Public Relations Playbook: Foreword
by Michael L. Turney, Ph.D., ABC
Northern Kentucky University Emeritus Professor of Communication
IABC Accredited Business Communicator
The need for a good "playbook" for public relations isn’t new, although the term may be. It only recently migrated from the realms of sports and became popular in other fields. (Pun intended.)
Such desktop references are common in many professions but they were usually called handbooks, deskbooks, manuals, check charts, cheatsheets, or guidebooks before “playbook” became popular. They should not, however, be confused with the fairly recent coup of marketing and yellow ink called Dummies Guides. The latter are aimed at total novices with no background in the discipline they’re reading about. Handbooks, deskbooks, playbooks, etc. are meant for working professionals who do understand their discipline but need easy-to-follow, how-to tips, a quick clarification, or a refresher on a particular topic.
In public relations, one of the best-known and longest-lived was Dartnell's Public Relations Handbook. Alas, it was last updated two decades ago and is sadly out-of-date and largely useless in today's fast changing world of social media.
Additionally, even in its heyday, Dartnell’s Handbook wasn't ideal for students or entry-level professionals. Too much of it was over their heads. It was written by well-known public relations veterans for established practitioners and was thus filled with jargon, esoteric topics, and managerial dilemmas that newcomers wouldn't encounter until much later in their careers.
What was needed was a handbook, or playbook if you prefer, suitable for students and young professionals. It could fill in gaps in their education, remind them of things they had heard in class but had since forgotten, and provide step-by-step instructions for common public relations tasks.
Now there is one. It’s the revised and expanded 2021 edition of the Public Relations Playbook, formerly titled the Public Relations Student Playbook. It was written and independently published by Tom Hagley, a retired public relations professional and former college professor. He wrote it in response to questions he got from students while teaching and managing interns.
But, before you think it’s just another PR text, albeit it one with a fun, catchy title, understand that the author has said: “It is, in no way, intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the profession.” That’s good to hear, not only because it’s true, but because it helps clarify the best ways of using the Playbook as part of your public relations education.
The Playbook is a wide-ranging, extremely useful and insightful book that I highly recommend. But, not as a primary textbook in the most popular public relations courses. It's not comprehensive or detailed enough to serve as a stand-alone textbook. It doesn't present a complete overview of public relations or even of major subdivisions of the discipline. Think of it instead as a supplement or companion to your primary textbook.
It can fill in some of the gaps left by most textbooks and maybe omitted from class lectures. — Check out its table of contents and see for yourself. — It addresses some topics that most textbooks don’t mention or gloss over in passing. In other instances, it offers alternative views of topics other texts cover, or explains why a particular strategy or tactic does or doesn’t work in a certain situations. And, it offers useful suggestions or step-by-step, how-to instructions for carrying out many common public relations projects.
Perhaps more importantly, it urges readers to reflect on their own roles in public relations and suggests they self-assess both their comfort level with those roles and their effectiveness in performing them.
This new edition of the Playbook is more extensive and better than the last one. It’s been expanded from 69 chapters to 83 and now covers more aspects of the profession from more thought-provoking angles. And, it’s been divided into four parts instead of three.
Part I The public relations profession (8 chapters) deals with the profession as a whole, touching on its underlying purpose, philosophy, history and current status. In many ways -- some subtle; some more direct -- it encourages you to ask yourself if public relations is the most appropriate and suitable career choice for you.
Part II Getting started in the public relations profession (20 chapters) is less conceptual and more concerned with helping you complete your public relations studies and successfully move through your first entry-level positions. It's meant to help you assess yourself and your professional performance and present them in the best possible light to your supervisors and prospective employers while being honest with yourself about your professional development.
The author says: It’s especially meant for those moments when you’re troubled or deep in thought about a situation, necessary action, difficult decision, or challenge. It can also be helpful when you feel you need a nudge to get back on track or move forward.
Part III Professor Candello interviews (11 chapters) is a new feature of this edition. It’s essentially a series of magazine-style interviews that Dr. Elizabeth Candello of Washington State University conducted with the author, Tom Hagley. She selected topics she felt would be of interest to the classes she was teaching and asked Tom to respond based on his 30 years of experience working in public relations.
But, make no mistake, Tom wasn’t just telling “war stories.” He wasn’t trying to impress readers with what he has personally accomplished or for whom he worked. Nor was he sharing gossip. He was thoughtfully analyzing various dimensions of the profession, noting trends and shifting strategies, and predicting what may lie ahead for future practitioners.
Part IV Tactics to excel in class and at work (41 chapters) is the most extensive part of the book and the most nitty-gritty. It deals with the day-to-day realities of performing public relations for a wide variety of organizations, including schools, governments and fund-raisers.
It starts with several chapters about developing a public relations strategic plan, from conducting the initial research and developing a network of contacts, through writing and producing various projects, to assessing the final results. Other chapters cover financial matters, technology, crisis situations, dealing with executives, working with a team, and improving your writing as well as numerous other subjects.
