Category: Newspaper

9/15/2015 0 Comments

Just What Exactly Does a PR Professional Do?

Click on infographic to enlarge.

If you are a hair dresser or a plumber, you generally don’t have to explain to people what it is that you DO for a living. But when you are in public relations, that’s not always the case. People often ask me what it is that I do each day. Some think I go to a lot of meetings, eat out a lot, or get my clients gigs on the Today Show.

Even my own children don’t exactly get what I do. The other day my daughter wrote in a school project that her mother “works from home.” When I asked her to write that I had a PR company she said no one would know what that was. She finally agreed to say I had my own company – enough said.

The dictionary describes public relations as “The professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person.” But it’s really much more than that.

Yes, PR professionals help clients maintain a favorable image, but unlike an advertising agency, we don’t do it through paid media, rather through what we call “earned” (or free) coverage. We do this in a number of ways, through press releases, media pitches, blogging, social media, events, and award nominations, to name a few.

We work as strategic partners with clients, learning about their business, creating a PR plan and develop key messages. If there is a product or service involved, our job is to create and build awareness. If there is the possibility of something bad happening, we work with clients to mitigate the damage. This doesn’t mean we try to whitewash a problem, rather we help them to find ways to respond in the best way.

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4/20/2015 0 Comments

Capitol stunt: Should newspaper have gotten involved?

There has been a lot of discussion in journalism circles about the role that the Tampa Bay Times played in a protest flight in which a postal worker flew a gyrocopter into restricted airspace at the U.S. Capitol.

The newspaper knew ahead of time that mailman Doug Hughes planned to fly his aircraft onto the Capitol grounds to draw attention to campaign finance reform by personally delivering letters to members of Congress.

Reporter Ben Montgomery wrote the story ahead of time and the Tampa Bay Times posted him in Washington to cover the story when the Florida mailman landed last week. The paper posted the story as he took off and promoted it on social media.

Although the paper reportedly called the Secret Service and Capitol Police to ask if they knew about Hughes' plans, a Secret Service spokesman claimed they were never told Hughes was actually on his way.

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Just What Exactly Does a PR Professional Do?

Capitol stunt: Should newspaper have gotten involved?

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