By Núbia Neves
It is common in fiction to watch films that have a scene where journalists gather in a room and ask questions after questions for interviewees who are going through a crisis. Besides fiction, another occasion at which we commonly come across in press conferences, is in football: players and coaches sit in front of a pretty high number of journalists, and are “attacked” with questions about a game or about any specific information. Theoretically, both examples represent well what a press conference is.
The purpose of this meeting is to bring together the main target journalists and inform assertively and strategically what the company wants to announce. During the fusion of companies, announcement of a new president, a crisis, a new direction of the company, etc., to promote a press conference can be a great way to optimize the time of which many interviews would take, in addition to disseminate information for more than one publication.
Normally, this action is elaborated for major announcements, because of the limited time that journalists have, moving them from newsrooms is a hard work, and which often is not successful when the meeting is not a relevant reason enough to happen. This is why it is essential that the media relations office, along with the communication area of the company, and its directors, meet with each other and discuss the best strategy to inform about each subject.
Sometimes the overvaluation of news can make the action a failure. For this reason, it is essential that the areas act with alignment and strategy, for an assertive decision that may be, or not, the press conference.