Engaging with the Media

Media relations work usually comes in 2 forms - Controlled and Uncontrolled Communication.
Controlled communications are like an annual report, a billboard, publicity brochure etc. that is produced and published by the company or organisation itself.
Uncontrolled Communications are like blogs and newspaper reports.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Controlled media are often published by the company/organisation itself. With this they can control what to publish, what they want people to know and how they want people to feel about it. This is both an advantage and disadvantage to them. Advantage is that they would not publish something that may destroy their reputation. But the disadvantage is that people may not 100% believe in the publishing as it is all one-sided.

On the other hand, Uncontrolled media has all the advantages to the readers and general public but may not be good for the company. People tend to believe more from the uncontrolled media as it is written by another person that is outside of the company. But the company cannot control these media and therefore if there are negative news about them, it would deal considerably amount of damage to their reputation.