“Your job will disappear. Artificial intelligence will do everything.” This sentence, I heard an incalculable number of times.
“Your job will disappear. Artificial intelligence will do everything. »»
And every time, I want to answer: “Very well, that AI does everything. But without us, it will do nothing right.”
Because the essence of our profession of press attachment is not the drafting of a press release or a platform. This is not the compilation of email addresses in an Excel file. Nor is it the automated sending of a broadcast campaign.
Our job is the link.
This invisible but ultra-solid link that we weave every day with journalists, editors, columnists, freelancers, heads of section.
This link is based on one thing: human relationship.
Yes, our job is called “press relations”. And it’s no coincidence.
We are at the crossroads of listening, suggestion, opportunity, useful info, the right person at the right time. We are the transmission belt between what our customers mean and what journalists want (or not) to tell.
And that, no AI, as powerful as it can, can do it for us.
A field, instinctively, and constant exchanges
People sometimes imagine that we send impersonal emails in burst, in the hope that a journalist deigns to answer them. The reality is quite different.
We spend our days exchange, adjust, redirect, relaunch. Hot, cold, on the phone, by email, on WhatsApp, Instagram or even via a LinkedIn DM.
A journalist who is looking for an emergency contact, a last -minute info, a hot reaction? We are there. An angle idea to dig together? We brainstorm. A last minute unavailability of a press guest? There is a plan B. All that, in real time, in confidence, and often in an emergency.
We are not simple relays. We are editorial partners, discreet but essential.
And that link, the one who unites us to journalists, cannot be decreed. He wins, feeds, works.
AI can do a lot. But not everything.
Let’s be clear: I am not technophobic.
I use AI. To help me structure a text, identify a trend, save time on certain tasks.
But never to replace my role of advice, interface, strategist and permanent watch.
Because a good subject is not just a good content. It is a good content, addressed to the right person, at the right time, with the right angle.
And that’s my job.
A journalist receives hundreds of solicitations per day.
So why does he open my email? Why does he answer me? Why does he accept to deal with my subject?
Because he knows that I understood his editorial line, his rhythm, his constraints. Because I took the time. Because I didn’t lose her.
And that is neither a question of text nor tools. It is a question of relationship.
Reality is that we work together
Press attaché and journalist is a duo. Not a duel.
One without the other, it’s a bit like a voiceless microphone. A news without lighting. A
info without reliable source.
Yes, I offer subjects. But it is the journalist who chooses if he wants to treat them.
And often we adjust them together. We refine, we reformulate, we decline.
It is teamwork, sometimes informal, often reactive, always human.
What I defend here is not just my job. It is a mode of operation in the media ecosystem.
These are these exchanges at any time, these improvised calls, these professional complicities that are built over time. It is these journalists who trust me, and to whom I have to give them the same: with quality, transparency, and a lot of reactivity.
The word of the end: our profession does not disappear.
It evolves, and that’s good.
So no, our job is not dead. It is constantly evolving. And that is precisely why he is exciting.
Yes, AI will transform certain tasks. So much the better. This will allow us to devote even more time to what makes our true value: the link, the finesse, the tailor-made, the flair.
Press relations are not a shadow job. These are professions of listening and confidence.
And as long as there are journalists to look for good subjects, there will be press attachés to blow them, refine them, make them embodied.
It’s a teamwork. It’s a duo. And it’s a job for the future.
