"And then one time, at PR camp..."

Heather over at the Greenbanana blog rightly points out that there really is more to PR than this:

"While an advertising executive would make up their own marketing message and put it on a billboard or in a commercial break, a publicist will try to inveigle theirs into a piece of journalism. They might offer an interview with a celebrity who is sponsored by their client; they might commission a survey related to their client's product and send out the findings; they might organise a newsworthy stunt and tell the media about it in advance."

I'm sure Sophie is a great PR practitioner, but somewhat ironically she is the one who falls prey to the 'spin' of the journalist in question - Leo Benedictus.

"I AM COOL" says a note stuck to one of the monitors, in case its owner might need reminding."

The article paints a picture of PR being all style and no substance, but perhaps that is the angle of a piece - to create a broad and superficial picture of a profession.

And another gem:

"When you've created this idea and you're ready to go and you've done your research and you sell it in [to a journalist] and get a feeling that it's gone well and then some big news story fills several pages inside and knocks your story out of the paper and there's no explanation you can give back to the client."

And then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then... I can't even imagine how one of her press releases reads.

I hope other students who haven't been planning to go into PR aren't lured in to the profession under false expectations. For a more balanced view of just what a career in PR entails, read a few of the industry favourite blogs such as PR Blogger, PR Squared, PR 2.0, and the Greenbanana blog (of course).