Blog Targets College Seniors and Young Professionals in PR
For Immediate Release
August 01, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS
– An adjunct college professor at a leading journalism school in the Midwest has – out of what he feels is necessity – started a blog to provide a place for college students and young professionals to discuss how public relations works…in the real world.
“There’s only so much practical knowledge that comes from college courses, an internship and the first PR job, writing news releases and looking up reporters’ names,” says Jim Parham, chief operating officer at Hirons & Company in Indianapolis. He has worked in the public relations profession for 30 years and taught half that time at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
“It’s amazing when you talk with young men and women just finishing school or starting the first job,” he states. “Simply put, they haven’t thought about the ethical and legal implications of what they will do for clients, let alone do they know the lingo, jargon and nomenclature of the business.”
“At IU, we’ve been able to bring practical applications into the classrooms with some strong leadership at the School of Journalism. So it made sense to transfer these topics and issues into a national dialogue for a much larger audience,” he added.
ThePRChronicle.com is up and running, and its topics vary from how to answer an interviewer’s question of, “Why did you choose PR as a profession?” to what does the word “spin” really mean? The lively and informal blog is a chance for people to talk without the restrictions of classroom walls. Better yet, there is a chance for bloggers to discuss a new job without a first boss thinking they are idiots for not understanding what an agreement error is in a news release.
The creator of the blog hopes that people will see this as a chance to learn while helping others learn, too. “It’s pretty simple – we create a positive and informal environment where there’s no risk to being wrong, and you can let loose with the questions you’re too afraid to ask in class or to a co-worker.”
Hirons & Company is Indiana’s largest integrated communications firm with offices in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana. Visit its Web site at hirons.com.
