A Tiger Never Changes Its Stripes

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger…..It’s no secret Tiger Woods is a cheater. It’s also no secret that he has a terrible publicist and he or she needs to become unemployed, like yesterday. So what does a cheating Tiger have to do with a public relations blog? That is easy, right? He is having a major public image problem and needs a good pr practitioner or a good publicist to rehab his now battered image.

What a good publicist would have told Tiger is that he needed to be on t.v. immediately. When you’re a celebrity the rules of the game change. The night after the story broke; Tiger should have gone on Larry King Live and cried his eyes out. He should have apologized to his wife, his family, her family, the public anyone else who was hurt by his infidelities. A good public image does not mean you never make mistakes, a good public image means you handle any kind of crisis well.

That is what a pr is all about. It’s not about lying to the public and pulling the wool over the eyes of the masses. Pr is about get a specific message to a specific audience and making sure the message is truthful and accurate. When Tiger released a statement asking for privacy, I knew it was a wrap publicly for him. I knew he either had poor representation or he wasn’t listening to them.

Tiger had a good image before this and with the help of a good pr rep, he can get it back.

We are not Spin Doctors, thanks!

Public relations has to be one of the most misunderstood professions out there. I have done an informal survey, of about 20 people, to find out what first pops into the minds of the public when I say “pr.” The results were disheartening and offensive. Words like “liars” and “spin doctors” popped up the most. I truly dislike that pr reps are so misconceived and I want to clean up a few things.

PR is not about lying! Get that out of your heads immediately and bury it somewhere. The truth reigns supreme in our world and the truth is what we tell, all the time. Lying and making up stories is not standard in the industry and is not what is done on a daily basis. It’s not about “spin” or trying to deceive the public, our goal is to give the public specific and truthful messages about the company or the product we are working for . It is our job to make sure that the information being printed by the media is the truth. If I am working for a shoe company and writing a press release about the new creation, I need to make sure that the right audience is hearing the right message.

Pr reps want to work with journalists in getting the information out there. Our objective is to cooperate and collaborate with the media to create a win-win situation. We get our message out and the journalist gets his or her story. We are not about hiding bad dealings or purposely confusing the public and the media, no, we don’t subscribe to the whole “no comment” mess in any way. We want to talk with journalists and get the important information out there; it just has to be the correct message.

Once again thanks for reading and feel free disagree with anything you read.

To Bring Harmony and Peace between Public Relations and Journalism..........

Many journalists seem to dislike public relations practitioners; in fact, some journalists actually hate pr representatives. It is unfortunate that there is such discord between the two fields, because journalists and pr reps need and use each other to get their work done.

I used to be a journalism student, I have now switched to public relations, and I am well aware of the complaints and hate thrown at pr reps and I think the reason for the lack of harmony is quite simple. The absence of any real communication and understanding of what either party is doing. Isn’t that weird? The main job function for both is communication, yet they can’t seem to communicate with each other?

My next blog will focus on what journalists need to understand about practitioners, but this entry will help pr reps recognize what journalists need, or don’t need, from us and how we can improve our standing with them……

Deadlines: This is probably the biggest peeve journalists have with us. Public relations reps need to be aware and care about the fact that journalists have inflexible deadlines. The proper and respectable thing to do is to get the writers the information ASAP. Work with journalist, not against. Have the information ready in a timely manner. It is common courtesy and lessens the room for errors, because the journalist won’t have to be rushing your story.

Inadequate press releases: Journalists want to read a press release and now exactly what their story will be about. When they are pressed for time with a strict deadline, there isn’t always the opportunity to go do extra research. Especially for information that should already be in the press release. Think about what you as a reader would want/ need to know and put it in the press release.

Don’t tell them how to do their job: Self explanatory. Don’t tell a journalist how to write the story or what you want in the story. If you write an accurate and detail release, there will be no need for you to hover over them and tell them how to write your piece. All the information they need will be there and they are trained writers and know what to do.

Bribery: Do not offer to buy them coffee or green tea. Do not buy them ringside seats to Wrestlemania. Bribery is annoying, insulting and unprofessional. Your company/product, along with a well written press release, will sell itself and you don’t come across as sleazy in the process.

Thank you for reading my musings. See you tomorrow……

New to me

This is new to me. Thank you for the welcome and stay tuned. In the coming weeks I will publish insightful, fun and enjoyable blogs. Thank you.