Public Relations in India: New Tasks and Responsibilites

PUBLIC RELATIONS IN IndiA iiâ•… lâ•… Public Relations in India PUBLIC RELATIONS IN India New Tasks and Responsibil...

Author: J. V. Vilanilam

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PUBLIC RELATIONS IN IndiA

iiâ•…

lâ•… Public Relations in India

PUBLIC RELATIONS IN India New Tasks and Responsibilities

J.V. Vilanilam

Copyright © J.V. Vilanilam, 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2011 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd B1/I-1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044, India www.sagepub.in Sage Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320, USA Sage Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP, United Kingdom Sage Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Published by Vivek Mehra for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in 10/13â•¯pt Aldine 401 BT by Star Compugraphics Private Limited, Delhi and printed at Chennai Microprint Pvt Ltd, Chennai. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN:â•‡ 978-81-321-0629-6 (PB) The Sage Team:â•‡ Elina Majumdar, Sonalika Rellan, Mathew P.J. and Deepti Saxena.

Dedicated to Professor PETER F. DRUCKER, management guru I’ve never met him; I wish I had. Genius overflows national boundaries. Admiration is passion not short-lived.

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Contents

List of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations Preface

1. A Conceptual Framework for PR in India

ix xi xiii 1

2. The Growth and Development of Modern PR

46

3. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writing

83

4. Essential Qualities of a PR Person

124

5. Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

155

6. Tools for Internal PR

200

7. Tools for External PR

213

8. International Communication

234

9. Cross-cultural Communication

252

265 282 285 292

Appendices Bibliography Index About the Author

viiiâ•…


List of Tables and figures Table 5.1

Eight Major World Languages and the Number of Their Users

158

Appendix Tables Tables 2–14 Unprecedented Growth of Indian Newspapers in the New Millennium D2 ASSAMESE D3 BENGALI Dailies D4 GUJARATI Dailies D5 HINDI Dailies D6 KARNATAKA Dailies D7 MALAYALAM Dailies D8 MARATHI Dailies D9 ORIYA Dailies D10 PUNJABI Dailies D11 TAMIL Dailies D12 TELUGU Dailies D13 URDU Dailies D14 ENGLISH Dailies and Periodicals in States and Union Territories, 2006–2007 and Their Percentage of Total Dailies and Periodicals in India in Different Languages

276 276 276 277 277 277 277 278 278 278 278 278

279

Figures 4.1 PR in Top Management 4.2 Intrapersonal Base of All Communication Activities 4.3 Priority of Human Needs

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129 146 150

List of Abbreviations AIPAC American-Israel Public Affairs Committee APL Above Poverty Line ATC American Tobacco Company ATR Action-taken reports B&MGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation BPL Below Poverty Line CCO Chief Communications Officer CNN Cable News Network COMSAT Communications Satellite CSS Credit and Semester System DGP Director-General of Police DTP Desktop Publishing EDT Electronic Data Transfer GoM Group of Ministers HDI Human Development Index HP Hewlett Packard HRA House Rent Allowance ICT Information and Communication Technology IIMC Indian Institute of Mass Communication INMARSAT International Maritime Satellite Organisation IRC India Resource Centre JNNURM Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission LSG Local Self Government MGNREGS Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

MKSS MNC MoU MSp NCF NREGS OB Vans ONC OPHI OSHA PDS PR PRCI PRI PRO PRSA PRSI PRSSA PURA SEZ TIRC UCC UCIL UNAWEE UPA UNDP

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Mazdoor Kisan Sabha Sanghatan Multinational Corporation Memorandum of Understanding Minimum Support Price National Commission on Farming National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Outdoor broadcasting vans Own Nation’s Company Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Occupational Safety and Health Act Public Distribution System Public Relations Public Relations Council of India Panchayati Raj Institutions Public Relations Officer Public Relations Society of America Public Relations Society of India Public Relations Student Society of America Provision of Urban Facilities in Rural Areas Special Economic Zones Tobacco Industry Research Committee Union Carbide Corporation Union Carbide India Limited United Nations Agency for Women’s Equality and Empowerment United Progressive Alliance United Nations Development Programme