My only real criticism of the Playbook is the lack of an index. – But, Tom has said he hopes to correct that in future editions. – Without one, it's difficult to know everything that's included in the book and where to find it. Skimming the table of contents doesn’t quite work. First, because of its length, 83 chapters. And second, because some of the chapter titles don’t clearly indicate their content. They may be vague (e.g., 18. Shape your character by design), or overly cute (e.g., 23. Shud job inerviews inclood spelling tests?), or plays on words (e.g., 59. 'Supreme' lesson in writing testimony). The content is great; it’s just hard to locate.
Parts of the Playbook mesh perfectly with most “Intro to Public Relations” courses but much of it doesn’t. Similarly, some chapters contain tips helpful in a “Public Relations Writing” course while others offer step-by-step suggestions suitable for a “Public Relations Planning and Campaigns” course. And, still others pose thought-provoking issues that would fit right into a “Current Problems in Public Relations” course.
But, selecting the parts that meet the needs of any one of these courses will leave much more of the book that doesn’t really belong in that course. So, should the Playbook still be used as a required text for these courses? If not, what would be the best use for it?
One idea was to make the Playbook as a program requirement instead of a course-specific textbook. Students could receive a copy when they declare their major or are admitted into the public relations program. It would be a tool they carried with them as they moved from course to course and, eventually, out into the professional world. That way, specific chapter readings could be assigned in the most appropriate courses.
Another possibility would be to make it required reading for interns. It could help them pull together all aspects of their public relations education and better understand situations they might encounter as interns. It could also help them perform tasks they're likely to be assigned and ask better, probing questions of the co-workers with whom they'd be working.
I also think the Playbook will be tremendously valuable – perhaps even more valuable than it is for students – for young, working public relations professionals early in their careers. It’s a great, everyday reference loaded with hundreds of reminders, clarifications, guidelines, and suggestions for being more effective in doing their jobs.
Tom Hagley has done a wonderful service by writing and publishing this book, and he’s done it almost entirely on his own. The exceptions are the Professor Candello interviews that comprise Part III and a few other chapters in which Tom collaborated with professionals who had more experience than he did in certain specialties. (I’m one of them; we collaborated on Chapter 73 Public Relations in Government.)
All of us involved in the Playbook hope the lessons we’ve learned and shared from our “Schools of Experience" will help readers avoid learning from their own “School of Hard Knocks.
Michael L. Turney
www.practicingpublicrelations.com
Northern Kentucky University Emeritus Professor of Communication
IABC Accredited Business Communicator
The need for a good "playbook" for public relations isn’t new, although the term may be. It only recently migrated from the realms of sports and became popular in other fields. (Pun intended.)
Such desktop references are common in many professions but they were usually called handbooks, deskbooks, manuals, check charts, cheatsheets, or guidebooks before “playbook” became popular. They should not, however, be confused with the fairly recent coup of marketing and yellow ink called Dummies Guides. The latter are aimed at total novices with no background in the discipline they’re reading about. Handbooks, deskbooks, playbooks, etc. are meant for working professionals who do understand their discipline but need easy-to-follow, how-to tips, a quick clarification, or a refresher on a particular topic.
In public relations, one of the best-known and longest-lived was Dartnell's Public Relations Handbook. Alas, it was last updated two decades ago and is sadly out-of-date and largely useless in today's fast changing world of social media.
Additionally, even in its heyday, Dartnell’s Handbook wasn't ideal for students or entry-level professionals. Too much of it was over their heads. It was written by well-known public relations veterans for established practitioners and was thus filled with jargon, esoteric topics, and managerial dilemmas that newcomers wouldn't encounter until much later in their careers.
What was needed was a handbook, or playbook if you prefer, suitable for students and young professionals. It could fill in gaps in their education, remind them of things they had heard in class but had since forgotten, and provide step-by-step instructions for common public relations tasks.
Now there is one. It’s the revised and expanded 2021 edition of the Public Relations Playbook, formerly titled the Public Relations Student Playbook. It was written and independently published by Tom Hagley, a retired public relations professional and former college professor. He wrote it in response to questions he got from students while teaching and managing interns.
But, before you think it’s just another PR text, albeit it one with a fun, catchy title, understand that the author has said: “It is, in no way, intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the profession.” That’s good to hear, not only because it’s true, but because it helps clarify the best ways of using the Playbook as part of your public relations education.
The Playbook is a wide-ranging, extremely useful and insightful book that I highly recommend. But, not as a primary textbook in the most popular public relations courses. It's not comprehensive or detailed enough to serve as a stand-alone textbook. It doesn't present a complete overview of public relations or even of major subdivisions of the discipline. Think of it instead as a supplement or companion to your primary textbook.
