In recognition of Public Relations practitioners
I follow Women-in-PR (WIPR) on Instagram. It is a US-based digital resource for the next-generation of women in public relations. I find the WIPR Instagram handle very informative and inspiring yet lighthearted.
The caption for the above meme read, “PR is something that we do, not what we are. We are PUBLICISTS!!!”
Here’s another very relatable one.
This one clarifies that public relations is proactive. It is also planned and sustained, not an adhoc activity carried out only in emergency situations.
Today, WIPR is hosting a National Women-in-PR Day: Connections Not Competition Cocktail Mixer. As the event was promoted on Instagram, I learnt that 30 October is National Publicist Day™ in the US. It was no surprise as modern day public relations has its origin in America.
According to the National Publicist Day™ website, Jordanna Stephen, owner and principal of Just Good PR created the National Publicist Day™ when she “realized that hardworking publicists didn’t have a day of their own.” In 2015, she settled for 30 October, a date of significance for the PR industry.
The date is significant because the first release is recorded to have been published on 30 October 1906.
In 1906, 50 people lost their lives due to a three-car train jumping a trestle in New Jersey and plunging into a thoroughfare creek. That afternoon, on 28 October, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, the father of modern public relations, wrote the very first press release and encouraged his client, The Pennsylvania Railroad to distribute the public statement and to provide a special train to commute reporters to the scene of the accident. They did.
Impressed with Lee’s approach to handling the crisis, on 30 October 1906, The New York Times published the press release titled, “Statement from the Road,” verbatim.
In I914, he became adviser to oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller following a fallout from the Ludlow massacre which was affecting Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
Lee advised Rockefeller to tell the truth and to constitute a joint labour-management board to mediate his workers’ grievances on wages, hours and working conditions. The initiative was successful and the mine workers as well as the public saw Rockefeller in a whole new light.
The National Publicist Day™ was founded to appreciate and recognise public relations professionals. It is important because although the profession is over a century old, it is still grossly misunderstood. Too many have reduced the function to distributing press releases. What the origin story clearly shows is that Lee was an expert in crisis communication but he deployed several tools other than the press release. He also proposed media site visits and stakeholder engagement. And just like Lee, PR pros are strategists and advisors.
