Letter about Public Relations

Dear Friend,

Many people, like yourself, may be confused about the purpose of a Public Relations practitioner and the field overall. You may have heard public relations practitioners labeled as "spin doctors," responsible for essentially "lying" to the public during times of crisis. I hope at the end of this letter, you better understand the role of public relations in an organization, and have a more positive outlook on it.

Public relations has been referred to as the "conscience" of an organization. Public relations practitioners help to maintain relationships between an organization and its publics by informing them of what's new with the organization, what's upcoming, and by also listening and responding to feedback from both inside and outside the whole organization. The public relations department relies on other departments for information to help react to any feedback, whether positive or negative, coming from both within and outside of the organization.

Some may think that in order to "cover up" some mistakes or crises the organization goes through, public relations practitioners have to lie so that they do not lose their stakeholders. This is untrue. Public relations practitioners do everything they can to first prevent a crisis from ever occurring, as well as making sure that crises that do occur never happen again. The public relations department of any organization wants to maintain all relationships they have with people both inside and outside, so practitioners do their best to respond to all feedback and to take necessary action. This generally involves interaction among one or more of the other departments of the organization.

I hope you have a better understanding of public relations. Public relations practitioners want to keep their relationship with you as an audience, so feedback is important to help the organization continue to function successfully.

I assure you that this profession is just right for me, and I hope you better understand why. However, I appreciate your concern! Please let me know if you have any other questions, and I will do my best to answer them!

Sincerely,
Ashley