Despite dim view of public relations, it may be needed

— -- Sleazy. Disingenuous. These are words used in U.K. newspaper coverage of the public relations industry.

PR, oddly enough, doesn't have great PR. People tend to think that PR involves being manipulative and saying whatever is in the employer's best interests.

Authors Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy, both PR professionals, don't disagree.

"There is much more gray than black and white in the field of PR ethics," they write in PR: A Persuasive Industry: Spin, Public Relations and the Shaping of the Modern Media. They call PR an amoral industry, a tool for good or evil purposes. There was, alas, Hitler, Goebbels, and the Nazi propaganda machine.

Morris and Goldsworthy have participated in university debates on whether PR has a duty to tell the truth. Industry professionals come down on both sides of the issue. Some say that PR is generally truthful, while others believe that white lies are part of the job. A poll of industry insiders revealed that most professionals don't feel telling the truth is a duty of PR.

Corporate PR is what comes to mind when discussing the PR industry. But non-governmental organizations, so-called NGOs, like Greenpeace and Amnesty International rely heavily on PR.

One group that often derides PR professionals is journalists, who often see themselves as truth-seekers forced to deal with flacks in order to get information. Yet without the PR industry, argue Morris and Goldsworthy, there would be very little news.

A 2008 study of news stories in U.K. newspapers found that more than half contained mostly PR material. A study in the Columbia Journalism Review found that more than half the stories in an edition of The Wall Street Journal "were based solely on press releases."

Good PR is often subtle, informing an even larger percentage of news stories, the authors argue. "If journalists do not get their stories from PR, where else do they obtain them," Morris and Goldsworthy ask. Most journalists tend to be alerted to newsworthy stories, and most alerts can be traced back to PR.

Morris and Goldsworthy define public relations as "The planned persuasion of people to behave in ways that further its sponsor's objectives. It works primarily through the use of media relations and other forms of third-party endorsement."

Defining PR doesn't solve the difficulty of examining it. The Department of Labor estimates that 240,000 people work in the PR industry in the United States and they are widely dispersed. Many companies employ people who have PR as a large part of their job, but who have other duties as well. And some people prefer not to call themselves PR workers.

Evaluating the efficacy of PR campaigns is difficult. Because of the relative low cost of PR (compared with high-profile advertising), many companies are reluctant to invest much money to determine the usefulness of PR. It is hard to attribute a rise in sales to PR, for example, when other factors — price reductions or advertisements — are involved.

Since PR often involves countering the effect of bad publicity, it is almost impossible to measure what damage might have occurred given a set of circumstances that never happened.

In spite of drawbacks, public relations seems to be experiencing a boom. The industry is growing by more than 30% annually in countries like China, Russia, and Turkey. In the presence of a free press, argue Morris and Goldsworthy, PR becomes essential.

People gravitate to PR for a number of reasons: Variety of the work; prospect of high pay; chance to be your own boss; glamorous lifestyle (touted on shows like Sex and the City).

Perhaps the most alluring thing about becoming a PR consultant is that no formal training is required. Unlike many professions, there is no certification, no universally acknowledged test, no courses offered at many prestigious universities (although some colleges offer PR studies). Essentially, there are no barriers to entry.

Acknowledging the general bad reputation of public relations, Morris and Goldsworthy feel the need to offer a defense, calling PR "a wholly legitimate aid to the exchange of information and ideas in society."

That may be true. People want help to best convey their ideas, and PR can provide it to citizens in a free society. The authors explain much about the industry: that PR is amoral, difficult to define, and difficult to measure.

However, if you are looking for a book to conclusively answer your PR questions, keep looking.

Seth Brown is a freelance writer and author of Rhode Island Curiosities. His website is www.RisingPun.com