Preface Public Relations or PR, like charity, begins at home! Yes, for us, home is India. And India has a PR problem. On the one hand, it is a rich, technically advanced country with a few billionaires and many millionaires; on the other, it is a country with a huge mass of poor, illiterate and unhealthy people. Can we do something to change this situation? Can the public and private sector PR do something about it? According to a recent interview that Hasan Suroor of The Hindu had with Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), ‘Poverty in at least eight states— Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Orissa, MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand—is worse than (that) in some of the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa’ (The Hindu, 20 July 2010). We shall go into the details of poverty in India during the course of the book but it is one of the assumptions of this study that PR in the modern world must have new social responsibilities including poverty removal not only in India but in the entire world. Since modern PR is a branch of management, people think they have to ‘exercise’ PR only in the business management or corporate environment to gain attention, communicate or even propagate certain ideas, win popular support or get things done in an easy manner without opposition, but with full accord, from the different ‘publics’ of the firm, factory or organization. But if we look at the history of management itself, we find that the first organized attempts at winning individual or group consent were made in 400 bc when Cyrus recognized the need for human relations.

Large parts of Jesus’ public interactions in Capernaum, Galilee and Jerusalem were based on his intense interest in the human beings he was meeting. Many of his parables are, in a way, gems in human relations. In the 16th century, Niccolo Machiavelli relied on the mass consent principle and recognized the need for unity and cohesion in organizations; he even listed leadership qualities. Robert Owen in New Lanark (Scotland) built clean row homes for workers in the early part of the 19th century. He stressed the need for personnel practices and applied them in the work situation winning the consent of his colleagues. He also took up the responsibility of training workers. Charles Babbage, the father of computer concepts, cost accounting and the designing of the big computer machine in the first half of the 19th century, is also known for his interest in the effect of various colours on employee efficiency. In more modern times, many great inventors, thinkers and business organizers devoted time and money for developing systems that helped the welfare, comforts, efficiency and socio-economic advancement of workers. The science of management progressed steadily into wellrespected and systematic courses of study in colleges and universities in many parts of the Western world. Towards the end of the 19th century, the science of management became established, especially after the establishment of the first college in business management by Joseph Wharton in 1881. Scientific management became more organized when Frederick W. Taylor evolved systems applications, personnel management, etc., and vigorously spoke about the need for cooperation between labour and management, higher wages, equal and just distribution and allocation of work, time and methods of study, emphasis on research, improvement of working conditions, particularly in light of the working environment. Make no mistake that these early excursions into different related and unrelated fields by many brilliant people in several parts of the world led to a general awareness about the need for cementing the relations between the workers and the management. Attempts by Henry L. Gantt, for example, to streamline the bonus system and humanistic approach to labour led to improvements in, and principles of,

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efficiency and recognition of the need for applying scientific management to offices and outfits of production. From the beginning of the 20th century, important industrial scientists, sociologists, psychologists, technologists and philosophers discussed diverse applications of scientific management: the role of psychology in the organization and management of labour; statistics and probability theory and quality control; sampling theory; sociological concept of group endeavour; emphasis on social psychology and research in human relations in organization theory (particularly by Max Weber and others towards the middle of the 20th century); systems analysis and information theory in management (Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon); human relations, particularly human behaviour in decision making, managerial communication, management tasks, responsibilities and practices (Drucker, 1974) and finally reaching the first decade of the 21st century. But throughout these modern decades, we have been getting insights by management gurus that PR is a management function, a top function in an organization and it should be given such a special status and special treatment by government and non-government organizations, top management and business executives in private and public sectors in all countries. Management in the era of globalization (roughly starting in the 1990s) has special responsibilities because of the globalization of tasks, responsibilities and decision-making. Public Relations, therefore, has to give special consideration to the political, socio-economic, and cultural conditions of each country or region since the application of some universally designed principle of management or theory of development will not apply to individual countries or regions. The era of colonialism and central authority is over—hopefully, once and for all—a matter that should engage the attention of all management experts. Establishment of a global shopping centre was the romance of the roaring 1990s; the bad consequences were seen in cola-colonization and its total failure in regions where drinking water was a burning issue, particularly in areas where water was an extremely scarce commodity, where rivers were (and still are) being polluted and dried up and where global warming wreaked its havoc.

