Did I act properly?

Last Summer I was working for the Lithuanian Public Broadcasting Company’s radio section as a journalist. During that time I got to communicate and work with the public relations practitioners pretty much. While writing this blog I recalled one example that I’d like to give now about how the practitioners work does not reach the goal – to promote company’s name in media.

All this happened in July when final World Cup matched were played in South Africa. The biggest telecommunication company “TEO LT” broadcasted final games in one of the most visited squares in Vilnius. They brought a portable TV studio (big buss with the largest screen in the country) and enabled football fans to watch the games all together, just sitting on the ground.

The company’s public relations practitioners disseminated the information about these events through all possible communication channels. At that moment I was responsible for the news related to World Cup. The editor gave me the press releases and told me to record one peace of news about this event. We discussed a lot whether we should mention company’s name or not. Finally, we decided do not do that.

As a result, we shortly presented the matches, reminded tournament’s ratings and only at the end we mentioned that the game is broadcasting in the square live. It meant that people are informed about the event, but they don’t know who the organizer is.

Did I act properly? From my point of view, I acted fairly taking care of our listeners. They were informed about the event, the context of the game was also announced. If they want, they could go to the square and watch the game. Moreover, we also furthered the advertisement of the company because those people who came to the square, saw company’s logos and found out the organizer. On the other hand, our decision was unfair, because the company’s name was not announced on the radio, certainly the practitioners would have preferred that. Unfortunately, to state about fair or unfair decision in this case is quite complicated.