Public relations 101: earning trust you cannot buy

Public relations (PR) is the discipline of earning attention and trust rather than buying space. It covers media relations (working with journalists), corporate communications, an organisation's own newsroom, crisis communications, reputation management and public affairs (engaging with policymakers). In the PESO model its home is earned media, working alongside owned and shared media (PESO).

• What it is: telling an organisation's story through people the audience already trusts: journalists, experts, partners and the organisation's own spokespeople.
• Who runs it: in-house communications teams and consultancies; the largest agencies earn close to a billion US dollars a year in fees¹⁵.
• Who decides: the journalist or editor, not the brand. Paid placement is advertising and must be labelled as such¹⁰¹¹.
• How it is priced: mostly people and time, sold as fees, not as media space¹⁵.
• Best for: reputation, thought leadership, launches and crises.
• Weak for: guaranteed reach, exact timing or control over the final words.
• As of: October 2026.

Media relations is the core craft. A team finds a story that matters to an audience, prepares the facts and assets, and offers it to journalists who cover the subject. The classic vehicle is the press release: a factual statement written so a reporter can use it. Under an embargo, journalists receive news in advance on the understanding that they will not publish before a set date and time. An owned newsroom on the organisation's own site holds releases, images, data and contacts, so a journalist, a partner or an AI tool finds the official version first. A trained spokesperson speaks for the organisation; media relations is the long-term relationship that makes any single pitch work.

Crisis communications is the same craft under pressure: a crisis plan agreed in advance names who decides, who speaks and what is said first. Public affairs applies it to government, and in the European Union an interest representative must now register before carrying out certain lobbying activities with the Parliament, the Council and the Commission¹⁸.

Measurement follows a programme logic. The AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework, launched in 2016 by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, replaced its earlier Valid Metrics and Social Media Measurement frameworks and walks a team from objectives to impact, tagging each activity by paid, earned, shared or owned media³:

Public bodies use it too: the New South Wales Government in Australia requires its communications staff to evaluate campaigns with the AMEC framework⁴. The Barcelona Principles sit on top as the rules of good practice: version 4.0 asks teams to set measurable objectives, define their stakeholder audiences, work across all relevant channels, combine qualitative and quantitative analysis, and drop invalid measures such as AVEs¹.

Modern media relations is usually traced to Ivy Lee. After a Pennsylvania Railroad wreck in October 1906, he persuaded the company to give journalists the facts before they heard them elsewhere; The New York Times printed his statement verbatim on 30 October 1906¹². Lee's Declaration of Principles promised openness: "This is not a secret press bureau. All our work is done in the open."¹²

The profession then wrote down its ethics. The International Public Relations Association (IPRA) adopted the Code of Venice in 1961 and the Code of Athens in 1965; its 2011 Code of Conduct, adopted by its board in November 2010, merged those with the 2007 Code of Brussels⁸. The Global Alliance first adopted its Global Principles in 2003 and updated them in 2018⁹.

Measurement followed. The Barcelona Principles were first adopted in Barcelona in 2010 and have been revised roughly every five years: version 3.0 in 2020 and version 4.0 in 2025, launched at AMEC's International Summit in Vienna¹².

PR is practised in every market, by companies, governments, charities and individuals. The best public picture of the agency business is the PRovoke Media ranking, built mostly from figures the agencies submit themselves: in its 2025 edition, Edelman reported fee income of US$986 million for 2024 and Burson US$956 million¹⁵.

Trust is the context everywhere. Edelman's 2026 Trust Barometer surveyed 33,938 people in 28 countries between 25 October and 26 November 2025; seven in ten said they were unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values or information sources, and "my employer" was the most trusted institution, at 78%¹⁶.

• Americas: PRSA's Code of Ethics sets the professional standard for its members⁶, and the Federal Trade Commission polices paid content dressed as editorial¹⁰.
• Europe: the UK's CIPR enforces a code of conduct for members⁵, the ASA applies the advertising code to advertorials¹¹, and the EU runs a mandatory transparency register for lobbying¹⁸.
• Middle East and Africa: Edelman reported that the UAE showed greater resilience than the global average in its 2026 survey¹⁷.
• Asia-Pacific: public bodies such as the NSW Government have built the AMEC framework into their own evaluation rules⁴.

