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Textbook Ebook Public Relations Writing The Essentials of Style and Format 8Th Edition All Chapter PDF
Textbook Ebook Public Relations Writing The Essentials of Style and Format 8Th Edition All Chapter PDF
“Excellent chapter on ethics and legalities of PR.” - Katria Marie Olson, University
of IIlinois- Champagne
Edition
Eighth
TM
THOmAS H. BIvINS
Confirming Pages
Contents vii
viii Contents
Contents ix
x Contents
Contents xi
xii Contents
Glossary 305
Index 317
PREFACE Preface
xiii
xiv Preface
will find information on creating online newsrooms and a new section on pro-
ducing digital media kits.
Many of the recommendations contained in this book are based on years of
experience as a writer, both in public relations and in general business practice. It
is my belief that any public relations writer worthy of the name should become
familiar with all forms of writing. After all, good writing is good writing, no mat-
ter what the form. The truly good writer can work in any medium, like the good
artist.
This book is an attempt to put most of the reference material that you, as a
public relations writer, would need to successfully complete the work which is so
vital a part of your chosen profession—writing.
Acknowledgments
A number of people have helped make this new edition possible. John Mitchell,
a longtime friend and faithful user of this book, was especially helpful with his
many examples of fine work. Marilyn Milne, a professional and friend, provided
examples of pitch letters and advisories. Seth Walker, formerly of Intel, provided
me with numerous examples of that organization’s fine work. My brother, Chris,
also provided me with a number of examples from his vast design repertoire
for a varied clientele. I am also indebted to the educators who reviewed the
last edition of the book and made incredibly constructive suggestions for this
latest edition: Sallyanne Holtz, University of Texas at San Antonio; Amiso M.
George, Texas Christian University; Amber Erickson, University of Cincinnati;
Robert M. Kucharavy, Syracuse University; Katrina Marie Olson, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Mary Frances Casper, Boise State University.
Every new item and nearly every change that appear here are based on their
recommendations.
I am also grateful to Nicole Bridge, at McGraw-Hill for her suggestions, fore-
sight, and diligence in keeping me on schedule. And, I can’t forget my excellent
project manager, Jessica Portz, she caught every detail. Finally, I am grateful to
the many professionals around the country whose ideas and creativity inspired
and contributed to much of this revision. They have been uniformly generous
in their willingness to share their work with me. Nearly every time you see a
footnote in this book, it is there to thank those generous individuals and organi-
zations. This new edition is truly a result of their hard work as well as my own.
My thanks go to them all. They share in whatever usefulness this book provides
to you, the reader.
Preface xv
University of Alaska, Anchorage, and has over 30 years of professional media expe-
rience, including work in radio, television, advertising, public relations, graphic
design, and editorial cartooning.
Additional Resources
An Online Learning Center for this text is available at www.mhhe.com/bivins8e.
This Website contains a workbook for students and a password-protected
manual for instructors. Please ask your McGraw-Hill representative for access
information.
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d Public relations deals with influencing public opinion, through the presenta-
tion of a client’s image, message, or product (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Public_relations)
In fact, modern public relations is an eclectic package encompassing a great
many job descriptions, titles, and functions. The federal government even for-
bids the use of the term public relations to refer to roles whose functions in the
business world would be identical. The practice is rife with terms synonymous
with yet subtly different from public relations. Press agentry, for instance, is usually
taken to mean the role of providing media exposure, whereas promotion com-
bines media exposure with persuasion. Public affairs most often refers to those
who deal with community or government relations; and the federal govern-
ment’s decided-upon replacement term is public information.
