Making It in Public Relations

MAKING IT IN

PUBLIC RELATIONS

MAKING IT IN

Public

Relations

AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

SECOND EDITION

Leonard Mogel

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

2002 Mahwah, New Jersey London

Acquisitions Editor: Linda Bathgate

Editorial Assistant: Karin Bates

Cover Design: Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Textbook Production Manager: Paul Smolenski

Full-Service Compositor: TechBooks

Text and Cover Printer: Sheridan Books, Inc.

Copyright c 2002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in

any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any

other means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mogel, Leonard.

Making it in public relations : an insider’s guide to career

opportunities / Leonard Mogel.—2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8058-4021-4 (case : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-8058-4022-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Public relations—United States. 2. Public relations. I. Title.

HM1221 .M64 2002

659.2 2001051226

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

ISBN 1-4106-0285-0 Master e-book ISBN

At first it was, “Do we need to write another book?” But then

once we were into it, she thrust herself into every

step—thinking, editing, organizing, correcting misjudgments,

finding just the right word to clarify a concept.

Her friendship and love guided the daily enterprise. This

book is dedicated to Ann Mogel. It is as much hers as mine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We met Linda Bathgate of Erlbaum Associates at an Association

for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention

in Phoenix, and it didn’t take more than a few weeks for Linda to

convince her associates that they should publish a second edition of

Making It in Public Relations. I am indebted to Linda for her profes￾sional excellence, guidance, and intelligent advice.

My special appreciation to Janice Handler of TechBooks for her

consummate supervision of the copyediting and final stages of the

book’s preparation.

Thanks to Peter Pitts of Wired World for his contribution to the

book.

I may miss a few names but my sincere gratitude for splendid

cooperation goes to Erin Rice-Mills, Liza Olsen, and Mischelle Leath￾ers of Burson-Marsteller; Mike Lynch of the American Medical

Association; Howard J. Rubenstein of Howard J. Rubenstein Associ￾ates; Catherine A. Bolton, president and chief operating officer of

PRSA; John Bomier, Maggi Heffler, and Kimberly Baldwin of the

Public Relations Society of America; Fraser P. Seitel, editor of

PRSA’s STRATEGIST, and John Elsasser, editor of PRSA’s TACTICS;

vii

viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Richard W. Edelman, Dana Grossman, Mark Bennett, and Barbie

Casasus of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide; Charles Fremes and

Johanne Papa of Edelman Public Relations (Canada); Jack Bergen and

Sarah Drennan of the Council of Public Relations Firms; Juliette Don

of the Bank of America; Jim Sinkinson of Bulldog Reporter; Rick

Kaufman of the Jefferson County Public Schools, Golden, Colorado;

Steve Stromp of Bernard Haldane Associates; Hilary Phillips of

Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive; Douglas G. Pinkham and

Wes Pedersen of the Public Affairs Council; Steven Style of the Steven

Style Group; Suzanne Laurita and Samantha Fearn of Hill &

Knowlton; Charles Francis of IdeaBank, Inc.; Derek Creevey of Ogilvy

Public Relations; John Figurski of PRWEEK; Michael Guiney of

Weber Shandwick Worldwide; Carrie Fenton and Laura Bachrach

of BSMG Worldwide.

Special thanks of Holland Cooke for his contribution to the job

search chapter and to the late John West for his insight in the chapter

on entertainment and public relations.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

