PRSA local update IV: Keeping current just got easier — subscribe to the GFW PRSA blog and receive an e-mail when news, articles and
upcoming events are posted. Don’t be a poop, stay in the loop. Visit http://fortworthprsa.org, put your e-mail in the “Subscribe to our Blog” box and click subscribe.
PRSA local update V: This Month in PR/Marketing History (by Jeff Rodriguez). Just in time for Christmas, timeless wisdom from the consummate PR professional.
“Many people’s experience with ‘public relations’ has no resemblance to what we know as public relations. There’s a tendency to forget that as we go about the practice of public relations in
accordance with the standards set by our national organization.” | “What I tell all of the students during their first public relations class … is that any one of them, in fact anyone at all, can carry business cards that
announce the card carrier’s expertise in the practice of public relations, whether or not that is the
case. You can’t trust anyone’s claims to experience in the field, because there is no control over entry into
the field, nor is there any control over exit. We can’t get rid of the charlatans, because there is nothing that gives us any
authority for that to occur.”
| “The practice of public relations is nowhere near qualifying as a profession,
even with PRSA’s ‘Body of Knowledge,’ the Recommended Curricula which allows a university to have a PRSSA chapter,
and the Accreditation process. Without real control over Entry and Exit, our
only alternative is education. I don’t mean education in a university, although I can recommend some. What I do mean
is a need for each of us to educate by mentoring those new to the field,
especially those who have come into public relations from other disciplines.
This is going to be a big investment on our part in broadening the appeal of
our professional development efforts.”
| “Another part of that role as educators is for us to educate those with whom we
work, especially those in management, about what to expect from the ‘real’ practice of public relations: measurable results. We have to move beyond that
then to educate others about public relations, so that when someone claims to
be in public relations and really isn’t, no one will be deceived.” — Doug Newsom, APR, Fellow PRSA, in the chapter newsletter, December 1995
PRSA local update VI: PRSA Dallas bids farewell to 2013 at a holiday mixer Tuesday, Dec. 10, at
Grimaldi’s Pizzeria Park Lane. Info here.
