While large organizations such as universities and corporations often have a communications department with several types of media relations jobs, people in the public eye also hire media relations professionals for their individual needs. Media relations firms and departments offer a wide range of opportunities across the public relations spectrum. Some of these media relations jobs include communications officers, directors, assistants, administrators, publicists, and writers. While some of these positions may be hired as permanent staff, others are recruited on an as-needed, for-hire basis to supplement the firm or department’s existing manpower.
Communications officers have some of the most diverse responsibilities in public relations, including fielding queries from the press, media monitoring, speech writing, and issuing press releases. While a communications officer may participate in the development and implementation of media strategies, it is usually the responsibility of a media or communications director to lead a long-term plan. A director might make decisions regarding the type and manner in which information should be relayed when announcing a policy development or implementing damage control. Some of the more entry level media relations jobs include communications assistant or communications coordinator and administrator. A communications assistant’s responsibilities might include media monitoring and fielding incoming inquiries, whereas an administrator’s responsibilities are likely to include a more broad range of administrative duties unrelated to media relations.
Unlike a media relations department, which only represents the larger organization it’s part of, a media relations firm is a business that’s contracted by a number of different clients. Some of these clients may be famous individuals such as actors, musicians, or professional athletes, who often employ numerous people themselves and have the same media relations needs that a company might. Media relations jobs that entail representing celebrities often have the title of spokesperson or publicist, and involve releasing statements on behalf of the celebrity, arranging and supervising interviews and press conferences for the celebrity, and advising the celebrity on general issues pertaining to his or her public image.
Writers who can produce communications material are also part of most public relations teams. Media relations firms or departments might employ a writer amongst their other media relations jobs, or they may outsource a freelance writer on an as-needed basis. Media relations writers write speeches, media releases, grant applications, newsletters, website content, and other external communications material.