Despite the myriad terms applied to the practice, there does appear to be a
rather limited number of actual functions assigned to these roles. Nearly 30 years
ago, James Grunig and Todd Hunt proposed a set of four models, and although
these have undergone some changes over the years, they remain relatively accu-
rate today.1 The models are press agentry/publicity, public information, two-way
asymmetric, and two-way symmetric. In the press agentry/publicity model, the
practitioner acts as a one-sided propaganda specialist. The public information
model presents the practitioner as journalist, carefully disseminating balanced
information to the public. Practitioners in a two-way asymmetric model are seen
as “scientific persuaders,” using social science techniques to gather information
on attitude and behavior characteristics of their publics and then adjusting their
messages accordingly to influence those publics. Finally, the two-way symmetric
model uses practitioners as mediators between organizations and their publics.
A broader categorization views the roles of public relations divided neatly into
communications manager and communications technician. Managers analyze,
plan, carry out, and evaluate public relations campaigns. Technicians provide the
support for the programs in the form of writing, design, layout, production, and
publication within all of the possible delivery systems. Thus, the role of the pub-
lic relations writer is generally that of communications technician. However, that
is not to say that there is always a clear divide between the two roles. No respect-
able communications manager would be incapable of writing a news release,
and frequently communications technicians are involved in various stages of the
planning process, as we will see. All public relations practitioners write at some
time. Public relations is, after all, communication, and the basic form of commu-
nication is still the written word.
Regardless of the prevalence of television, radio, cable, satellite television,
and the Internet, the written word is still powerful. Even the events we wit-
ness on television and hear on the radio were written down originally in the
form of scripts. News anchors on television are not recounting the day’s events
from memory; they are reading from a teleprompter. Nearly every entertainment
1
James E. Grunig and Todd Hunt, Managing Public Relations (New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1984), 21.
program is precisely scripted—from your favorite sitcom to the MTV Video Music
Awards. And although it may not seem so, most of what you see on the Internet
has been carefully thought out and written prior to its placement on the Web, or
should be, especially if you're a professional working in public relations.
It is no wonder today’s employers value employees who can communicate
through the written word. Employers want people who can write and commu-
nicate ideas—who can pull complex or fragmented ideas together into coherent
messages. This requires not only technical skill but also intelligence. It requires
a love of writing as well. Be forewarned: The subjects of public relations writ-
ing can seem to many to be crashingly dull; however, for writers who love their
craft, the duller the subject, the greater the challenge. Even the most mundane
subject can shine with the right amount of polish.
So, the place of writers in public relations is assured. From the president or
vice president of public relations to the support staff, writing will be a daily part
of life. From enormously complex projects involving dozens of people and whole
teams of writers to the one-person office cranking out daily news releases, edit-
ing weekly newsletters, or updating Web pages, writing will continue to be the
number-one concern of public relations. Through it, your publics will come to
know you and, for better or worse, develop a permanent image of who you are.
It is in your best interest and that of the people for whom you work to ensure
that this image is the one you want to portray.
What is needed before you begin to write, however, is knowledge. Being able
to spell and string words together effectively does not make a good writer. First
and foremost, a good writer must be able to think. To be a good writer you must
be aware of the world around you and understand how your writing is going to
affect that world.
It is essential that you think before you write; otherwise, your writing will be
only empty words, disconnected from reality, or, worse, unintentionally mislead-
ing or false.
Uncontrolled Information
Information that, once it leaves your hands, is at the mercy of the media is
uncontrolled information. In other words, the outlet in which you want
the information placed has total editorial control over the content, style, place-
ment, and timing. Such items as news releases are totally uncontrolled. For
example, you may write what you think is the most effective, well-thought-out
news release ever presented to your local paper, but you never see it in print. Or
maybe the paper does use it, but leaves out all of your skillfully crafted sentences
about your employer. In these cases, the newspaper editors have exercised their
prerogative to control your information. Once you put it in their hands, they get
to decide what to do with it.
Then why, you’re probably asking yourself about now, even use uncontrolled
information? For at least two reasons. First, it’s generally cheaper because you
don’t have to pay for production or placement costs. Second, your message gains
credibility if you can pass it through the media on its way to your target publics.
