By Juliet Umeh

THE  President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, Mr. Eze Anaba, yesterday, tasked public relations managers to always come up with unfiltered statements and also be concise in their write-ups.

Mr. Anaba also challenged the PR managers to cultivate the media through building good relationships for harmonious co-existence.

He spoke at the ‘Meet the Media,’ Media Relations and Strategic Public Relations programme organised by the Business Education Exams Council, BEEC, in Lagos.

In his remarks, the NGE boss said: “Your statement must always be concise. Tell your story unfiltered, don’t lie. You must cultivate in the media. Journalists and editors are not monsters. They want to defend you; they want to be close to you. Sometimes, everything is not about money.

“I need money like most of us here, we all need money, but friendship is important. Money does not buy you a good image, what buys you a good image is your competence, intellect, and the ability to reach out with your good work.

“If you give me all the money, I will take it but it will not buy my conscience. So, I’m saying this so that you don’t think the only way you can access the media is through buying things.”

While noting that the media is a changing climate, he said: “We are now in a survival mode. We are competing with technology, social media invasion of the Europeans and poor economics.

“For a people like Vanguard, we are lucky to have a market share in Lagos, the South-East and South-South zones; if we do not have that, we will be struggling with today’s economy.

“What happened in the 60s and 50s is where we are going now because of the economy; we are going back to regional papers.”

On the need for PR managers to explore the opportunity that misinformation in social media platforms provides, Anaba said: “The misinformation being churned out by the social media is now increasingly giving relevance to the traditional media.

“It has provided an opportunity for you to explore it. Start developing your contacts and start improving your reach through advocacy programmes. Start befriending your journalist friends, and if you befriend them, I tell you, they will make your job very easy.”

In his welcome address, the President of BEEC, Mr Mike Okereke said: “We must build trust and mutual understanding with the media for operational efficiency and effectiveness; they are very important stakeholders for the PR industry.

“The media must understand our policies, our activities and our problems.”