Personal Traits of a pr Practitioner
The PR practitioner today needs to be a researcher, counselor, strategic planner, educator, communicator and cheerleader. In this section, we look at the personal traits and educational background needed by a person choosing a career in public relations.
Personal Traits
PR practitioners have to master diverse skills. They must be creative in solving problems and strong enough to withstand the considerable stress involved in working between the institution and its various (and numerous) publics. Solving the problems encountered in public relations often requires teamwork and a tolerance for different views. As a public relations person, you need to gather different views and help hammer them into a solution. At the same time, you must express confidence and hope that a solution can be found. It is wrong to think that a PR practitioner must provides a cover-up for problems and difficulties. Here are some personal characteristics needed by the PR practitioner: character and integrity, a sense of judgment and logic, the ability to think creatively and imaginatively, truthfulness, a deep interest in the solution of the problems,a broad cultural background, intellectual curiosity, effective powers of analysis and synthesis, intuition, training in the social sciences.
As interest in public relations continues to grow both in the United States and abroad, concern about what is being taught and who is teaching it increases. Because many practitioners come into public relations from other fields, and because public relations practice is constantly growing and changing, a practitioner's education can now be divided into two parts: preliminary (pre-practice) and continuing education which
The Job of the PR Practitioner
Both the functions and the values of public relations are still poorly understood. PR practitioners must be prepared to correct mistaken ideas and avoid false expectations.
Here are some functions of public relations in the society.
Public relations represents and articulates the desires and interests of various publics to society's sometimes unresponsive institutions. While speaking for publics, it also speaks to them for the institutions.
Public relations helps establish smoother relationships between institutions and society.
Public relations personnel often stimulate an institution's social conscience.
Keep it simple
As a PR practitioner, you will have to write various materials, such as news releases, newsletters, brochures, pamphlets and manuals. Your objective will be to inform, explain, instruct or persuade.
For these purposes, communication in readable, non-technical language is a must in public relations writing.
In many offices where people are engaged in writing there is a large sign bearing the letters KISS. Underneath, in smaller type, is the definition of this acronym: "Keep It Simple, Stupid".
This is good advice for any writer. It becomes especially important when you must translate technical information into something lay people will understand. Here, the sign should change from KISS to MISS and the words beneath should read "Make It Simple, Stupid", because your task is not to keep things simple. Instead, there is complicated material to be made simple.
Above all, the copy must be understandable. It should be pretested on several readers who are representative of the audience for which the publication is intended. If they don't understand, the material should be rewritten.
Simplifying a complex idea is hard work. First, you must research the information until you really understand it. To gain understanding, you must read the material and question the people who created it.
In explaining a complicated subject, it is important not to overload the reader. He or she should not be given any more than is needed. The language of explanation must be plain. Jargon has no place here. If possible, there should be no technical terms, but sometimes they must be used because there is nothing else to serve the purpose.
If several people who know nothing about the subject do understand the explanation, it is probably adequate, provided that the experts approve.
If the laity don't understand something, it must be rewritten until they do.