PR for the PR Industry

In a recent Gearheads post by my colleague, Jordan Hubert, he mentioned the big screen perception of PR professionals as unscrupulous and shallow manipulators of the truth. Over the decades, this view has become almost pervasive within not only the Hollywood set, but the journalist community, and even within the walls of the PR industry itself.

Recently I have noticed, with increasing regularity, how PR professionals will refer to themselves as ‘flacks’ or ‘spin doctors,’ because it is sometimes easier to self-deprecate than to combat a negative stereotype head-on. But really, I have to wonder what kind of effect this might have on the continuing perception of the field.

I will admit that I originally thought it was pretty funny to see PR people referring to themselves in that sense (kind of the whole “this is OUR word now, and only WE can use it”).  The only problem is that, even as ‘spin-doctors,’ we have been pretty ineffective at controlling the message that we were using these words tongue-in-cheek.

At this point, I think I’d really like to work on shedding the negative perception, because I still believe that the public relations role is essential, and as practitioners, we shouldn’t need to apologize for the ethically challenged subset that earned us those names in the first place.

Finally, remember that when something is said enough times, ironically or otherwise, you start believing it, regardless of its veracity.

Signed,

Scott Smith

Super-Ethical Bearer of the Truth

Scott Smith can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RealAskScott.