Shelley Spector's blog

Many years ago, I had occasion to ask Eddie Bernays, the father of public relations, what he thought was an ideal undergrad level PR program.

Considering this question was asked years before a PR degree would be widely conferred at U.S. colleges, Bernays had the opportunity to construe his own ideas for an ideal BA degree in Public Relations.

"In today's world, the best PR degree would be equally divided among three disciplines: one-third journalism, one-third psychology, and one-third business," replied Bernays.

If small businesses are expected to produce the greatest percentage of new jobs as we emerge from recession, we should see some near-term uptick in employment opportunities at women-owned PR agencies, thanks to a recently launched program by the SBA.  

A lot has been written about the disconnect between what a company “says” about itself and then what it actually “does” — the most notorious example of this being BP, who, for years, made itself out to be the industry’s top advocate for environmental protection…until it came time to show that it was really anything but.

We are in the news business, or more precisely, the news-making business.  And if you don't understand the current news environment, the media that carry news, or, obviously, how to WRITE news, than maybe you should be looking to get into a non-news business. The most important part about news is its root word, new, which means that it changes every day (or nowadays, every minute). So being constantly plugged into news is not just a good thing, but also a necessary thing for anyone wanting to be involved in PR today.