This year’s ICON agenda includes 46 breakout sessions arranged in eight different learning tracks, keynote speakers such as Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge and countless networking opportunities. Attendees will take away valuable insights, new skills, and the latest tactics and strategies designed to solve the challenges faced in the communications profession today. Find the full ICON agenda here.
At a divisive time in America, when many people hold opposing views, “I think it’s really important to be able to understand each other,” Gio Benitez said. We need to have a conversation “to understand what’s happening in the world.”
Benitez, who covers transportation for ABC News and co-anchors “Good Morning America” on weekends, studied sociology before becoming a reporter — which he believes makes him a better interviewer today.
“I loved the study of people and why people are the way they are,” he said during a video interview with PRSA’s Publications Director John Elsasser ahead of Benitez’s Oct. 15 keynote speech at PRSA’s ICON 2024 in Anaheim, Calif.
Part of being a sociologist “is to conduct surveys and interviews and understand people,” said Benitez, the recipient of three national Emmy Awards and two regional Emmy Awards. “I saw, right away, that I could bring that background to my work in journalism.” His favorite stories to cover are those that examine the human condition, he said.
A TV reporter’s view of public relations
When working with PR people, Benitez prioritizes “context and candidness” to find that human connection in a story.
However, the PR professionals who he interacts with are not usually “very excited that we’re covering” that story, since it presents a reputational risk for their company.
“We have this saying: ‘I don’t want to be PR’d.’ Let’s have a real conversation about what’s actually happening. Because even if someone thinks the story’s context puts them in a bad light… viewers will know when they’re not being told the truth. That’s why it’s so important to have honest conversations, full of context.”
As formats change, people still want news
With the public’s news-consumption habits changing, at ABC News, “we’re investing in our streaming services. We really don’t see a difference between [broadcasting or streaming the news] because we’re producing the same content and putting forward the same type of work and the same passion, whether it’s on ‘Good Morning America’ or our streaming service, ABC News Live,” Benitez said.
“People still need this information, and we’re still going to be delivering it to them, but the distribution of it changes,” he said. “We’re trying to meet that moment.”
To earn the audience’s trust in an era of widespread falsehoods on social media and elsewhere, Benitez said he tries to keep his own perspective clear.
“I don’t ever think that there’s two sides to a story,” he said. “I think there’s five sides, six sides, seven sides. And the more sides I can think about, that’s what makes me excited about this work. Like a sociologist, I try to look at all the different possibilities.”
Watch our full video interview with Benitez below:
The post ICON Video Preview: ABC’s Gio Benitez on Working With Comms Pros and a Changing News Landscape first appeared on PRsay.