• Reputation and crisis: protecting trust before, during and after a problem; central in financial services, healthcare and pharma and the public sector.
• Thought leadership: putting experts and research in front of the media and industry, common in B2B software and professional services.
• Product launches and market entry: news, reviews and briefings that give a new name third-party credibility.
• Rebrands and employer brand: explaining change to the press, staff and the public.
• Internal engagement: employees are a trusted audience in their own right, as the Trust Barometer shows¹⁶.

It is the home turf of the communications lead, who also owns the message house that keeps every spokesperson on the same story.

PR buys people and time, not media. Agencies are ranked by fee income¹⁵, and the usual models are a monthly retainer, a project fee or time charged by the hour. On top come tools: media databases and monitoring, a distribution service for releases, an owned newsroom, and research for evaluation.

There is no public rate card for coverage, and there should not be: a journalist's decision is not for sale. What you can budget is effort and evaluation. The Barcelona Principles ask for outcomes, which means paying for research such as surveys or search and web data, not just counting clippings¹. Set KPIs against objectives first, as in objectives and KPIs.

This is a summary, not legal advice.

• Paid must look paid. The FTC's December 2015 policy statement says ads formatted to look like editorial content are deceptive even when the product claims in them are true, judged by the net impression on consumers¹⁰. In the UK, the CAP Code requires marketing to be obviously identifiable and advertorials to be labelled, for example as "advertisement feature", with responsibility on both the marketer and the publisher¹¹. See native advertising.
• Professional codes. Members of PR bodies sign codes that go further than the law:

• Disclosure. PRSA asks members to reveal the sponsors of causes they represent, disclose financial interests in a client, and keep gifts to journalists nominal, legal and infrequent⁶; its advisories cover disclosure⁷ and paying for coverage ("pay for play")²¹. IPRA's members agree to support its disciplinary procedures⁸; the Global Alliance principles guide practitioners while enforcement stays with each member association⁹. CIPR gave members a year to stop using AVEs, after which they could face disciplinary action⁵.
• Lobbying. The EU's interinstitutional agreement of 20 May 2021 made registration mandatory before certain lobbying activities¹⁸; the European Parliament approved it by 645 votes to 5, with 49 abstentions¹⁹.

• AVEs. An advertising value equivalent prices coverage as if it were bought ad space. It ignores whether the coverage was positive or negative and says nothing about outcomes; the Barcelona Principles 4.0 again list it as an invalid measure¹, and CIPR treats its use as unprofessional⁵. Treat earned media value figures with the same caution.
• Outputs are not outcomes. Coverage counts sit in the "outputs" step of the AMEC framework; what matters is what people took from it and what changed³.
• No control. A journalist may cut, reframe or ignore the story, and an embargo depends on trust.
• Relationships take years. A pitch sent cold to a long list rarely lands; media relations works when reporters already know the organisation as a reliable, fast and honest source.
• A plan in a drawer. A crisis plan that has never been rehearsed, or that names a spokesperson who has never faced a camera, fails on the first day of a real crisis.
• Misinformation. In ICCO's World PR Report, misinformation and disinformation were the leading ethical concern, cited by 40% of respondents²⁰.
• Disguised payment. Paying for coverage without disclosure breaks advertising law and professional codes¹⁰¹¹²¹.

• AI answers draw on earned media. Muck Rack's analysis of links cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity between July and December 2025 found that about 94% came from non-paid sources, and that press releases rose from 0.2% to 1% of citations¹³. An earlier Muck Rack study, reported by PRSA in July 2025, found that news articles and the people they quote shape what AI tools say¹⁴. Being a trusted, quoted source is now also a route into AI search.
• Measurement aligned end to end. Barcelona Principles 4.0 are colour-coded to the steps of the AMEC framework and widen "relevant channels" beyond online versus offline².
• AI in the workflow. In ICCO's World PR Report, 91% of respondents expected AI to be the most relevant technology for PR over the next five years²⁰.
• A more insular public. Edelman's 2026 findings suggest messages must cross more divides of values and sources¹⁶.

Choose PR when credibility matters more than control: a launch that needs third-party validation, a reputation to build or protect, a policy debate to join. Plan it with content and influencer marketing, give it measurable objectives and evaluate it with the methods in measuring effectiveness. See the public relations discipline page and which mix for which objective.