I’ve sometimes referred to this technique as “information laundering” (humor-
ously, of course). The fact is that our messages are often viewed by our target
publics as having a vested interest—which of course they do. However, when
those same target publics see the same message served up by the media, it seems
to gain credibility in their eyes. Obviously, this is also true for passing the infor-
mation through any credible second party such as magazines, opinion leaders,
or role models. Thus, the loss in control is usually more than balanced by the
overall gain in credibility.
Controlled Information
Information over which you have total control as to editorial content, style,
placement, and timing is controlled information. Examples of controlled
information are institutional (image) and advocacy advertising, house publica-
tions, brochures, and broadcast material (if it is paid placement). Public service
announcements (PSAs) are controlled as far as message content is concerned but
uncontrolled as to placement and timing. To get the most out of any message,
you should send out both controlled and uncontrolled information. That way,
you can reach the broadest possible target audience, some of whom will react
more favorably to one type or the other of your approaches.
public relations articles are submitted in the same way as any other journal-
istic material. Editorials can be either paid for or submitted uncontrolled and
vie for placement with comments from other parties.
d Collateral publications are usually autonomous publications, such as brochures,
pamphlets, flyers, and other direct marketing pieces, that should be able to
stand on their own merits but can be used as supporting information for other
components in a package. They might, for instance, be part of a media kit.
d Speeches and presentations are the interpersonal method of imparting a position
or an image. Good speeches can inform or persuade, and good presentations
can win support where written methods may fail.
d The Internet has increasingly become one of the most important communica-
tions tools available in public relations. Writing for the Web is challenging and
exciting and can garner results often quicker than any other format.
Although these are not the only means for message dissemination at the
disposal of the public relations writer, they are the methods used most often.
Knowing which tool to use requires a combination of experience, research,
and intuition. It is also good to keep in mind that learning the basics of writing
(even if the basics deal with “traditional” forms) will prepare you to write in any
format, for any medium. If you can write a traditional news release, you can
write a Search Engine Optimized release. If you can write a feature story, you
can write an interesting blog post. Thus, unless you learn to write in the tradi-
tional forms, you won’t have a grounding in the basics you need to write well in
any form. The following chapters attempt to provide you with a framework, or
template, from which you will be able to perform basic tasks as a public relations
writer. The rest is a matter of experience, and no book can give you that.
Key Terms 7
is shorter still, whereas pamphlets and booklets vary in style and length accord-
ing to purpose. Writing for the Internet may incorporate any or all of these styles
in slightly to greatly abbreviated formats.
Beginning here and continuing throughout the book, we will deal with these
elements of public relations writing: purpose, strategy, medium, and style and
format.
KEY TERMS
uncontrolled information
controlled information
Public relations is fraught with ethical dilemmas. No one working in the field
would deny this; however, for the writer these dilemmas take a slightly different
form than the types of problems faced by others in the field. For instance, many
of the ethical quandaries facing public relations people have to do with decisions
on large issues—whether to handle a particular political candidate or ethically
suspect client; how to deal with the media on a day-to-day basis without lying;
what to keep confidential and what to disclose; and whether to do what the
client says, no matter what.
It’s not that such decisions are beyond the scope of the public relations writer.
It’s that a writer spends much more time dealing with the technical aspects of his
or her job than with the bigger picture. This tight focus, however, comes with its
own set of ethical considerations, among which are such quandaries as how to
persuade without violating the basic tenets of ethics and good taste and how to
write words that will later be claimed by someone else as his or her own.
Logic Fallacies
By far the most unethical of the techniques are those codified by the Roman ora-
tors over a thousand years ago. These are commonly referred to as logic fallacies
because they are both illogical and deceptive by nature. Let’s look first at these:
d Cause and effect. We see this in operation all the time. It means that because
one thing follows another in time, the second was caused by the first. This
tactic is most often used to infer that one thing is the result of the other.
Politicians are particularly adept at using this argument. For example, an
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