Public Relations Professional

Text 2

(Before reading the text below, think of the role of a PR-professional. Is he/she an adviser to management, or an advertiser and promoter, or a sort of secret agent for the organization? Add your viewpoint to the story below.)

 

Too many people appropriate the term “public relations ” for their work, even though it may not fall into any category of public relations that a true professional would recognize. Fund raisers, for example, often call themselves public relations people because they use some of the techniques of public relations, such as newsletters and publicity.

A broad definition is needed to comprehend all of the activities that public relations people undertake today. The PR practitioner is a person with certain requisite skills, employed in particular ways. These skills, and the ways in which they are used, can be easily defined. We call them many things – publicity, release-writing, speech preparation, internal communications, for example. They are some of the routine processes of the PR function, and their performance requires special aptitudes or abilities in addition to certain personal qualities.

 

Beyond the fundamental skills, the public relations practitioner has a most important function, which is advisory in nature. It is the elusive function that distinguishes the true public relations professional from another person who may have the skills of communication but who somehow never successfully makes the move into public relations. Many an excellent writer, editor, or radio/TV news person has crossed the line into public relations from the media but has failed to become a competent public relations practitioner.

A well-regarded magazine writer with many published articles to his credit assumed that the objectivity he had cultivated would be a liability in PR work and tended to write one-sided documents that were often an embarrassment to his company and its clients.

The public relations person is required, without ever losing personal objectivity, to identify with the interests and policies of the organization. A person who cannot do this is not going to be successful in public relations and will be better off in another endeavor.

 

Few come fresh out of college or from another career fully equipped to serve as advisers to management. To do so requires a thorough understanding of the total functioning of the organization, its management style and policies, its corporate culture, its internal organization, and even its internal policies, as well as its problems, opportunities, goals, and strategies. Only when it is accomplished can the public relations practitioner call into play the special judgment, the “sense of public relations,” to adviсe about the organization’s human relationships. But it is this advice, no matter on what level of the organization it is given, that lifts the practice of public relations out of the mere management or operation of a communications program. And it is the quality of such advice over time that usually determines how highly the public relations function and its practitioners are regarded in the organization.

 

Today, young people by the thousands – men and women alike – are making public relations their first choice for a career. The world has passed beyond the point at which middle-aged or elderly PR people can be fully effective, unless their careers have been continuing exercises in self-education.

 

A Public relations is more than a professional exercise of communicating information and points of view. It is the principal means by which any institution accommodates itself to a changing world. Some administrators who do not have public relations training or experience are innately sensitive to the pulse of public opinion and automatically consider it in arriving at important decisions. But many are not, and it is these decision makers who need the continuing guidance that only a PR-professional with good and experienced judgment can give.

There are no formulas for the development of good judgment, or “ public relations sense. ” It begins with an intuitive or acquired understanding of psychology and a familiarity with the sociological phenomena and history. The public relations practitioner relates this knowledge to what is learned on the job, making connections between the employer’s policies and actions and the reactions to be anticipated from the publics affected by them.

 

In time, the practitioner develops an ability to predict that is pretty reliable. He or she can anticipate what kind of reaction is likely to be caused by a given action – among the media, employees, shareholders, community neighbours, or other important groups. The practitioner is always keenly aware of the way variables can alter such predictions and will raise questions, propose alternative courses, and seek to minimize risk and maximize opportunity.

The true public relations professional avoids rote thinking and often has to use diplomacy in dealing with managers who think bad news can be softened with optimistic words, that a matter of great concern to the organization is automatically newsworthy, or that any important public is monolithic or unchanging. Public relations people who are on top of their jobs learn that all targets are moving targets, and that therefore the nature of the work and the exercise of good judgment require ceaseless acquisition of new information and new insights.

This kind of judgment is, of course, the product of a successful public relations career, rather than a prerequisite for entering upon one. Yet any young person thinking about devoting his or her life to public relations will want some assurance that the potential to develop along these lines is there before a career commitment is made.

 

You used to hear young people say, “I like people, and therefore I should be in public relations.” That, of course, is nonsense – if only because almost everyone likes people. There is no uniform opinion about the personal qualities, desired education, and experience needed for a PR career. Some say that there are only three prerequisites – brains, a sound education, and intellectual curiosity. It seems likely that the best educational preparation for a PR career is a sound liberal arts education. Often, the liberal arts student comes out of college with a good educational basis in science and the humanities – history, psychology, sociology, literature, and political science. This leaves gaps, however, which the aspirant to public relations should fill by taking some additional courses – in economics, corporate finance, business law, marketing, and business organization, for example.

