Why? Because it’s easy to take a clean bathroom for granted until you really need one.
It’s a well kept secret, but public relations is the driving force behind the majority of news stories. When you think about it, the only stories that aren’t PR generated are crime, traffic accidents and weather/natural disasters — although there’s bound to be a PR person on hand with these events as well, making sure reporters and the community get the information they need.
Yet, for all the work we do behind the scenes, the media often portrays PR people as sleazy PR hacks, like Colin Farrell’s character in the 2002 movie Phone Booth, or glamorous party girls like Samantha Jones of Sex in the City and Amanda Woodward of Melrose Place.
My all-time favorite is Fractured Fairy Tales’ version of Rumpelstiltskin, whose title character is a PR guy who says: “I can make you famous overnight … I am what is known as a PR man,” he squeaked. “You know, public relations. Publicity. Flackery. Glamourize the unglamorous. Turn the pedestrian splendorous.”
But when things go wrong, organizations turn to public relations to clean things up and do damage control. National media outlets like USA Today and NPR’s Talk of the Nation are saying that Toyota should use PR to salvage its reputation after its massive recall. And while it’s nice to see that the media believe that public relations has the power to save the day during a crisis, I realize that most people don’t know what public relations is.
Maybe social media can give public relations the facelift it’s needed. Not only is it a friendlier and more straight-forward medium, but PR people no longer have to be the corporate mouthpieces. Employees and executives can speak for themselves, whether they’re writing blogs or posting information on Twitter and YouTube. It also moves organizations away from simply repeating corporate messages to engaging in conversation with their consumers.
Are PR folks going away? No. They will always be needed to assess a situation and develop the communications strategy whether it’s to build an organization’s reputation or manage a crisis. However, we have a chance to give the industry a makeover. Let’s do it.



Again this year, I got links to dozens of those inevitable posts that come up at the beginning and end of a year. All this got me to thinking about both inevitability about wishes for the future. An email from a friend came also, remindin me of a whole list of things that weren’t around in the olden days (cell phones, polio vaccine, etc.), and it turned out that the “olden” days included the early span of my life – providing even more cause to reflect about just where all of this is going, particularly when it comes to communications.













Join the Anti-Fan Movement:
Seven Ways Hospitals Can Address Facebook Criticism:
Is Trust In Twitter Misplaced?:
Singing the Praises of the Twitter Hashtag:
Headline Writing Drives Traffic: