in today's paper - Thanks Bud!

OTHER VIEWS MY WORD
In defense of public relations
Bud Brewer

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board's relentless bashing of the public-relations profession has become a bit tiresome. Frankly, it smacks of the same kind of hypocrisy the newspaper shows when it rants against billboards.

Let's be clear for a moment. One form or another of public relations may be responsible for half or more of what appears in every edition of every daily or weekly newspaper. Left to their own devices, a newspaper's overworked and underpaid staff of reporters might never organically uncover much of what finds its way into print each day without input from public-information officers, sports-information directors, publicists and other professionals who serve the interest of their clients or employers.

It seems some at the Sentinel have decided that PR professionals are the enemy and/or are not to be trusted. (I'm referring to a recent editorial, "Halfway There: Toll-Road Agency Reforms Should Ax PR and Lobbying Posts.") Sorry, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our role is simply to help our client or organization identify and articulate key messages to an audience. We facilitate communication. We don't lie. If we did, we'd lose our own credibility and in so doing our ability to work with the media, and that's the lifeblood of our profession.

We do our job in two ways. First, on behalf of our clients, we introduce information that you might not know or to which you otherwise might not have access. We do this with press releases, story queries, brokered interviews and those treasured "exclusives." Second, when negative information shows up in the media or elsewhere in the public square, we help tell our client's side of the story.I'm not here to defend or attempt to indemnify our profession or its members from the occasional uncomfortable situation. Just as you find a need to regularly correct your own missteps or misstatements, so does a member of our profession occasionally and unwittingly become a part of the story instead of simply facilitating information.

When the Orlando Sentinel editorially rails against billboards, it's odd. Both are advertising media, and both have a role in sharing news from the marketplace. Let's not forget that the Sentinel uses billboards to promote itself, so editorializing against them seems at best confusing and at worst hypocritical.

Likewise, before you taint the entire public-relations profession as unnecessary or unsavory, please consider carefully (if grudgingly) the role we play in helping you fill the space between all of those revenue-producing ads.

Many PR professionals started out on the media side, present company included. We don't paint the media with a broad, negative brush. Please do us the same courtesy.

Bud Brewer is the president and CEO of MPB Communications Inc.