Everyday PR

As public relations professionals, one of the most fundamental skills we provide is writing.  So how can we continually improve that skill?  Simple – by reading.

Businesses can learn many things about survival and stability from a hedgehog.

Reading expands your vocabulary and gives you new insights.  For example, I learned the following from this summer’s reading, which included Groundswell, Sarah’s Key, Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, From Good to Great, How Doctors Think, Living a Joyous Life and Return from Exile.  CAUTION: I mostly read history and non-fiction.

1.         Hitler was a vegetarian.

2.         The story of most people is not the story of all people.

3.         Diagnose a problem based on data and research as the initial situation often isn’t what it seems to be.

4.         According to the I Ching, the one who knows the greatest love  is the one who is capable of experiencing the greatest pain.

5.         Karl Marx converted from Judaism to Christianity at age 6.

6.         Between a fox and a hedgehog, bet on the hedgehog. Think Walgreens.

7.         Many public schools focus on lots of facts, but give little attention on how to actually deal with life.

8.         A strategy that treats everyone alike fails.

9.         In German-occupied France in 1942, the Vél’ d’hiv’ Round-up was the greatest mass arrest of Jews as local police gathered 13,000 Parisian men, woman and children for deportation to death camps. The French government apologized in 1995.

10.       When CBS cancelled “Jericho” in 2007, fans sent the network 20 tons of peanuts (referring to a character’s use of “Nuts!”).  The series was renewed.

See how much smarter you are from reading this post?  Now back to writing.

Leave it to a resourceful student to test the validity of today’s real-time news.  Following the recent death of renowned French composer Maurice Jarre, Dublin University student Shane Fitzgerald posted a lovely, but phony quote on Jarre’s Wikipedia page. And the rest, as they say, is embarrassing.

Fitzgerald wanted to test how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.  Even though Wikipedia administrators quickly removed the quote’s lack of attribution, some already had used the quotes in Jarre obitutuaries around the world.

So is fact checking a lost art? In a 2005 journalism panel, Rebecca Blood, author of The Weblog Handbook, stated that bloggers are writing subjective pieces while journalists are trained professionals with a differentiator being that real journalists do fact checking.  But it’s hard to fact check when timing is everything.  Because of the very digital media world in which Fitzgerald was testing, competition among news outlets is outrageous.  A recent memo to Wall Street Journal staffers stated the top priority is to be the first to report on something. Success will be measured in seconds. 

It took a college student less than 15 minutes to strategically post a fake quote about someone.  An entire month passed before he fessed up to The Guardian of Britain, the only publication to admit its editorial failing . “If I hadn’t come forward, I’m convinced that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said. It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact,” said Fitzgerald. 

For the media, Fitzgerald’s test definitely was a pop quiz.  He gets an A for audacity.  The media get an E for egg on their face.

At last count, octuplet mom Nadya Suleman had gone through two publicists in a month.  Not a good record by any standards.

How many PR professionals does it take to represent octuplets?

When your paycheck is signed by someone other than you, you’re expected to represent whatever you’re assigned.  On both the profit and non-profit side, I learned that some clients/bosses don’t actually want to know what you think – you’re just there to either make them look good or enhance their job security.  Not all situations mirror this, but enough to make me go out on my own.

As a solo practitioner, I have the luxury of being able to pick my projects, which begins with much research, referrals and due diligence.  Although this doesn’t necessarily equate to luxurious revenues, it does mean that I have a say-so in whom and what I represent, and I’ve yet to experience any death threats.

So why didn’t Suleman’s no-charge handlers conduct the appropriate due diligence before taking on such an enormous task?  I’m unclear as to how working for free on such a global, time-intensive project could be beneficial to a small business owner.  I’m interested to know the number and type of discovery sessions were held prior to any agreement for representation.  And I’m curious about whether the staff resources even existed to handle the scope of work.  As small business owners, we typically work on many projects every day, and we must give deliberate thought to our choices.