What is public relations?

1. What is public relations? • Public relations is something that everyone has. • Public relations fosters the improvement of public relationships through specific activities and policies. • Public relations is the cornerstone of a democratic society.

2. What is public relations? • Every person and organization has a reputation • Good, bad or neutral • People form opinions without even thinking about how or why

3. What is public relations? • Public relations techniques can be applied to any social, cultural or political situation. • Publics can be big or small • The principles are the same • The scale changes the appropriate tactics

4. Press Agentry & Publicity • The “hacks” • Propaganda • Truth not essential • One-way • Sports, theatre, product promotion

5. Public Information • The “pros” • Information dissemination • Truth is important • Reputation Management

6. Ethics • Public Relations as a profession • Applies generally accepted techniques, strategies, structures and tactics • Similar to “law,” “medicine,” etc. • What it yields are desirable public relationships and positive reputations JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

7. PR as a profession • Standardized educational preparation • Unique knowledge and skills • Based on a body of theory developed through research • Recognition by the community of a unique and essential service • Autonomy in practice and acceptance of personal responsibility by practitioners • Codes of ethics and standards of performance enforced by a self-governing association of colleagues JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

8. Why are ethics important? • Self-policing protects the profession • Defines PR practitioners as a group • Protects the professional franchise • Serves our clients • Maintains public trust • Provides basis and support for professional privilege. JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

9. Foundations of ethical practice • Professional ethics • Doing the right thing • Imperative of trust • Placing your client’s interests above your own • Professional privileges • Access to information, strategy, financials, etc. JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

10. Applied ethics • Formal codes of ethics and professional conduct. • Guide professional practice • Provide the basis for enforcement and sanctions. • Professional conduct • Generally accepted virtuous motives • Monitored and assessed against established codes of conduct • Enforced through concrete interpretation for those who deviate from accepted standards of performance JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

11. Negative impact of PR? • Gains advantages for and promotes special interests, sometimes at the cost of the public well-being. • Clutters already choked channels of communication with pseudoevents and phony phrases that confuse rather than clarify. • Corrodes our channels of communication with cynicism and credibility gaps. JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

12. The practitioner-journalist relationship • Adversarial in nature, but… • Mutually dependent and mutually beneficial. • Reporters and editors play a crucial gatekeeping role in all media. • Practitioners must earn and keep the respect of journalists in the news media. JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008

13. Building good media relations • Some basic rules: • Shoot squarely -- Honesty is the best policy. • Give service by respecting media deadlines and by being available to the media. • Don’t beg or carp, especially by asking for special treatment. (Hint: You won’t get any.) • Don’t ask media to kill a story. • Don’t flood the media with information with no news value. JPG, PUB475, Spring 2008