Redefining Public Relations

@pr20chat Re: #PRDefined, PR is the only navel-gazing, hand wringing discipline. Marketing and Advertise don't worry like PR does. #pr20chat

@JGoldsborough None of them. #pr20chat

Hi Dave:

Congratulations on taking part in this discussion on the quest for a definition of PR by 13 PR organizations. You note at one point that you are “trying to keep the Alabama legislature happy” while also heading the “PR Defined Task Force.” You are SVP-communications of the Birmingham Business Alliance. Birmingham has a big PR problem these days following the New York Times story Sunday Feb. 18 on the bankruptcy of Jefferson County, Ala., of which Birmingham is the biggest city.

That city is called “a monument to urban blight” where “a quarter of the people live below the poverty line.” Civic and business leaders are accused of “graft and contract padding” and former mayor Larry Langford got 15 years in prison. I think it is relevant to this discussion because PR people can only be as good as their clients. The link to the NYT story is here: http://nyti.ms/AiOHYz This discussion of the meaning of PR excludes any input by reporters. None was sought. There’s no doubt many in the press are angry at PR. We have covered PR 43 years via our website, newsletter and magazine and have never seen such a gulf between PR people and the press. Instead of trying to define PR, PR groups should be meeting with severe critics of it in the press. David Carr of the NYT has just said (Jan. 29, 2012) that he is fed up with “slop” delivered to him by PR “underlings.” http://bit.ly/A5rWeG. CBS-TV on-air editor Andrew Cohen said in 2008 that PR having an ethics code is like a group of burglars having a code against stealing. He said what PR people do is trying to “turn milk cows into race horses and turkeys into eagles. http://bit.ly/6nlrKA Gene Weingarten, columnist for the Washington Post, in 2007 called PR people “pathetic dillweeds.” Annoyed at the mountains of e-mail, releases and phone calls he gets from PR people, he tried calling some of them up and asking questions. All he got was juniors who couldn’t answer anything. http://bit.ly/yHC6ff. PR people, besides angering reporters, are the least trusted people in any company or institutions. They are the corporate “snitches” ready to pounce on anyone who says a negative word about the employer. At major companies and institutions, their every word on the phone or in e-mails is monitored by lawyers. Corporate “PR” has all but disappeared and almost totally resides in the agencies these days which talk to reporters. Check out this gag policy by Viacom: http://bit.ly/bx2FKP. The PR Society and the Rockefeller Foundation paid $150,000 for research that conducted live interviews with 2,000 Americans. Published in 1999 after five years of work (including two years on the interviews), the study found “PR specialist” to rank 43rd in visibility on a list of 45 sources. The Society did nothing about this finding except to try to hide it and forget it. It never printed the table in the monthly Tactics nor anywhere. Only when PR groups and PR individuals face the above facts and actually talk to reporters will something be done about the image of PR. Rickey points out that only 15% of Society district, chapter and section leaders use “PR” as part of their titles. Only six of the 50 largest U.S. PR firms as tracked by odwyerpr.com use “PR” in their titles. Less than five of the 150 blue chip corporate “communications” executives in (PR) Seminar use “PR” in their titles. This 65-year-old group of communications heads at big companies itself dropped “PR” from its title three years ago. There are ten books about PR with “Spin” in the titles. Who is going to put Humpty Dumpty together again? Actions by PR people, including contact with critics such as Carr, Cohen and Weingarten would be a start. –Jack O’Dwyer

You hit the nail on the head with those definitions. No one talks like that. And if I gave one of those definitions to an exec, he'd/she'd smile, nod and cut my budget after I walked out of the room. Heading over to read the PRSA guest post now.

I applaud PRSA's effort to try and define PR, because I know they are trying to help paint PR in a better light. But I'm not sure defining PR is what's needed here. Imagine if instead of trying to define our discipline, we focused more on the value what we do -- communications -- can bring to a business.

The #PRDefinied initiative fails because it neglected to first ask the really hard meta-question: What does it mean to define a concept, and how do we do it?

I never heard the word "publics" until this article - is it even in the dictionary ?

There are demographic, political, etc. subcategories of people that we have to communicate with. Because of our blind devotion to semantic simplicity, we used to call the set of these subcategories the "public". We got pretty smug doing this "abstraction" thing.

