but downright offensive at a time like this.

  2. Cherry says:

    As we are locked-down and given time to reflect and consider what really matters, we also have time to imagine a future which enables all to shine. PR can certainly support universities now as they promote the distinctive and distinguishing features they each offer the future’s students.
    In context, PR plays a very important part in enabling individuals to find the course and place of study most suited to their own personal development.
    Thank you Diana for this optimistic and pragmatic article.
    Cherry Coombe

  3. Thanks for your comment. At a time when some universities fear they could face the threat of closure and a government bail out is needed it’s imperative that all the vital work that universities are doing right now such as woking to produce life-saving vaccines is known to the governmemt. Many students haven’t decided whether they are going to enrol in September. There are some really innovative projects going on and it’s important prosoective students know all the diffferent things that their university has to offer to help them make the right choice.

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