A while ago I complained about how PR people are depicted by the media, so I was interested to hear of a PR blog, PRDepiction from Tom Watson, professor of public relations at Bournemouth University, that lists portrayals of PR professionals. This is the collaborative effort of academics and practitioners in the Australia, Ireland, UK and US.
In it, there are films and books that go back over 80 years. The first reference dates back to 1930 in John Don Passos’s The 42nd Parallel. And an early movie reference is Bing Crosby as the publicist for Hawaii in 1937′s Wakiki Wedding.
Watson says that suggestions of additions to PRDepiction are welcomed.
If you have hours to while away (and want to take a break for yet more pitching), you could easily spend it here, finding out how scriptwriters and novelists like to describe PROs. My favourite has to be the BBC’s Absolute Power. I’m not saying that PR people are anything like the characters Charles Prentiss and Martin McCabe of course!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 11:07 am and is filed under pr, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Interesting article.
I find it’s particularly bad in celebrity interviews in the nationals such as the Guardian and The Sunday Times.
Often there’s a bit of a rant about a clingy and interfering PR person, which I think is very unfair and undermines the role the PR person plays in setting up the interview.
It’s a one sided peek behind the curtain of what goes on between PRs and journalists.
No doubt the storyline in BBC Radio 4′s The Archers involving a regional PR agency should be included. Sarah O’Connor from the FT (@sarahoconnor) says on Twitter “Writers of #thearchers have strange views of media world: journalists are biased scumbags but apparently PRs are decent & pleasant”!