 

Young PR people with the greatest potential always exhibit a lively interest in people, events, and actions. They have insatiable curiosity and a high energy quotient. PR people have to be more energetic, more alert, and more reflective than the average person. They need to take a second look at every conclusion they come to, yet they also need rapid perception – the ability to understand a situation or a thought quickly and to access it in the context of their work.

The work is not easy. Most PR people, right from the beginning, are under the pressure much of the time. They have to go on until any given job is done, so there is little room in the business for people who want a nice, orderly, 9-to-5 routine... That makes the energy factor important.

 

Throughout a PR career, the practitioner has an inside view of the organization, and an association with the decision makers that makes him or her one of a privileged few. Often, the rigid departmental lines of communication mapped out on organization charts for most white-collar workers in a big organization simply do not apply to the PR representative, whose work is usually interdepartmental. But almost always the PR representative works, at least part of the time, with whoever is the top boss. To many, this is challenging and rewarding. And outside the plant or office, the PR person tends “to meet the most interesting people”. This is stimulating.

 

Everybody likes to be an “ insider”. Public relations people automatically are, because they are the link between what is happening inside and the vehicles of communication that will tell others about it on the outside. Often, these events are significant and newsworthy – strike situations, important business developments, controversies of public interest. Even the preparation of a speech that helps shape policy may be of a form of participation in events.

 

There are other ways in which experienced public relations executives take part in policy formation. The most important role that a public relations executive can play in that of management counsel as readily as they do for legal, accounting, engineering, or technical opinions.

 

Writing professionally is a discipline that, once mastered, offers endless rewards to the PR worker. Working within confines, he or she still finds room for self-expression.

For most men and women in the field, the scope for expression is wide – much wider than that offered in any of the news media. The public relations writer must not only adapt to newspapers, magazines, radio, television – to all the media – but in time will probably also write position papers, speeches, programs, presentations, brochures, reports, even handle sensitive management correspondence. Most of this is under deadline pressure and brings forth the highest professional effort from anyone who really cares about writing.

 

PR people often enjoy a degree of freedom from routine. They may, and often do, put in long hours, and they are constantly fighting deadlines, but their work is far from dull or repetitious. There are always new challenges that vary with the changing aims and circumstances of the employer. PR people are oriented both to news and to problems.

 

Word Study

 

· 2.1. Choose the suitable synonym from the right-hand side for the adjectives and the verbs below:

 

Indispensable skills	Deadline
Daily processes	Innate
A skilful practitioner	Competent
A very good understanding	Thorough
Natural sensitivity	Requisite
Under the extreme pressure	Routine
To use the skills	To exhibit
To carry out a process	To anticipate
To adapt to the world	To accommodate oneself
To foresee a reaction	To perform
To show an interest	To employ

 

· 2.2. Make up sentences on the basis of the text using the verbal combinations below: You are to describe some profession.

E.g. The coach calls into play the best soccer players.

To make the move into smth;

To be aware of smth;

To fill a gap;

To handle correspondence.

· 2.3. Explain the following combinations (consult the text if needed).

A well-regarded writer, one-sided documents, to identify with the interests of the organization, to be better in some endeavour, to avoid rote thinking, to be newsworthy, to be on top of one’s job, insatiable curiosity, to take a second look at the conclusion, a white-collar worker, to put in long hours, a 9-to-5 routine.

· 2.4. Copy the following professional phrases and find their Russian equivalents (consult the text).

A fund-raiser, a newsletter, internal communications, special judgment, to cause a reaction, to maximize opportunity, a PR-practitioner, an organization chart, lines of communication (inside the organization).

 

· 2.5. Translate the sentences (see the text), paying special attention to the underlined words:

 

- От работника PR требуется полное единение с интересами фирмы.

- Для большинства мужчин и женщин, занятых в этой сфере, возможности для выражения широки.

- Они постоянно борются с крайностями.

- Обычно его работа не ограничивается одним отделом (работает с разными отделами);

- Известный журналист, опубликовавший много статей к вещей славе, принял объективность за обязательное качество для работников в PR.