Fortunately for us, PRSA has ripped the cover off of this "public" thing and, to our horror, showed us that there is this entire seething Hieronymus-Bosch-like collection of separate groups inside here ! My God, we have to add an 'S' !!

Seriously, just to be trendy, PR has to show that it too has been profoundly influenced by string theory. If our universe has become "universes", then certainly our "public" has become "publics"

Gag.

Gini, just out of curiosity and going off of your above cocktail party scenario, how do you usually explain what PR is to someone not familiar with the communications industry AT ALL? Those are the people (cough, parents, cough, boyfriend) who I usually have a difficult time explaining to without their eyes glazing over!

Gini - I don't even know you but I think you've fired up an impressive debate here. Who would have thought so many people could get so excited about a definition of PR? And yet - it's telling of a "profession" that I have seen lack belief in itself, whilst at the same time claiming to embrace so many vital components of corporate strategy and execution. A profession that I have seen undervalue itself - even whilst so many proponents will vaunt their abilities and skills.

Gini - you seem to have a talent for attracting constructive polemic - perhaps you should be picking up this issue more closely with the PRSA?

You know I love you Gini but I have to say that I'm more in @KensViews camp on this. I too have friends who work at PRSA and many other friends, like you, who are active members and volunteer leaders. It's really easy to sit here and cast stones. Creating a new definition is important and it was bound to be controversial. I agree the definitions have more jargon than I wish they did.

However, can we please find some common ground to 1) provide some positive input to PRSA and the 11 other groups involved in the task force; 2) commend the groups involved and the individuals on the task force for the hours they have spent on the project and 3) recognize that the definition for PR isn't the one we'll ever use at a cocktail party, or even with our mother.

A definition for a worldwide profession can't be the same as the description of our day to day job. Our profession is so broad and practices so varied that my definition of what I do every day is very different from yours. You always tie PR to sales but I tie it to changing behaviors. One isn't right and the other wrong. That list of comparisons could go on and on. In the end, we each need our own elevator speech and an understanding of our differences, as well as a broader text book type definition.

Can we please all try to work together for positive change rather than tearing things down? Seems to me that's a better way to find a solution. Go to http://prdefinition.prsa.org/ and add your two cents to the project. That's where the committee is looking for your feedback.

Ouch. Your last qurestion is a good one and it smarts, but one answer, I think, comes from the type of communication you do. From what I've learned, it's so big picture it's hard not to fall into glittering generalities every now and again... although I have to say none of those have much sparkle to 'em.

But to be fair, though, they are defining here, and that's different than explaining...

Those definitions are yuck. I think part of the problem is that PR is constantly defined as a "thing" when in fact it is a process or activity. PR seeks to improve communication between audiences. Whether it's public affairs or crisis comms or publicity, the objective is always improved communication, isn't it?

I get that this is hard. But this has produced exactly what I thought it would--incomprehensible gunk that is no better than the last definition. And it, sadly, will do nothing to improve the reputation or understanding of PR.

Blech! Gobbledygook (love that word from David Meerman Scott) galor! Public relations is interesting when it comes to describing what it is 'you' do and the functions under that umbrella because it is so diverse. Some PR firms are still focusing on the media mentions (I had one even tell me they still kept clip books for clients) while others (like Arment Dietrich) are going beyond that to integrate PR functions into a communications strategy which may or may not include content marketing and social media.

Any exercise a company or industry performs in an attempt to define themselves often has a gobbledygook outcome. Even working on the 'about us' page on a website, companies throw so much internal lingo on technology that they forget to mention the very problem they are trying to solve for their customers. It's very rare to see one that does communicate in a succinct manner that makes sense to not only the target market, but the general population.

PR definition has been redefined & redefined but still no end....... when r u going to decide a PR definition??????

Bensie Dorien

prcompanionpr@gmail.com

www.prcompanion.com

Great post Gini. While, unlike you, I don't actually have any friends at PRSA, I did support the idea of redefining PR and I agree that none of these even come close to hitting the mark. In same ways it is probably a good thing that our industry is so diverse that it is difficult to capture in one statement, but it is still sometimes a little embarrassing. I just going to start telling people I'm in business communications.

Best definition I've ever heard of PR was from Seth Godin: "PR is the strategic crafting of your story." Not my industry, but I don't think I've heard a better one yet.

Can an amateur try?

PR is the single human face for an organization of many people.

(always best to keep it simple, and when defining the undefinable use a touch o' poetry)