What makes a good PR person?
By Linda Forrest
In my last post, I wrote about how PR practitioners annoy journalists. It’s ironic that many of the issues come down to a failure to implement the fundamentals of successful communication. So, in an effort to clear up exactly what it is that reporters want from PR people, this post aims to list the traits of a good PR practitioner, with a healthy dose of anecdotes from PR agency executives and reporters sounding off on what they think are essential attributes. While some posts I came across while researching this post were downright effusive about how wonderful PR people are, others contained language that might be deemed unfit for work.
The reporter’s view
I’ll start off by referring back to the very informative blog post by Matt Hartley, the editor of the Financial Post’s Tech Desk, wherein he demonstrated a learned understanding of the symbiotic nature of the relationship between reporters and PR professionals:
