On Changing the PR Curriculum

As you know, the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication is working on a major overhaul of our curriculum -- both on the journalism and graphic communication sides. The goal has been to reflect the changes in the media business, specifically the blending of print, video, audio and online. Dean Hawkins also wanted us to change the names of some of our courses to include key terms such as multimedia.

So the Curriculum Committee, for which I'm filling in as chair this year in Professor Ritchie's absence, came up with a plan to collapse the newspaper and magazine sequences into one -- giving the students several options depending upon their interests. And we kept separate broadcast journalism and PR sequences. This is what we presented to the students.

However, within the past two weeks, the faculty have been re-evaluating this proposal, and an earlier idea to offer ONE multimedia curriculum -- with several options -- is again on the table.

Essentially, students earning a degree in multimedia would take the same core courses and then could choose from a variety of print, broadcast, multimedia and online courses. For example, a student might take TV News I, Public Affairs Reporting and Radio Practicum.

The question arises, where should PR fit in all of this? Would it make sense to eliminate the separate PR degree and allow our students the opportunity to take, say, TV News I instead of PR Research & Strategies, or for multimedia students to take Introduction to Public Relations or PR Communication? If we create, as proposed, a course titled PR and Social Media, shouldn't we open it up to other SJGC students as well?

What do you think about this idea of creating just one major -- multimedia -- in the Division of Journalism and allowing students to pick and choose from among all of the courses we offer?

Be a Keeper of the Language

If you took Language Skills for Journalists from me, you know that I offer a series of "Grammar Hints of the Week," the first of which is "Be a keeper of the language."

By that, I mean that you, as a communication expert, need to protect the language we use to communicate with one another. You need to know the rules of grammar, apply them to your own work, and use them to teach others how to communicate better.

Last week I gave the students in my LSJ class the status of their grades. Most are failing. So I asked them to write a paper describing what they plan to do to improve their grades, learn the material and incorporate what they learn into their lives.

The students wrote of poor study habits, procrastination, not asking questions in class when they don't understand something and not taking the course seriously. Sound familiar?

The students promised to study grammar 30 minutes to 2 hours EVERY NIGHT (!), to read and study the textbook and AP stylebook, to complete online quizzes before the class in which we discuss the relevant material, and to pay more attention to the Grammar Hints of the Week. Sounds good. We'll see what happens on the next assignment.

Let me share a few of my grammar hints with you in hopes that they may help improve your writing as well.

"Identify the subject, and then make the verb agree."
Subject-verb agreement problems are some of the most common I find in student writing. Look at this sentence:

The bowl of cherries [is/are] on the table.

So, what is the subject? Cherries? No. Bowl? Yes. "The bowl ... is on the table."

How about this sentence:

Susan, as well as her neighbors, [love/loves] "Desperate Housewives."

What is the subject? Susan and her neighbors? No. Susan? Yes. "Susan ... loves 'Desperate Housewives.'"

Notice that there's a space before and after the ellipsis (...) and that the period ALWAYS is placed INSIDE the end quotation mark (commas are, too).

Use a comma between independent clauses in a compound sentence.
First of all, what do we mean by a "compound sentence"? Basically, it's two sentences (independent clauses) joined by a coordinating conjunction, one of the FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet or so). Here's what one looks like:

The best things in life are free, but some pretty nice things cost money.

Don't use apostrophes to create plurals.
Apostrophes are used primarily to show possession. For example, "Jean's book" means that the book belongs to Jean. And "Smith's house" means that the house belongs to one person named Smith.

But I often see mistakes such as "jean's" (meant to refer to the article of clothing) or "Smith's" (meant to refer to the Smith family).

There is one exception to this rule: Use an apostrophe to create plural letters (e.g., A's, B's and C's).

Did you notice the colon after "There is one exception to this rule," the capital letter in "Use," and the comma after "e.g."?

The first sentence is closely related to and introduces the next sentence. Therefore, use a colon to signal the reader that you're going to tell them the "exception to this rule." Because "Use" introduces a complete sentence, capitalize the "U."

But when the information that follows the colon is NOT a complete sentence, do not capitalize the first letter of the next word. Here's what I mean:

The answer is clear: plastics.

The abbreviation "e.g." means "for example." It means you are including SOME of the possible options. Here's what I mean:

Several of my students (e.g., Alyssa, Megan, Martice and Branden) went to Power Shift.

The abbreviation "i.e." means "that is." It means you are including ALL of the possible options. Here's an example:


My PR colleagues (i.e., Professor Kinchlow and Dr. Grable) were hired in August 2008.

I hope you decide to be a keeper of the language, and I hope these grammar hints help you achieve that goal.

Love-Hate Relationship with PR

I love the good that PR can do, and yet I hate its power to promote and support evil.

Jon Stewart has been in the news recently for taking on CNBC -- specifically investment "watchdog" Jim Cramer -- and other news programs for not asking the tough questions and providing the "real" information about investment scams, such as that by Bernie Madoff. Cramer and others, in effect, had fallen for the "evil PR message" from Wall Street.

Rachel Maddow, on her evening talk show on MSNBC, recently skewered the PR agency Burson-Marsteller for being the servant of evil. "When evil needs public relations," she said on her show, "evil has Burson-Marsteller on speed dial." She gave example after example of how B-M has been hired to handle "crisis communication" and "reputation management" issues for people, countries or groups such as AIG, which accepted a bailout from us, the U.S. public; Blackwater after some of its members killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad; Saudi Arabia three days after 9/11 (remember, most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabians, not Iraqis or Afhanis); the military junta in Argentina in 1976 after it overthrew the legitimately elected government; Indonesia after the genocide of residents of East Timor a few years ago; and even the ironically named company "Spin Master," the maker of Aqua Dots, the bead craft toy that contained the chemical in the "date rate" drug and that made children sick when they chewed on the beads. Wouldn't you feel proud having that type of reputation for your PR agency?

Then there's Edelman, a PR agency I happen to admire for some of its work with social media and its annual "trust barometer" (a list of whom we tend to trust most for information). Edelman sponsors the annual New Media Academic Summit that I find so useful; in fact, attending the summits has helped me reshape our PR curriculum. And yet Edelman was responsible for violating part of the PRSA Code of Ethics when it created a blog supposedly written by people traveling in their RV from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart and writing about their adventures. What Edelman "forgot" to do, however, was to be transparent and admit to readers that all of the blogs were written by Edelman operatives, not "real folks" -- you know, the ones Edelman's trust barometer says "we" tend to believe more than "PR hacks."

This got me thinking about what we, in the PR education business, tell you about the "father" of PR, Edward Bernays. He's the one who first spoke of "counseling on public relations" rather than "doing propaganda" within society. Do you remember that Bernays taught the first course on PR? Do you remember the story of how he got women to start smoking in public during a march in an Easter parade in NYC? Now, this is a "funny" story. You see, Bernays was hired by George Hill, president of the American Tobacco Corporation, to find out what would make women overcome the taboo (reinforced by males) of smoking in public. Borrowing from his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas, Bernays hired psychoanalyst A.A. Brill to run a focus group and find out what smoking meant to women. His finding? Cigarettes were a symbol of the penis and of men's sexual power. So Bernays set about to persuade women that smoking would make them feel more powerful and independent. He got a group of young debutantes (he told the media they were "women's rights" marchers) to light up at a set time during the parade (just where Bernays had alerted the media they would be). Then framed the lit cigarettes as "torches of freedom" (which true Americans wouldn't support this?), and the media ate this up. Sales of cigarettes rose dramatically as women's health, eventually, began to deteriorate (but boy, were the women -- and the cigarette manufacturers -- happy!).

Bernays is recognized as playing a major role in changing us from a "need" society into a "desire" society. He believed humans should be looked upon as selfish, irresponsible "consumers" who needed to be controlled, rather than as rational "citizens" who could thrive under democracy.

Imagine what type of conversation George Lakoff (remember, he's the one who said that most of our thinking is unconscious and that we need to reframe our view of America to be more caring and responsive to people's needs) might have with Edward Bernays. Both believe in the power of the unconscious. But Bernays felt people needed -- and wanted -- to feel as if they were in control whereas they actually weren't. Lakoff, I propose, would argue people need -- and want -- to have those who are in control be responsive to the real needs of people.

This seems to me to be the true promise of PR: to help one another achieve a common good, to share the best we have with one another.

Lessons from Power Shift

Boy, did you miss a fantastic conference! Power Shift 2009 in Washington, D.C., has been a transformative event ... not just for me but also for the 12,000 college students who came to our nation's capital to learn and to hold our government officials accountable. The students are presenting a four-part plan, including capping carbon emissions, building a green economy, promoting clean energy and restoring the U.S. as a leader in the climate debate.

While attending sessions, I learned several lessons that apply to public relations, social media and framing. Many of the speakers, in fact, sounded as if they could have been delivering some of the lectures you hear in your PR courses when it comes to setting measurable objectives, knowing your audience, doing research, etc.

One story I heard was about how the Humane Society of the United States has used Facebook incredibly effectively. Many nonprofits think of their publics simply as names or addresses for donation checks. But the Humane Society has recognized the importance of allowing local chapters to reach out to their individual publics and pursue individualized causes. Thus, the Facebook community supports about 1,200 different local causes rather than just one dictated by the central organization. This is a many-to-one rather than a one-to-many, top-down approach.

One of the students on our bus (Alex) brought up the interesting way the word "alternative" is used: alternative families, alternative lifestyles, alternative energy. What an interesting frame!

One last word ... and then I have to get off this hotel computer. Preserving the environment is not a cause. It is a matter of life or death.

See you soon.