The Fabulous Profession that is PR

As a kid, I changed my mind a million times about what I was going to be when I grew up. From a teacher to a marine biologist, I just couldn’t make up my mind. Ten years later, I am still pretty clueless.

When I started my “college career” at a Dallas community college, I assumed I would just kind of figure it out along the way. Then, I heard about the field of PR through one of my best friends whose aunt majored in it. Her aunt was working in the marketing side of retail for the Dallas Cowboys at the time, which I thought was pretty awesome and something I might be interested in. I thought the idea of public relations sounded intriguing, so I jumped the gun and signed up for the Intro to Public Relations class. Needless to say, I had a pretty good experience considering I am (finally) graduating in December with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism with a concentration in PR (and a minor in marketing).

As I continued with my degree, I realized that several people (especially younger college kids) did not know what PR actually is and what public relations professionals do. When I tell random people what I’m studying at UNT, they often nod their heads and pretend to know what I’m talking about. Their responses tend to be something along the lines of, “you just keep good relations with the public,” or “yeah, you get to throw all of those big parties and events for companies.” For people who know of the field, their response usually is something like, “you spin things to make them sound better than what they really are.” In these situations, I always proactively advocate for our field.  I tend to reply with “sure,” and then proceed to talk about the endless amount of tasks that we actually do and our overall goals as professionals.

The definition of the profession seems to be “clear as mud” to a lot of people. Maybe too many people watched the HBO series Sex and the City? One of the main characters, Samantha Jones, owns a PR firm in the television show. Jones portrays the field as glitzy, glamorous and of course, sexy. Throughout the series she goes on extravagant trips; meets famous celebs and throws fabulous parties with affluent guests. Sure, sometimes this might happen, but more often than not, we write news releases (among a long list of other written pieces); are the main contacts for the media; help complete communications plans and implement them; are on-call 24/7 in case of a crisis and have a variety of other responsibilities.  

The point is, as professionals, both old and new, we need to advocate not only for our clients but for ourselves and our field. It’s strange that several people I have encountered don’t know what we do and what we represent since we are the voice of individual clients, companies and organizations. So be a positive, booming voice for our fabulous profession and let the world know who we are and what we stand for as a group.