Welcome to my blog - PR StraightTalk. I’ve been a public relations professional for over 20 years, and in that time, have dedicated my energies to creating and implementing campaigns that increase the level of awareness, support and appreciation for my clients – for their services and products, and the issues and positions they take in the world.

My own personal opinions have necessarily taken a step back, with the exception of the professional opinions I express to clients regarding how to best present them to their various publics. That’s still the case: I represent clients - and my highest priority as a professional is their self-interest, and to communicate them in ways that accurately and creatively project their strengths and points-of-view to their most important audiences.

Now this blog affords me the opportunity to reveal more about what I personally think about this craft, about media relations and public relations campaigns that work - and those which in my view don’t work; about my opinion on anything appearing in the media - print or cable tv or broadcast tv or radio…or electronic on various websites. All of it will be fair game for this blog.

Yet to share my own views about public relations, or communications and the content of communications in general, I need to share something about the values I adhere to that frame my views, and my orientation in representing clients. These values have evolved over the years, but there has always been one overriding value that has remained the same: to tell the truth and to treat people - including my clients’ publics - with the intelligence and respect they deserve.

This is not to say that “creativity” and the use of creative techniques in communication haven’t been applicable. Of course they’ve been. I have never considered honesty and creativity as incompatible bedfellows. But “creativity” in my own mind is the exercise of the imagination applied to communications campaigns that energize and enhance the client’s message - it is not the use of manipulative techniques that make the client something it is not, that distort the truth about its services or products, or that invent positions on issues that are insincere, expedient, shallow or vapid.

Honesty in public relations, or communications in general, is always possible, but not always what’s so. Sometimes – and too often – it gets deferred by the greed factor: the big bucks. Of course money can be the driving force in many disciplines – in advertising, in the media, in entertainment: it too often motivates a level of communication that caters to the lowest common denominator. Instead of inspiring people, encouraging the best in people to live their dreams and fulfill their highest potential, or touch their deepest and finest feelings, imaginations, sensibilities and goodness, or to heighten the sense of the preciousness of life and the adventure that life can be, it can instead reinforce the fears, or anger, or sense of victimization, or mediocrity…or…the list can be long…of those aspects of human nature that people also experience and can identify with - that cater to their darker sides.

As to my own values, I basically see that in the essence of each human being is goodness and the desire for fulfillment, and that the creative force in the Universe is good. That life is precious, and that each person is precious, along with the non-human life forms on our planet. I basically see life as a gift, and that there is true greatness and intelligence inherent in every human being. I see this intelligence inherent in all life forms – in a dog or cat, in an elephant or dolphin, in the tree that shades your house or a bird that gives song to your ears each morning. I see it in a leaf or blade of grass. I see the gifts of nature – the environment and air we breath, the beauty of a sunset or sunrise, the miracle of a baby – as miraculous. I see the world as one world, one organic system, immense yet fragile. I recognize cultures as diverse and worth preserving. I see our responsibility as tied first to ourselves and the fulfillment and following of our bliss (as Joseph Campbell once said) and then to our communities and cultures, and then to the nurturance of the planet we live in. It’s all connected and of one piece anyhow. Regarding the planet, it’s less what we do and more what we don’t do: we don’t pollute, we don’t contaminate, we don’t disrespect the extraordinary ecosystem we live in, we do everything possible to avoid wars. For me, the four greatest values are freedom, love, reverence for life, and the opportunity to fulfill our individual unique dreams. Three of the most noble causes to participate in are ending poverty, eradicating disease, and upholding human rights. And I recognize that sometimes we need to fight for our freedom and our rights – but we should be very careful that it is freedom and our rights we are fighting for, and not control or domination.

So those are the values that enter into my participation in the arena of life as a person, first, and as a public relations/communications professional second. The two obviously intertwine.

The views I express in this blog are entirely my own, though there have been, and continue to be, teachers and mentors. Wherever I can acknowledge them, I will certainly do so.

Sincerely,
Mike Schwager