 

Scanning

 

· 2.6. Answer the following questions.

a) Why do men and women choose the PR career – to get much money, to achieve self-expression, to satisfy ambitions? Why else?

b) Can the PR work be easy for a PR person? He/she can be classified as “PR worker”, “PR practitioner”, “PR representative” and others. Which do you prefer? Link it to the first subquestion.

c) The general qualities of a PR person are considered to be education, energy, competence. These are standard. But what props them up? Different people (thousands) are educated, energetic and competent. Who among them can make a PR professional?

d) Speaking psychologically, many young men are attracted by the profession (a PR specialist). Don’t they see the risk of it? The fiasco is going to be bitter and painful.

e) Can a graduate of a liberal arts college grow into an enviable PR professional working for some engineering company?

f) Would you make use of “the most interesting people” (see the text) if you were a PR practitioner? If you would, in what way? For what purpose?

Unit 3

The Public Relations Field

Text 3

(Prior to reading the text, you think of all spheres of life and human activity when public relations work is needed or advisable. The text will show you the major spheres but you are free to specify or multiply them.)

 

Public relations deal with the transmission of facts, but it is, nevertheless, by its nature, self-serving to the user. The generic functions of PR are to educate, to disseminate news, and to advocate.

 

Education

 

Many PR programs have no other object than to inform the public of certain facts. For a number of years, one organization is the pharmaceutical industry has devoted its entire public relations efforts to publicizing the safe ways in which to use medicines and to keep them out of the hands of children. The content of the program is factual, positive, educational, and non-controversial.

Wide-spread ignorance of business economics among the general public is generally acknowledged. Over the years this lack of knowledge has been confirmed by hundreds of public opinion polls. For this reason, hundreds of large corporations and trade associations have made economic education a major objective of their PR programs. They have certainly done this in their own self-interest.

The educational function of public relations is real, and it is far more commonplace than many would expect. It touches on many areas. It is not confined to commercial enterprises. Almost every kind of organization engages in it: government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit associations, and organizations of the professions.

 

News

 

Disseminating newsworthy facts about the organization and chronicling events as they occur are important functions of public relations. Facts are by nature neutral, though they can be distorted and used to mislead. Any public or private organization that misuses facts, distorts them, or conceals them risks the loss of credibility, as do the individuals involved in messaging the facts.

Many corporate, associate, and institutional managers and public leaders jump at the chance to trumpet good news to the skies but try to lie low when the news is bad. This tendency is often simply a manifestation of most people’s unfamiliarity with the customs and attitudes of the mass media. But it is also the understandable human desire to escape negative publicity and criticism.

Every effective PR practitioner has learned to face the dilemma of dealing openly with bad news. An organization’s reputation with the print or electronic media is only as good as its day-in, day-out performance in passing along information, good and bad. Editors throw away handfuls of news releases for every one they use. Today, the organization that is not completely candid and open is automatically suspect. The PR person who does not understand this, or who is consistently overruled by higher management in adopting an open stance with the media, has a serious problem.

 

It is wise for the PR person responsible for handling an organization’s relations with the news media to recognize how important the news media are in shaping the organization’s reputation, and to serve as an intermediary between media and management not as one-sided “promoter”. This function does not relieve an organization’s leaders of direct contact with the media. A spokesperson, although he or she should have access to the top executives and officials and should represent their interests, cannot replace them.

Despite management’s views to the contrary, as far as the media are concerned, the only function of PR is to serve them. This can be done to their satisfaction only by a policy of prompt and full disclosure. This full-disclosure policy produces a positive effect on a company’s position in the public eye compared to other companies.

 

Advocacy

 

Most PR men and women are, at least in part, advocates. Some are advocates pure and simple. The role of advocacy in public relations is the most easily perceived by the media and, of course, by adversaries.

Unfortunately, too many shady operators, whitewash experts, and make-a-buck opportunists palm themselves off as public relations people. Where honest misunderstanding of the public relations function already creates difficulties, the depredations of such people reflect poorly on the entire craft. If this situation is ever to be corrected, it must be done by sincere professionals who in their own minds are clear about the distinctions in these responsibilities and who can make them plain to others.

 

Most of the advocacy activities in public relations are so clear-out as to need no explanation. The public relations person who helps prepare testimony before an investigation commission or legislative committee – or who helps publicize it – is so obviously espousing a point of view that everybody recognizes the fact.

 

Advocacy is both an affirmative activity and a defensive one. A corporation acts affirmatively, for example, when it takes a stance for or against a legislative act. It is being defensive when it responds to an accusation. There is no question in such situations about the position of the corporation’s PR representative. He or she is an advocate.

