Ms. InterPReted

Many recent public relations industry reports and prognostications have painted rosy pictures about the state of the PR industry.

As #MsInterPReted Co-Hosts Kelly Fletcher and Mary Beth West close out the Year 2021 and Season 4 of their podcast with PR Predictions for 2022, both women reflect on the challenges and travails of 2020-21 -- including at very personal levels -- and the hurdles most seriously facing the industry in the year ahead:

*Continued pandemic-driven economic uncertainties
*Ethics scandals, apathy and PR as well as news-media industry politicization and distrust
*Diversity struggles and potential yet unfulfilled

Together, Kelly and Mary Beth share insights and observations about why the road ahead is rife with realities that need to be taken seriously by PR leaders and practitioners, alongside the industry's rosier glass-half-full aspirations.

While hope and optimism are merited, it's also a time for sober and cautious introspection by the industry -- and a time to bring PR's "A" Game to the table for companies and organizations serious about meaningful and sustained growth, productivity and brand competitiveness in the year ahead.

Show Notes

In this episode, Kelly and Mary Beth discuss their PR Industry Predictions for 2022, including:

  • How the PR agency business model's pandemic-driven shifts have impacted the industry
  • Why the U.S. PR industry is on a particularly troublesome ethics track -- much of it self-inflicted and further exacerbated by apathy ... particularly in light of disappointing choices and lack of truth / transparency by the domestic PR association -- PRSA
  • Ways that workforce recruitment strains between talent availability, rising payroll demands and follow-on COVID waves will impact budgets
  • Implications of recent industry reports:
    • Public Relations & Communications Association (PRCA-UK) (London): 
      • https://www.prca.org.uk/PR-industry-roars-back-2021-PRCA-UK-Census 
    • International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) World Report: 
      • https://iccopr.com/services/world-reports/download-our-2020-2021-report/  
  • Whether the PR, media and journalism sectors will ever join forces to stave off systemic public-trust root-rot driving disinformation
  • How the Diversity conversation will continue as a merry-go-round until the industry and respective associations set a definitive bar between two separate metrics: 1) Having the PR industry employment base represent all of society demographically, or 2) Having the sector mirror demographics of other professional-service sectors with which PR competes to recruit workforce
  • Ways that politicization and partisanship in news rooms and across the industry drive the very divisiveness that the PR industry should be more competently taking in hand and mitigating (not exacerbating) to bring people and publics together in more positive solidarity around issues
  • How the dearth of men in the PR industry workforce (minus the C-suite) is a far more complex and troubling problem than is adequately discussed ... and if the industry fails to address the gender imbalance in 2022, we can expect to slide more into "pink-collared ghetto" territory relative to compensation and share-of-voice.

Mary Beth also shares a glimpse of work-in-progress currently underway via the PRCA Ethics Council, in partnership with the Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI) in Washington, D.C., as part of its Global Business Ethics Survey to ascertain PR industry ethics issues. 


What is Ms. InterPReted?

Public Relations stands as one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted areas of business and organizational management. With Fletcher Marketing PR Founder and CEO Kelly Fletcher and Senior Strategist Mary Beth West, we’re here to turn around PR’s own bad PRess, cut through the nomenclature, and demystify public relations as the best pathway to create, grow and amplify the roots of positive management, communications, culture and careers -- for success that matters.