With parents who were born and raised in a country outside of the U.S, public relations is a bit of a foreign concept to them, and I mean that in every literal sense of the word. This past fall as I embarked on my journey to graduate studies I had the daunting task of telling my parents that a) I will not be attending law school as they had hoped and b) I was not going to move back home and help with my moms business but instead I was going to get my masters in corporate communications and that I was going to pursue public relations.
As written in PRSA, public relations can be defined as a way that organizations and the public can adapt mutually to each other; after I tried to define what public relations meant and what a career in public relations would offer me I was greeted with blank stares from both of my parents. I can understand where they are coming from because in their country, the government controls most of the media, they don’t have a “middle man” to serve as a liaison between the media and the public.
What I find most problematic about the current definition of public relations is that it’s very stale. Public relations can be very exciting, rewarding and it’s a lot of hard work. With public relations we use the media as a way to carry positive stories about a company or product, we cultivate relationships with local and national press and we are able to reach out to a larger audience. Its intense, laborious work but when I see a media hit on one of my companies’ client it’s a good feeling of accomplishment.
“Public Relations is the service of researching, analyzing and distributing information to the media from organizations in a way that it can reach and engage the public”.
Ok, so my definition is not the best or most creative but there lays truth behind the sentence. My definition is an improvement to the definition that they already have because in my current internship I do all of the above. My colleagues are one of the most dedicated public relations professionals I have ever come across and I believe that they and all public relations professionals need their deserved credit. When it comes to ethics and the definition of public relations I believe that there should be something about honesty and how public relations professionals adhere to the highest standards of truth and accuracy.
Per Gerard Corbett’s article, I believe that making sure that professionalism and the code of ethics are being properly used in the digital age. With the increase in technology and social media it is imperative that we maintain our standards because everything is digital nowadays and any article or publication that we put out there can harm us is the future. Being ethical and not lying to the media should be key and honesty should always be part of our professionalism.
With PRSA and the FTC monitoring various public relations practices I believe that this will bring a welcoming change to the public relations world. I'm glad to see PRSA putting a focus on the ethics of using unpaid interns. PRSA says, "A 2011 update to the PRSA Code of Ethics made clear our belief that it is unethical not to provide some type of compensation to students who perform work for an employer. I would like to say thanks because students and grads have long been exploited as unpaid interns, working long hours, doing the PR grunt work. Its imperative that interns feel that they are a true asset to any company or organization because at many times, young professionals get turned off to the public relations profession because of a bad internship experience.
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