Professional public relations activities are undertaken in all major segments of society. The following list is by no means complete but it is intended to illustrate how broad the spectrum of public relations is:

- business and industry (corporate and divisional PR staffs in large corporations in several locations, and small, centralized staffs of smaller organizations);

- agriculture (different organizations employ PR people and lobbyists);

- trade and industry associations (these represent companies at all levels and have PR representation);

- travel and tourism (here PR looms extra large);

- Non profit organizations (here PR grows rapidly, employed by public hospitals, environmental, consumer, and feminist groups; ethnic organizations; museums, clubs, etc.);

- education (colleges, schools. Educational associations provide another large field of growth for PR people);

- government (from federal to county governments employ thousands or PR people; virtually every senator and representative has at least one PR assistant);

- labour unions (they employ PR staffs or use counsel);

- professional associations (these are heavy users of PR talent at their headquarters);

- politics (PR people are employed by candidates, political parties, and elected officials; much of the work is part-time);

- organized sports (teams and leagues, colleges and stadiums, clubs and sports-equipment producing companies require PR people);

- media (these are large users of PR talent, particularly in publicity and promotion);

- Public relations counsel (these are counseling firms that specialize in some of the above fields).

Word Study

 

· 3.1. Choose the necessary prepositions:

to specialize _ smth

to devote smth. _ smb.

to be ignorant _ smth.

to relieve smb. _smth.

to be familiar _ smth.

to be responsible _ smth.

to have an access _ smth.

to be compared _ smth.

to reflect _ smth.

to make smth.plain _ smb.

 

· 3.2. Replace the bookish phrases with more habitual ones:

to disseminate news

the loss of credibility

manifestation of unfamiliarity with the customs

to be perceived by adversaries

depredations of such people

to espouse a point of view

segments of society.

 

· 3.3. Imagine who can act as follows (construct a logical sentence):

to jump at a chance;

to trumpet smth./smb. to the skies;

to lie low;

to palm oneself off as smb./smth.

 

· 3.4. Explain the sentences below if they need explaining:

- It is self-serving to the user.

- Reputation is only as good as day-in, day-out performance in passing along information.

- It is wise for a PR person to serve as an intermediary between media and management not as a one-sided “promoter”.

- Some PR persons are advocates pure and simple.

- There are too many make-a-buck opportunists in this business.

- Advocacy is an affirmative activity.

- Here PR looms extra large.

 

· 3.5. Register in your vocabulary some more professionalisms (supply them with Russian notations):

A nonprofit organization

A corporate manager

An associate manager

An institutional manager

A news release

A spokesperson

A shady operator

A whitewash expert

A legislative act

A counseling firm

In the public eye

To chronicle events

To distort facts

To misuse facts

To message facts

To pass along information

To take (adopt) a stance for (against) smth./with smb. (e. g. the media)

To be overruled by the management

To shape smb’s reputation

To represent smb’s interest

(Mind: the noun “stance” may turn into a hard nut to crack)

 

· 3.6. Consolidate your comprehension of the professionalisms below by composing special situations:

facts – to distort, to misuse, to massage, to refute, to pass along;

stance – to take, to adopt.

 

· 3.7. Translate the following sentences close to the text’s grammatical structures.

- У этой программы нет иных целей, кроме как информировать общественность о некоторых событиях.

- Они являются активными потребителями опыта PR-работников.

- На каждый пресс-релиз, который редактор использует, есть охапки их, которые он выбрасывает.

- Важная функция PR – информировать общественность о фактах, которые могут стать интересной новостью.

 

Scanning

 

· 3.8. Answer the following questions:

a) Education, information and advocacy – are these the three pillars on which the PR activities are hinged? Can we use here the term “PR-business”? Is there a fourth pillar? A fifth one, too?

b) Which of the aforesaid fields of PR efforts would you choose to work in? Why this choice? How about show-biz?

c) If engaged in politics, would you, a PR person, be satisfied with part-time work? If you would not, what would you do, say, if you were employed by a seemingly winning candidate?

d) You are a beginner, a novice, fresh from college. You were a faster among the students, highly graded. Why do you think a counseling firm will not hurry into hiring you?

e) Did you think of some field for PR unknown to all and sundry but you?

Unit 4

Essential Functions of Public Relations

 

Text 4

(You know that PR informs, publicizes, advocates and accumulates the database aimed at achieving success. But what techniques are used you must know, too, and how it functions in practice, and what its role is. Below are some outlines of PR activities which you have not classified in such a generalizing way.)

