Thoughts on Public Relations?

[kweonsam]

If you were to go back to college, would you rather take a career in public relations than journalism?

 

[EddieM]

Personally, no. The pay is usually better, the job security better. But anytime I've felt like a shill, I've worked to move on, and PR work, largely, is accepting the life of being a company's shill, no matter what decisions that company makes.

Usual caveat: there are exceptions to this rule, and great people that work in PR. I just personally don't have the stomach for it.

 

[Ace]

There are many, many types of communications jobs aside from journalism or public relations. (not all of them sexy)

Social media for large companies, writing proposals, sports information, in-house/HR communications, communicating with customers, public affairs, etc., etc.

 

[CD Boogie]

^^^^^^
More true than I realized for many years, as I hung on to a career in journalism because I hadn't envisioned alternatives that would capitalize on my background in writing and reporting while still being interesting and rewarding. Now I do internal corporate comms for a large company and basically use all the same skills I did before, while getting paid a lot more and having better job security. I still dabble in sports writing, but it's a hobby and it's a lot more enjoyable for me to treat it as such. It's not all roses. Definitely now work with people who are more buttoned up/corporate, but it seems like a small tradeoff. Of course once I'm downsized I'll rail against this place, but it wouldn't drive me back to journalism as a career. It'd just drive me to another communications job.

 

[SFIND]

I'm another big no on public relations. I don't want to lie or bend the truth to the public, which I realize is rare at most companies. But it still happens (right Toyota?).

 

[Bronco77]

After two frustrating years as an entry-level sportswriter/copy editor (this was in the early '80s), I had the opportunity to leave the first newspaper I worked for and take a grad assistant position in the SID office at my alma mater. I was tempted and thought about it long and hard, but then decided I wasn't ready to give up on newspapers and journalism. It looked like a good decision two years later when I was hired by a major metro and I can't really say I regretted it, but I do wonder sometimes what the grad assistant position (which would have paid for a master's degree while providing SID/PR experience) might have led to -- for example, a guy I worked with on the school paper who took a similar grad assistant job with the SID is now an associate AD at a Big Ten school.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

You asking if I went back or if I had it to do over again? Either way, I'd say yes, but I'd give a more emphatic yes if I had it to do over again.

But, I wish I had gone into advertising, more than PR

 

[snuffy2]

Would you rather fly on magic carpets or be reborn cross-eyed ? Jobbing up Public Relations with journalism is like coupling men's room smells with apple trees. The logic is a cross-eyed fail and I hope it always will be.

 

[CD Boogie]

except it uses most of the same skills and involves many of the same contacts. but yeah, otherwise you're spot on...

 

[Ace]

Would you rather fly on magic carpets or be reborn cross-eyed ? Jobbing up Public Relations with journalism is like coupling men's room smells with apple trees. The logic is a cross-eyed fail and I hope it always will be.

I'll go with the magic carpet if I can get a seat belt installed. Those things don't look too safe.

There are all kinds of jobs under the PR umbrella that may be less distasteful. SID, communications/spokesman for government agency, etc. The spokesman jobs lap up newspaper and TV reporters.

 

[old_tony]

Would you rather fly on magic carpets or be reborn cross-eyed ? Jobbing up Public Relations with journalism is like coupling men's room smells with apple trees. The logic is a cross-eyed fail and I hope it always will be.

Not any more. Just ask that frat at Virginia.