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Opacity of Public Relations in an Information Age

Kenneth Adejumoh
Over the years as a Public Relations (PR) practitioner, it has never been easy to describe to friends, contemporaries, associates, and inquisitive young chaps what I do in one word or phrase. Unlike other professions that are easy to comprehend their framework such as engineering, legal, medicine, banking, insurance, etc; PR, on the other hand, is still surrounded by a foggy cloud.
At the mention of Public Relations when inquisition about what I do is requested, people try to define the profession the way they understand it. Most of their attempts are often far from what it is. While it’s entertaining watching and listening to them miss the mark, it’s also worrying that so many people don’t accurately understand what PR is about.
One of the greatest mantras the PR profession preaches is understanding through the dispatch of information but how ironic is it that a profession that champions understanding is not understood by the public it seeks to enlighten? The rhetorical question “how can you give what you don’t have” keeps reverberating in my subconsciousness because of this challenge.
Let’s humour some of the feedback from people on what PR is. The majority of the responses usually revolve around journalism, news casting, publicity, and advertising. The list above accommodates the near-positive response they could offer while the extremely blunt negative feedback is – brown envelopes. How PR is synonymous with brown envelopes to some people beats my imagination.
The PR profession is the life stream of any organization that wants to enjoy deliberate and positive perception. Connecting effectively to the public with a human face beyond the products and services that organizations and brands offer, needs an experienced hand, not a rookie.
I have taken time at different intervals to explain how my job is not about journalism, advertising, news casting, or just publicity. All the mentioned are offshoots of public relations. But does an arm make a man or does his face or head usurp his entire identity? Painstakingly, I go the extra mile to ‘lecture’ on what I do. The issues then arise on how, or where to start the explanation from. Explaining to people that I am a strategic communications expert only leads to more inquisitions.
As a PR professional, I engage in several tactics to deliver strategic communications in the business space. Among these tactics include media relations management, reputation management, crisis management, lobbying, content development, employee engagements, brand identity management, storytelling, corporate social responsibility, stakeholders’ management, sustainability, digital marketing, and multimedia production, among others.
A journalist would have nothing to do with the above tactics neither would a newscaster. The closest profession on the list would be advertising and that in itself is a subset of PR functions. Journalism focuses on the editorial policy, the content, and the reader while PR focuses on everything including the journalist, editorial policy, the audience, the government, the client, the public, government policy, pressure groups, strategy, tactics, and even the weather does not escape the elements a PR practitioner needs to factor in.
I go further to explain that PR offers business advisory to clients as it relates to strategies the client has no idea of how to tackle. We have seen how unyielding clients of organizations embrace humility with zeal when crises beckon. At the entrance of crises, no one thinks of engaging the advertiser, the publicist, the journalist, or the newscaster, they all telepathically accept that only the PR practitioner is equipped for the job. Although at a different level all the mentioned elements and professions would be part of the crises management campaign they will only serve as tools for the PR practitioner to resolve the crises.
PR activities create an enabling environment for the business by building a mutually sustainable or beneficial relationship between an organization or brand and its various categories of stakeholders. PR is a part of management, PR is a part of marketing, PR is a part of communication, and PR is a part of everything and anything about tactical reputational positioning.
A PR expert can promote consistent information flow within the organization as well as between the organization and its stakeholders. These activities are usually aimed at achieving the overall business objective of the organization at every measurable point in time.
As experts, we are solution providers concerning reputation and crisis management. The average PR person is always on the lookout for exploitable brand opportunities that would benefit the client. Where he finds one, he immediately gets the buy-in of the client or the organization and in the case of a crisis he sets up a situation room to trace the root cause and proffer immediate and ergonomic solutions to curb the issue as it happens.
Issuing a statement to the media when there is a crisis is what many ascribe as the wholistic duty of the PR practitioner but that is just one of the cosmetics of a well-thought-out strategic plan that the public never sees. It is this stealth working that makes many journalists and online influencers believe PR is all about publishing content in the media.
When issues that relate to the organization’s reputation occur, the PR team works closely at the table with the management team to provide strategic direction in curtailing the issue(s) raised. We have seen the outcome of companies who side-line their PR agency or internal PR/communications team only to bring them in when the going gets tough and the company is at the precipice of corporate demise.
It has become easy for any media personnel to make claims of being a Public Relations expert because they can put a news piece about an entity/organization/brand/idea or personality out there. No wonder it is also common to see that journalists are the ones getting the jobs of Spokes Persons and Press Secretaries to the governments both at the central and state levels. This is because the journalists are in the public glare on TV stations, radio stations, and by-lines in print and online so they are better known by the public compared to the stealth PR professional who rarely does publicity for himself. Hence, a journalist gets ‘PR’ briefs.
Even social media influencers have joined the fray. Once an individual can gain a few likes, impressions, shares, and comments; they claim to be INFLUENCERS. While this is interestingly creating jobs, several self-acclaimed influencers have acquired followings and likes which are not real humans but robots. No wonder an influencer with over 100,000 followers or likes may not garner up to 5,000 impressions or insights or likes on a business or sponsored post. In the end, the paid post may lack the required traction expected by the owner.
Overall and in the words of my fellow sensational PR luminary, Anthony Elikene, “Public Relations practitioners are strategic communications and solutions providers.” As I close, I would state that PR experts play a vital role at the table for organizations that desire to impact positively in a changing world. A world that requires constant repositioning of reputation.
Adejumoh, a public relations and strategic communications expert wrote in from Lagos.
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