The ‘p’ word

I’ve just given my most difficult first year lecture. It’s the one where I ask which of the following are necessary to work in public relations:

A PR degree; any degree; a professional qualification; membership of a professional body etc. The answer: none.

But how things are isn’t the same as how they are going to be, or how they should be. The graduates are certainly arriving in this industry, and the very same day as I gave this lecture, the US Commission on Public Relations Education published its follow up report to 1999’s A Port of Entry called The Professional Bond. (I learnt about it first from the Forward Podcast).