I won’t dwell too much on Julian Henry’s oped in this week’s Media Guardian. I guess most of you will have read it by now and there are a couple of good comments by Andrew B. Smith and Philip Young.
I just wanted to put Henry’s ‘rant’ into perspective by picking up where I left off with last weekend’s post about Kate Nicholas’s article in PR Week.
In support of Henry, I whole-heartedly agree that PR means working closely with the media and understanding the way it functions. I also agree that for the most part (like so many other industries) there’s a lot of corporate bullsh*t flying around.
But Henry’s article states that "to be a great publicist you have to start thinking as a journalist". Is this a deliberate slip? I thought he was talking about PR? Wasn’t it Edward Bernays who first made the distinction between a PR practioner (or Counsel to use his term) and a straightforward publicity man in Crystalizing Public Opinion first published in 1920-something?
I appreciate that the age old argument around PR vs Publicity gets rolled out from time to time (usually as part of academic PR degrees!) but surely we have more exciting issues to discuss as an industry?
Why is that Henry (as with Nicholas in last week’s PR Week) is still writing about this debate? And why is the Guardian still willing to publish this time-worn tale?
I just find it amusing and frustrating that with so many developments in PR and internet/New Media etc that Henry can get away with dredging up an argument that is about 80 years old!
I go so far with you and then stop.
My work on how PR levers wealth makes me come back to what PR is.
If it is about changing culture (http://leverwealth.blogspot.com/2006/02/interfering-with-culture.html) then it has a hope.
A wander across the park to The college and suggest that to Di’s students and see what you get.
Then ask them if they think PR is ‘the only’ management discipline that creates wealth….
You see, its not a sterile debate, it is an area of PR research with potential for practitioners.
Thanks, David.
I think the point I was trying to make was that while Henry’s debate was interesting, aren’t there other online issues that could be raised?
I will have a good read of your blog/research and maybe post about what I’ve learnt.
To echo my comments to David Rossiter about the New PR conference. The beauty of the blogosphere is that opinions and different viewpoints can be expressed and acted upon… and I am about to go act upon your suggestions!