Lest we forget, the ‘public’ in public relations refers to the constituents to which we are accountable.

So it irks me to hear about my colleagues who use their public relations positions to attempt to mold and control news stories to bizarre degrees. (When I was in a past position being encouraged to do the same, I couldn’t have felt more unclean.) Such attempts in fact translate as the authoritarian, “we know best” stance, which on the face of it, is just as arrogant as journalists who believe they also know what’s best for the public at large.

Consider: Both news journalists and public relations personnel constitute fairly measurable demographics. In PR, pros tend to be college-educated, (white) women of middle socioeconomic classes. News reporters tend to be college-educated white men from middle socioeconomic classes. Neither group reliably represents society as a whole yet both see fit to speak for us all. Remarkably.

For public relations, this phenomenon is in part manifested by the apparent and fundamental philosophical stance taken when one is representing one’s organization.

At a recent gathering of communications professionals, we each gave an update on our respective organizations. Half of the room was happy-go-lucky, talking only of the wonderful things their organizations are doing despite the fact that Nevada’s economy, like the rest of the nation’s, is in the shitter, which has resounding consequences on all fronts, including drastic impacts on our personnel and constituents. We all knew where the shit was sticking (we do read the paper, after all), but you wouldn’t know it by the spin being spun among the spinsters.

Fortunately, the other half of the room was more honest and discussed some of their challenges (I opened my three minutes by mentioning that we recently, and tragically, fished a body from the waters of one of our state parks.)

The latter half of the group was refreshingly more genuine primarily because of their honesty. By visibly acknowledging the elephants in the room, these folks end up being more credible sources for their publics and the news media. Social psychology research in fact validates the openness of shortcomings as a credibility builder.

So when spending time with, for example, a television news crew, guess which members of the above groups are mentioned as “good PIOs” when I have the fortune of hanging all day with such a news crew? The opportunity is a tremendous public relations learning experience. In spending that much time with in-the-trench reporters, which I occasionally get to do, I am quickly reminded of which practices go over well with the news media and which do not.

I’ve said it before: Good media relations is accommodating perhaps to a fault; poor media relations is fairly transparent and will become public very quickly. Amazingly, the poor practices are beyond basic in my book — and fairly commonplace.

I’m ashamed, though it wasn’t at all a surprise to me, to hear of my colleagues’ far-too frequent infractions, such as micro-managing what the news cameraman is allowed to shoot — well beyond reasonable expectations. Or forgetting to call back a news station after major news develops, only moments after talking to said news station. Or trying to insist nothing of importance is going on when SWAT-team members are on the roof of your organization’s building.

And so on.