Thursday, April 23, 2009

Public Relations: A Practical Guide to the Basics

by Callie Cady

The book I read was written by Philip Henslowe and is called Public Relations: A Practical Guide to the Basics.
This book is basically used as a beginner's guide to public relations. Henslowe, who is from the Institute of Public Relations, describes the process of creating a PR campaign. This is very helpful because he includes chapters on the role of PR, sources, ethical and legal concerns, suppliers, publishers, printers, photographers, designers, video, exhibitions, promotions, visits, sponsorship, business writing, crisis management, the media, planning, and evaluation. The author pulls alot of his research from codes of conduct, a brief legal guide, sample documents, checklists, and guidelines.
One of my favorite quotes from this book is "Public relations is not, nor should it be, a 'stand alone' profession in isolation from the rest of the business world." I like this quote because the author goes on to explain that internal as well as external communication is becoming increasingly important in the business world today. He also states that public relations is a necessary practice in all businesses and organizations.
I really enjoyed this book because it outlines the underlying principles of PR. It breaks it down in a way.

2 comments:

Ericka B. said...

This is very intriguing. This would have been extremely helpful throughout the semester! It might have even served as a useful textbook since it gives specific examples on successful campaigns. Overall, I am intrigued by the book and wish i would have been privy to it prior to our own campaign.

FARA said...

I think that this book should be used as the text for the Intro to PR classes here at OU. I think something that should be taught earlier in our journey as PR practioners is the idea of ethics; the code of conducts, sample documents and such. This would connect the business aspect of PR to the more literary idea and emphasize more of the princples that at times are overlooked.