SALLY FORTH reprinted by permission of King Features Syndicate.Practicing Public Relations
Public relations is a growing profession. In today’s complex global
society, businesses, governments and organizations must have people
who can communicate their ideas to their publics and communicate
the concerns of their publics back to management.
Public relations professionals are bridge builders, according to public
relations practitioner Peter F. Jeff. Jeff believes that the job of public
relations professionals is to build bridges between groups such as com-
panies and their customers, employers and their employees, celebrities
and their fans, and school districts and the taxpayers who support
them. The public relations person’s goal is to help his or her employer
establish and maintain effective relationships with consumers, employ-
ees, other businesses and the media. Messages travel back and forth,
much as the traffic on a bridge goes both ways. The underpinnings that
support the public relations communications bridge are basic commu-
nications skills: listening and responding.
Public relations people listen carefully to their bosses to understand
what the people in charge believe the public should know about their
companies. They listen to consumers by doing surveys and studying
consumer trends. They listen to what employees are saying to learn
about their job-related concerns. They listen to those who make the
laws and regulations governing their industry. They listen to their con-
sciences. After evaluating all the information they have gathered, they
create responses that are as honest and informative as possible.
Public relations professionals create messages using basic writing
and speaking skills in traditional formats (news releases, speeches and
letters) and in electronic formats (video, Web pages and e-mail). They
make daily calls to the media and other organizations in order to build
relationships that give them and their employers credibility. They work
to create positive public relations for their employers in as many ways
as they can.
Today’s successful public relations professionals share the bad news
as well as the good news. As communicators they succeed because they
put complicated business problems and policies into words the average
consumer can understand.484 MIXED MEDIA