AUGUST 2014
PRSA local update III: Essentially a repeat but worth hearing again. Greater Fort Worth PRSA will offer
a free boot camp for members interested in earning the Universal Accreditation
Board designation accredited in public relations, or APR. Four weekly 90-minute
sessions, beginning Sept. 9, will be held at TCU; accredited chapter members
will guide discussions about the APR exam’s tactical and strategic content, plus offer preparation for the readiness
review and online exam. Readiness reviews will be completed after the final
study session. The process concludes with the required online exam at a
Prometrics testing facility in Hurst or Dallas. More from accreditation
co-chairs
Linda Jacobson, APR, at ljacobson@ctcinc.com or Carolyn Bobo, APR, Fellow PRSA, cgbobo6311@att.net. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the designation, which is managed by
eight professional communications organizations, including PRSA.
PRSA local update IV: Standing reminders. Subscribe to the GFW PRSA blog and receive an e-mail when news, articles and
upcoming events are posted. Visit http://fortworthprsa.org, put your e-mail in the “Subscribe to our Blog” box and click subscribe. ... A job listing can be created, edited and removed
directly on the DFW Communicators Job Bank site, and page view counts show the level of interest. And job seekers can push
alerts for specific keywords to their personal e-mails. The job bank lists
full-time, part-time and internship positions in PR, media affairs,
advertising/sales, event planning, graphic design, marketing, and corporate and
employee communications throughout North Texas. Employers who are members of
the participating organizations may post a job for $75; the cost for nonmembers
is $100, for nonprofits $50. Each posting runs a month. Greater Fort Worth PRSA
receives a portion of the proceeds when a member marks his or her membership
status on the submission form. More from
Jerrod Resweber, GFW PRSA job bank chair, at jresweber@webershandwick.com or 469-375-0216. ... Stay on top of emerging trends and industry news, extend
your network while increasing your knowledge, and keep learning and stay
competitive. Any practitioner with at least two years in the field is eligible
for membership in the world’s leading organization for PR professionals. Those with fewer than two years
experience or who recently graduated from college and were active in PRSSA may
join as an associate member. More from chapter president Richie Escovedo at richieescovedo@misdmail.org.
PRSA local update V: Ginger Hardage, Southwest Airlines senior VP for culture and communications, will discuss
"Building a Brand from the Inside Out" at the PRSA Dallas monthly meeting
Thursday, Aug. 14, at Seasons 52 at NorthPark Center. Info here.
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THIS MONTH IN PR/MARKETING HISTORY BY JEFF RODRIGUEZ
“With the recent rash of journalists publicly admitting to inventing sources and
quotes, I wasn’t surprised at my husband’s reaction to a recent story on ‘Dateline’ about a man who was turned down for a job as a police officer because he was
too intelligent. … As a journalism major, I remember being amazed at the diversity of subjects
required to complete my degree. … Most reporters are required to write on a wide range of topics. While they can’t be expected to be experts on all subjects, a base knowledge in a variety of
subjects helps. It wasn’t that long ago that Apples were just a fruit and Windows were what you opened
to let in a breeze. As a whole, I do think reporters are people with
above-average intelligence. Unfortunately, we’re finding some very public cases where they didn’t choose to use it.
– then-PRSA member Beth Park, writing in the eChaser, August 1998
Americans' faith in each of three major news media platforms — television news, newspapers and news on the internet — is at or tied with record lows in Gallup's long-standing confidence in
institutions trend. This continues a decades-long decline in the share of
Americans saying they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in
newspapers or TV news, while trust in internet news remains low since the one
prior measure in 1999. Confidence in newspapers has declined by more than half
since its 1979 peak of 51 percent, while TV news has seen confidence ebb from
its high of 46 percent in 1993, the first year that Gallup asked this question.
Gallup's only previous measure of Internet news was in 1999, when confidence
was 21 percent, little different from today.