It can fill in some of the gaps left by most textbooks and maybe omitted from class lectures. — Check out its table of contents and see for yourself. — It addresses some topics that most textbooks don’t mention or gloss over in passing. In other instances, it offers alternative views of topics other texts cover, or explains why a particular strategy or tactic does or doesn’t work in a certain situations. And, it offers useful suggestions or step-by-step, how-to instructions for carrying out many common public relations projects.
Perhaps more importantly, it urges readers to reflect on their own roles in public relations and suggests they self-assess both their comfort level with those roles and their effectiveness in performing them.
This new edition of the Playbook is more extensive and better than the last one. It’s been expanded from 69 chapters to 83 and now covers more aspects of the profession from more thought-provoking angles. And, it’s been divided into four parts instead of three.
Part I The public relations profession (8 chapters) deals with the profession as a whole, touching on its underlying purpose, philosophy, history and current status. In many ways -- some subtle; some more direct -- it encourages you to ask yourself if public relations is the most appropriate and suitable career choice for you.
Part II Getting started in the public relations profession (20 chapters) is less conceptual and more concerned with helping you complete your public relations studies and successfully move through your first entry-level positions. It's meant to help you assess yourself and your professional performance and present them in the best possible light to your supervisors and prospective employers while being honest with yourself about your professional development.
The author says: It’s especially meant for those moments when you’re troubled or deep in thought about a situation, necessary action, difficult decision, or challenge. It can also be helpful when you feel you need a nudge to get back on track or move forward.
Part III Professor Candello interviews (11 chapters) is a new feature of this edition. It’s essentially a series of magazine-style interviews that Dr. Elizabeth Candello of Washington State University conducted with the author, Tom Hagley. She selected topics she felt would be of interest to the classes she was teaching and asked Tom to respond based on his 30 years of experience working in public relations.
But, make no mistake, Tom wasn’t just telling “war stories.” He wasn’t trying to impress readers with what he has personally accomplished or for whom he worked. Nor was he sharing gossip. He was thoughtfully analyzing various dimensions of the profession, noting trends and shifting strategies, and predicting what may lie ahead for future practitioners.
Part IV Tactics to excel in class and at work (41 chapters) is the most extensive part of the book and the most nitty-gritty. It deals with the day-to-day realities of performing public relations for a wide variety of organizations, including schools, governments and fund-raisers.
It starts with several chapters about developing a public relations strategic plan, from conducting the initial research and developing a network of contacts, through writing and producing various projects, to assessing the final results. Other chapters cover financial matters, technology, crisis situations, dealing with executives, working with a team, and improving your writing as well as numerous other subjects.
My only real criticism of the Playbook is the lack of an index. – But, Tom has said he hopes to correct that in future editions. – Without one, it's difficult to know everything that's included in the book and where to find it. Skimming the table of contents doesn’t quite work. First, because of its length, 83 chapters. And second, because some of the chapter titles don’t clearly indicate their content. They may be vague (e.g., 18. Shape your character by design), or overly cute (e.g., 23. Shud job inerviews inclood spelling tests?), or plays on words (e.g., 59. 'Supreme' lesson in writing testimony). The content is great; it’s just hard to locate.
Parts of the Playbook mesh perfectly with most “Intro to Public Relations” courses but much of it doesn’t. Similarly, some chapters contain tips helpful in a “Public Relations Writing” course while others offer step-by-step suggestions suitable for a “Public Relations Planning and Campaigns” course. And, still others pose thought-provoking issues that would fit right into a “Current Problems in Public Relations” course.
But, selecting the parts that meet the needs of any one of these courses will leave much more of the book that doesn’t really belong in that course. So, should the Playbook still be used as a required text for these courses? If not, what would be the best use for it?
One idea was to make the Playbook as a program requirement instead of a course-specific textbook. Students could receive a copy when they declare their major or are admitted into the public relations program. It would be a tool they carried with them as they moved from course to course and, eventually, out into the professional world. That way, specific chapter readings could be assigned in the most appropriate courses.
Another possibility would be to make it required reading for interns. It could help them pull together all aspects of their public relations education and better understand situations they might encounter as interns. It could also help them perform tasks they're likely to be assigned and ask better, probing questions of the co-workers with whom they'd be working.
I also think the Playbook will be tremendously valuable – perhaps even more valuable than it is for students – for young, working public relations professionals early in their careers. It’s a great, everyday reference loaded with hundreds of reminders, clarifications, guidelines, and suggestions for being more effective in doing their jobs.
Tom Hagley has done a wonderful service by writing and publishing this book, and he’s done it almost entirely on his own. The exceptions are the Professor Candello interviews that comprise Part III and a few other chapters in which Tom collaborated with professionals who had more experience than he did in certain specialties. (I’m one of them; we collaborated on Chapter 73 Public Relations in Government.)
All of us involved in the Playbook hope the lessons we’ve learned and shared from our “Schools of Experience" will help readers avoid learning from their own “School of Hard Knocks.
Michael L. Turney
www.practicingpublicrelations.com
