Public Relations Handbook

by Dartnell, Robert L. Dilenschneider (Editor)

Though P.R. has been practiced professionally for nearly a century,the field is truly new — for a variety of reasons. In just the last fewyears, P.R., at its best, has become vastly more sophisticated, strategic,and technological. The top professionals not only shape and communicatemessages but also help set the strategies of the companies, agencies,and other institutions for which they work. They deal not only withthe media but also with their company’s or client’s many employees, shareholders, communities, governments.Theyseek to convey messages not only from the company to the public butalso from the public to the company. And in all this, they increasinglyuse not only phone, fax, and photocopy machines but also e-mail andthe Internet, which enable them to target their messages to specific clustersof people based on their shared interests.Let me thank Robert Dilenschneider, the creator and editor ofthis action-oriented book, for inviting me to write the introduction. Bobis at once a highly successful P.R. professional, a sought-after mentorto many other P.R. practitioners around the world, and a thoughtfuland big-hearted person. I reckon that any project that Bob mastermindswill draw a serious and influential audience and will provoke us tothink. Besides, I’m happy and honored to share some thoughts withyou — fellowcommunicators — particularly at this time of change andchallenge.You in public relations and we in journalism play different rolesand have an arm’s-length relationship, but we hold much in common.Both of us are in the information business — gathering, analyzing, anddisseminating information. Both of us have stories we yearn to tell.Both of us often have to work under severe deadline pressure, with lessthan-complete information, sometimes in the midst of crisis. Both of usare committed to the truth.But, beyond that, there is no “one-size-fits-all,” stereotypical P.R.person or journalist. Consider your own You may be a nursewho has just inherited P.R. duties at a hospital, or an officer of a P.R.agency, or the head of P.R. at a Fortune 500 company or a smaller entrepreneurialfirm. The journalist with whom you deal may be a reporter,writer, editor, or broadcaster; he or she may work for a magazine,newspaper,wire service, TV or radio station, or network. More importantly,both the P.R. person and the journalist may be professional,responsible,informed. and genuinely searching for the truth — or not.So I would advise P.R. professionals to avoid the easy temptationof thinking of “the media” as a single, cohesive, and often adversarialforce. Rather, I’d urge you to consider us as individual journalists workingfor quite distinct institutions, often with different missions.viiiThe media are diverse. Put simply, Fortune is vastly differentfrom the sensation-seeking 7 o’clock local TV news, and you’re muchmore likely to get a fairer shake from the former than the latter.That leads to my first Distinguish among the variouselements that comprise the press.We should not speak of “the media” or “the press” without recognizingtheir many disparate parts.

683 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 4, 2011