Be PRoud…..

A recent online debate from The Economist discussed whether the Internet is making journalism better or worse. One of the points raised was the issue of the Internet promoting ‘churnalism’. Linking to the Wikipedia definition of the term probably reflects the issue some have with churnalism in the first place i.e. time pressured journalists using pre-packaged PR content without fact checking. (Some interesting discussion on this topic at PRmoment).

Churnalism is another (unfair) example of the negative view the outside world has about PR. Recent events around a certain media group confirm this ongoing reputational challenge our industry faces. With PR very much in the spotlight it’s been interesting listening to a polarisation of opinions from stakeholders heaping praise or totally discrediting our profession.

For me a guest post on PR conversations from the Arthur Yann who heads the US PRSA further encapsulates the challenges around improving the reputation of PR. Nevertheless, having worked with a number of PRs entering the business, and clients (from marketing managers to CEOs) who clearly value our work, contrary to what some may think, I don’t feel the industry is quite at the stage of needing to write itself a new PR brief.

From an agency perspective our target customers generally have a good understanding about what we do and its value, and similarly companies that employ in-house PRs - this is why their job exists. For those outside our business, whether they understand PR’s value or not, we must be effective at achieving what we set out to do else we would all be out of a job. As with any profession there’s always room for improvement (Heather Yaxley has some interesting ideas re: ethics and PR) but on the whole I feel we should be proud.

I guess comment from Martin Bradley from Harris Interactive whose firm conducted the recent PR Week / PRCA 2011 PR Census sums up the PR reputation conundrum. According to Martin, when you put into context the £7.5 billion generated by the UK PR, like for like we’re actually doing a better job than the £6 billion created by the gambling industry !?! :)