INTRODUCTION xi

1 A Very Short History of Public Relations 1

2 Public Relations: What It Is, What It Does 4

3 The Components of Public Relations 14

4 The Public Relations Counsel Firm: Profiles

of the 10 Largest 24

5 Life on the Fast Track at a Small Public Relations Firm 45

6 An Inside Look at Corporate Affairs at

the Bank of America 49

7 Public Relations for Diverse Organizations 60

8 Getting the Ink: Media Practice, Media Placement,

and Media Relations 68

9 Internal and Employee Communications, Employee

Relations, and Employee Publications 100

ix

x • CONTENTS

10 Speechwriting, Speechmaking, and Executive

Presentations 113

11 Public Affairs, Lobbying, and Issues Management 123

12 Public Interest, Public Service 138

13 Strategic and Integrated Public Relations

and Brand Marketing 148

14 Financial Public Relations and Investor Relations 163

15 Entertainment and Personal Public Relations 179

16 Healthcare Marketing and Communications 189

17 Crisis Communications and Management 204

18 New Media High-Tech Public Relations 229

19 Colleges, Extension Programs, and Summer Institutes 238

20 The Alphabet Organizations of Public Relations 243

21 Important Publications, Web Sites, and News Services 254

22 The Job Search 270

23 The Future Face of Public Relations 317

ENDNOTES 321

GLOSSARY 324

REFERENCES 331

RECOMMENDED READING 341

AUTHOR INDEX 345

INTRODUCTION

Then and now. I was a novice printing salesman canvassing the

famous Brill Building in New York’s Times Square district for

prospective customers. The building’s tenants were a mixed

bag of song pluggers, song publishers, song writers, agents, and even

a few bookies who somehow convinced the building’s management

that they were legit. I didn’t care what they did as long as they needed

letterheads, envelopes, and business cards, my specialty.

I would start my cold canvassing on the top floor and work my

way down. On one of these sales calls I came upon the painted metal

door of an office that had a half-dozen names listed, so I thought it

had good business possibilities. Upon entering, I presented my card to

the only person in the office, a slovenly character in his early thirties.

He introduced himself as Richie Roberts (his name has been changed

for the purpose of this book).

When I arrived, he was on his way out and asked me to join him

for a drink. It was early in the day, but I figured this was a good

way to become fast friends, especially if he paid. The drink turned

out to be an egg cream, a New York delicacy made of carbonated

water, chocolate syrup, and milk (no egg, no cream). He ordered two

xi

xii • INTRODUCTION

for himself and one for me, then walked directly across the street to

another candy store where he repeated the order for himself.

Later, back in his office, Roberts told me that he was a press agent.

I didn’t know just what a press agent did, but I was nonetheless im￾pressed. He went on to explain with pride that most of his clients were

Broadway restaurants. His job was to get the names of the restaurants

into the major syndicated newspaper gossip columns. To accomplish

this, Roberts would “package” a press release that included a small

joke attributed to a name comedian or actor who was dining at one

of Roberts’s client restaurants.

All parties benefited from this collaborative “public relations.”

Columnists were pleased because this kind of journalism required

little effort on their part. The comedian got his name in print,

and Roberts’s restaurant assumed status as the home base of the

celebrated.

Who could resist eating at Sardi’s if Henny Youngman or Rodney

Dangerfield might be at the next table telling brilliantly funny stories?

For this press agentry, Roberts was paid a small amount of cash plus

free meals at the restaurant on slow Monday nights.

Roberts’s biggest public relations client was a matchmaking service

owned by one Sarah Kane; her Roberts-created slogan: “Don’t live

in vain, see Sarah Kane.” For $25 the client was guaranteed three in￾troductions, usually from a roster of unemployed actors. If the client

was an older woman, Roberts’s father was invariably one of the in￾troductions.

Roberts’s career path eventually led him to dubious Hollywood

fame as a successful producer and director of “B” movies.

His brand of PR bears only a remote resemblance to the profession

as it exists in the 21st century.

Today’s PR is a diversified medium involving more than thirty prac￾tice areas or components from advocacy to strategic corporate PR,

and includes such high-impact elements as crisis communications,

planning, management, and recovery.

Large multinational corporations have in-house staffs of 200 to 300

people and, in addition, engage outside PR firms with international

branches. We discuss one giant corporation’s PR activities in a later

chapter.

Then there is the area of new media and Internet PR. Many PR

firms receive assignments from technology startups for which they

are required to have a thorough understanding of hardware, software,

INTRODUCTION • xiii

online content, satellite and wireless communications, channel mar￾keting, and systems integration.

Twenty-first-century PR is on a roll. It is replacing advertising as

a corporation’s primary source for getting its message across because

it is often more cost-effective than advertising in building brands and

reaching customers and constituents.

The PR boom means more jobs, higher salaries, and opportunities

across the broad spectrum. In this book we analyze the modern prac￾tice of PR and discuss how it serves a wide variety of institutions in

our society.