Focus on PR in instant media age

All eyes on  talk by veteran 

journalist Joe A Scaria

By Geetha Shankar

BENGALURU: Veteran journalist, author, speaker and trainer Joe A Scaria will address a PR and media professionals gathering here on Friday, March 04 on PR in the Age of Instant Media.

Hosted by PRCI and YCC and presented by the University of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, the talk assumes significance in view the rapidly changing media scenario.

The event will be held at Senate Hall, Central College, Near K R Circle.

As Ajay Sharma, veteran PR professional wrote in the January special issue of CHANAKYA, for many generations, reading newspapers at 6.30 AM or a quick post-lunch glimpse at an afternoon tabloid or watching an evening TV news bulletin were part of our daily routine. For leisurely reading, there were general and business magazines.

The entry of  24-hour TV in 1999 changed the habit dramatically. Live TV broadcasts made it possible to view news anytime through the day. This was the first disruption for media and communication professionals, so to say, which brought in significant changes in its wake.

But TV news consumption, like print, was rooted to a fixed location. Though it offered 24X7 ‘delivery’ of news, it did not facilitate 24X7 ‘consumption’ of news. News consumption using the Internet on desktops suffered the same limitation.

Mobile phones presented an alternative. Unlike TV, print and desktops, consumers could use them to access the news on the go.

In June 2014, India had 914 million mobile subscribers of which 185 million accessed the Internet on their mobiles.

In this background, PRCI and the student community will view Joe’s talk with great interest

Joe spent the majority of his career as a journalist, working 28 years with leading Indian newspapers and publications. His last and longest stint was an 18-year association with the Economic Times, where he was Senior Assistant Editor.

Presently he heads the Kerala bureau of Dubai-based Gulf News, and is a faculty member at the Institute of Journalism, Trivandrum.

He has worked in Kochi, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai.

He graduated in Commerce from the Kerala University, and has an MBA with specialization in Marketing.

A unique feature of his career is he has published his resignation letter as a book, titled 'Fourth Estate to Rubber Estate', which was released by Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy.