Thursday, February 21, 2008 Ong: Fairness: The cry of PPC's PR man By Ted Aldwin Ong Misreadings
OVER Bombo Radyo, I listened in awe to media hotshot Lemuel Fernandez demanding fairness in terms of airtime from the program anchor on the issue being discussed - the proposed 164-MW coal-fired power plant, after Melvin Purzuelo of the Responsible Ilonggos for Sustainable Energy was interviewed.
To demand equal airtime over a live radio is a rare characteristic of professional public relations persons. It is rare in a sense that it is not public relations at work.
Public relations or PR provides no limits. If time is not enough, it is a PR man's work to make time available for himself especially for his client in order to air their views without sounding like begging for equal opportunity. To beg for equal time undercuts a PR man's integrity to handle the circumstances subjecting the issues with whom he is hired to confront at any given time or as crisis presents itself.
Public relations is not about crisis management, more importantly, it is all about preventing a crisis from taking place.
Private companies hire a PR person for various reasons and for specific purposes. Usually, PR persons are tasked to analyze situations in order to plot strategies by converting situations into opportunities. More often than not, PR persons absorb all the good values available in a given community; they assess all the negative values; implement a strategy to submerge the negative values in order to project all the good in the eyes of the public.
The basic PR subject teaches an aspiring PR practitioner not to hint ignorance about the issue or expose its personal inadequacies in facing situations. This is the reason why many surmise that PR is an art in itself because it could conceal reality or create a new reality.
The PR person is an embodiment of intellect for it is through intellectual debates that the public could gauge his knowledge and familiarity of the issues and where he can display his integrity as a PR person. Likewise, a PR person is a master of human emotions knowing when to react and how to react especially if the arena is in the public domain.
On the contrary, the display of arrogance and stupidity is not in the characteristics of the PR person. To display this is to welcome doubts on the integrity of the PR person and puts question on the consistency of the values the company wanted to project in the public. This is not the way to go if one desires to become successful in the field of PR or so what the book says.
Having established that would give us a better view on the subject of this column Mr. Fernandez and his cry for fairness over the radio. I touched on the subject about public relations because no less than Mr. Fernandez has declared over the airwaves that he represent Panay Power Corporation as its public relations person.
Nothing wrong with that actually for he is a media professional who wields influence as a publisher of a local newspaper that wears the budge "Western Visayas' most respected and read." He is a trade name in the media which many adore, respect, and even feared. He stands as leader symbol to many local media practitioners the reason why Iloilo City has two press clubs.
However, I have yet to appreciate Mr. Fernandez PR style for it appears that he display contrary characteristics to the simple yardstick that serves as the fundamentals of public relations. While PR require one to have a command on the issue - Mr. Fernandez have repeatedly admitted over the airwaves that he do not have the expertise over the issues being discussed. This without asked.
Likewise, he demanded fairness from an equally legitimate media practitioner from another reputable media organization without examining if the newspaper he leads being "Western Visayas most respected and read" exhibits fairness. This is dangerous especially to the students that study mass communications who are observing how the media cover events as it unfolds on the issue of the proposed coal-fired power plant.
If we are not aware of the conflicting roles that Mr. Fernandez plays over this issue, I don't think that the public would be conscious enough to realize how Mr. Lemuel Fernandez could make morons out of the intellectual Ilonggos. Fairness? Start it from your end. (Comments to tao.kolumnista@gmail.com)
