Public Relations - What? Why? Who?

Posted by Lawrence Reddaway 
on Jun 12, 2013
 
ImageA talk by Wendy McWilliams

Evidently, Wendy McWilliams has several claims to fame: a good friend to Wendy & Philip Stewart; well-experienced in the art (or is it a science as well?) of public relations; and a successful principal of her own PR firm of WMC Public Relations.

And she used her expertise to give us a run down of some of the attributes of PR. For example:
-  PR is strategic – it’s not a megaphone.
-  PR is, at its best, a process whereby an organisation communicates with its public, and its public communicates with it.
-  Every organisation needs PR: Richard Branson uses PR events that get into the media without charge, in order to save on advertising. The tiny Victorian town of Clunes has used its annual book festival to become a recognised “book town”.
-  Surveys can be qualitative or quantitative: we should always be wary of the ambiguity that accompanies so many reported surveys! Are they really mostly ‘spin’?

Question time, as always, produced some of the best insights.
-  Is a spin doctor just a new name for a PR consultant? Yes.
-  Is the main job of a spin doctor to turn bad news into good news? Yes.
-  I also recall there was a question about Gillard v Rudd. But this must say something about the tedious state of our politics: I cannot recall the answer!