 

In public opinion is to be fully and accurately informed, it must have access to, and trust in, authoritative sources of information. In the case of a corporation or other organization, the most authoritative source is the head of the organization – the chief executive officer (CEO) or the equivalent.

 

Whatever is said by the CEO will be viewed both inside and outside the organization as the final word on the condition of the organization and on where it stands on a given issue. There are always some, of course, who question the accuracy of the CEO’s opinions, interpretations, and forecasts. But when the CEO speaks for the organization, his or her words are viewed as coming directly “from the horse’s mouth”.

 

Therefore, the chief executive officer of any organization should be its most authoritative and credible spokesperson. Yet all sizeable organizations have other representatives: officers, plant managers, department heads and specialists of all kinds. The closer any of them comes to one-on-one discussion with people important to the organization, the more believable and convincing him or she is likely to be. As opposed to spokespersons, those who actually make policy cannot only speak their own minds but they can also respond personally to the reactions of those they speak with. That is why in so many instances and programs public relations people insist on the personal participation of the CEO.

 

However, the CEO cannot be brought into person-to-person interchanges with the thousands of people. We sometimes forget that the use of PR techniques for the function loosely called “communications” is no more than an attempt to do indirectly what the executive is unable to do in face-to-face discussion. Putting out releases, appearing on television, and making speeches are necessary substitutes for personal conversation, but they are not nearly as effective. Each substitute has its own limitations. The listener may be hostile, skeptical, or unwilling to hear. One of the challenges of PR is to find the best, most workable ways of bridging the gap between the reality and credibility of the personal contact on the one hand, and the impersonal communications directed to groups on the other.

 

Spokespersons

 

In any large organization, one of the first questions of public relations is: Who speaks for us?

In public relations the word “spokesperson” does not necessarily refer to someone who speaks directly. Spokespersons are those to whom any statement is attributed, as for instance in a news release.

Typically, in a large company the CEO will preempt the role of speaking on any specific topics considered sensitive. In most large organizations, spokespersons have a more restricted role: if the corporation has four lines of business, there are four lines of business, there are four spokespersons. Officers are the ranking authorities within their own sphere, but none is in a position to speak for the others. The difference between the limitation of the spokesperson’s role and its positive functioning is the organized effort of a PR department to put the materials of communication in the hands of all spokespersons. Organizing the formal spokesperson role in any big PR operation is a fundamental requirement, yet it is not a bar to enlisting large groups of non-executive employees to speak for the organization. But it is essential to understand that when this employee – spokesperson technique is used, it must be done under special conditions:

- story to be told need not be simple but it must be uniform, and the people chosen to tell it must have the right qualifications to do so;

- the subject must be of universal interest;

- control is required to ensure that the employees engaged in the effort perform as planned and do not transcend the riles assigned to them.

Communication Strategy

 

PR people and executives to whom they report often have only limited control over their communications. A release may say exactly what its originator wants it to say, but its interpretation is mostly out of the organization’s control once it leaves the office. Sometimes in interviews the right questions are never asked, or the executive being questioned may be ambiguous or misunderstood. Poor writing and clumsy talk promote misunderstanding. The act of communication is only half of a transaction; the reception or perception of what is communicated is the other half. Most PR people have seen with dismay how imperfect the perception often is.

 

This limited control puts a premium on quality in communications. Clarity and simplicity in language are keys to effective communications. Logic in the sequence of ideas is another key, as is the clean and evident organization of any written material. The best written communications do not leave the reader with unanswered questions or objections because of omission. Questions and objections should be anticipated in the planning of written materials answered in the writing.

Some of the most effective communications have been disseminated in the form of questions and answers. The Q-and-A technique is, of course, a special one that is not adaptable to all communications. It is selected as the most direct and hardest hitting approach to communicating a number of important but not closely related facts with brevity and impact.

 

Even the most affirmative things said in a PR program often have negative aspects that should be anticipated. An electric utility has good news: it is going to build a new generating station. Good news, indeed, but if the company tells its story this way, it will leave a lot of questions unanswered: environmental effects, location, community’s reaction, temporary construction noise and dirt, etc. Making a general announcement of this sort is only the beginning of a communication program that will take different forms and may go on for years. One of the company’s first considerations must be for the differing interests of its specific audiences. The purpose of tailoring communications for specific audiences is to serve the company’s interests, to earn appreciation and support, to win acceptance of its policies and activities, to moderate criticism or to abate anticipated attacks, to maintain its markets and so on.