The Plight of Public RelationsIt is a pity that even routine work like making an activity and reporting chart can be projected as the development of a process and a system.
The fact that such a thing is also being highlighted through media coverage reflects the shallowness of the prosaic ideas that the public relations (PR) industry has been churning out of lately.
Perhaps, this is a logical effect of the long hibernation that the PR industry underwent when it started limiting itself largely to media relations.The prevailing rot in the field of public relations is the culmination of a much deeper malaise that the industry has encountered following the waning of the magic of 'wide smiles, mighty mouths and shoe shine' on the corporates.
These corporates are now increasingly demanding value added work, which goes much beyond column centimeter coverage.
It is this demand that has put the PR industry in state of flux - at least in India.Since the days of Ivy Lee, considered the father of public relations, the industry seems to have made no significant strides to enrich the core of its discipline.
After missing out on the worldwide strategic management movement of the 1960s, the industry could not recover completely from the hang up with which it emerged - that of being a peripheral activity and that of never occupying a pride of place on the top agenda of management.