Prefaceâ•… lâ•… xv

If PR has to function effectively as a solid management discipline aimed to promote efficiency of production and distribution it has to stop being a ‘gimmick’ and start being a truth-based gripping, absorbing idea for the public, and the people of a particular land aiming their entire development work to fulfill their basic needs. Otherwise PR will continue to be monopolized by messages blowing in from outside crying for legitimizing lifestyles alien to the local people. In other words, PR must become indigenous. An approach to PR that appeals to the top 10 per cent of the population of a country can flourish for a while but it will fade away, as it is not rooted in the basic needs of the other 90 per cent. Thus, PR must be viewed as a development tool that will initiate socio-economic changes that will lead to the creation of a new society based on the noble principles enshrined in the Constitution of our highly-populated country. This book examines PR as a management function for the attainment of social, economic and political goals. It gives details about the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) and the Public Relations Council of India (PRCI). After conceptualizing the special tasks and responsibilities of PR in India—a country that throbs on the threshold of a Commencement Ceremony before graduating into a ‘developed’ country with its own symbol for its currency in the international arena of monetary exchange— and weighing the social goals of business from the Druckerian angle, the book traces the history of PR in the Western world and in India. It gives case studies and practical examples of PR writing and PR concepts applicable to India with due attention on the latest techniques and gadgets utilized in PR practice. Considerable attention is given to internal and external PR, satellite and international communication and cross-cultural communication. Appendices present the top PR agencies of the world, the commonly confused words and phrases and a list of commonly misspelt words— valuable tools for any writer, especially PR writers. I record my deep appreciation for the help given as usual by my lifepartner, Annie J. Vilanilam, and our granddaughter, Sheila. I am obliged to Mr Sino Thomas for his excellent services on the computer.

xviâ•…


Last but not least, a big Shukriya to Dr Sugata Ghosh and Ms Elina Majumdar of the SAGE family for their generous suggestion that I could confidently write a book on PR. 31 July 2010 J.V. Vilanilam

Prefaceâ•… lâ•… xvii

xviiiâ•…


1 A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR PR IN INDIA We live in an era of giant business firms, manufacturing organizations and industrial or post-industrial institutions whose managers have special social responsibilities. Peter F. Drucker (1974), management guru, to whom modern management owes much of its scientific quality and philosophical and ethical orientation, has said, ‘Managers…have become the leaders in every developed country and most developing countries as well.…They command resources of society. It is only logical that they are expected to take the leadership role and take responsibility for major social problems and social issues.’ Though Drucker wrote this in the mid-1970s, the words are quite relevant even today, especially in large developing countries such as India. Drucker’s words apply equally to big developed countries such as the United States of America. In recent years, some managers of the big corporations of the world, particularly in the US and in the western democracies, came under a cloud. Several of their big financial institutions were closed down because of their over-enthusiastic actions for making extraordinary profits that led to bankruptcy. Maybe, their private ethics and public commitments did not go well together. Or, openly professed ethics were

not followed by private actions. As a result, huge private organizations were bailed out by the previous and present US governments during 2008–2009. Citizens’ financial earnings and funds of public corporations were diverted to private corporations for unrestricted use in speculative deals and the result was a big crash, perhaps not as big as the one that took place 80 years ago in 1929, but still a big one indeed. The financial meltdown during 2007–2009 was a matter of grave concern in many rich, developed countries. The crisis is not yet over. Unemployment has risen to an all-time high. There is a realization in the new millennium that unlimited, unrestricted and unregulated free enterprises can lead to major socio-economic problems. There is a reassurance in the poor, developing countries that the crisis experienced in the rich, developed countries will not affect them substantially. Can we be sure? Half the population in India, for example, has always been, and still continues to be, unaware of what is really happening in the other half of their society, although they are unwittingly the victims of the actions of the other half. Almost 86 per cent of the population in India is living on an average income of less than `50 a day. An economic crash in far-off continents, or an economic slowdown at the top of the Indian society itself, will not alter their financial or social status because they are already at the bottom of the economic pit. But there is also great comfort among the majority of the literate, educated and employed sections, say 10–25 per cent of the total Indian population that their socio-economic status continues to remain unaffected by global changes. When we consider what major corporations of the US, UK and continental Europe did in the early part of the last century to meet their social responsibilities, we marvel how some of them or their new versions could behave so irresponsibly in the closing decades of the same century. In the earlier decades of the 20th century, big firms such as Ford, IBM and Olivetti raised workers’ wages and provided improvements in their working conditions. They reduced the prices of their products and services but their actions served in improving the economic and social lot of their workers and making higher profits through larger volume of sales and services to employees, clients and customers. Their markets grew along with their profits and led to further 2

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expansion of their business, more job security for their workers and greater employment opportunities for the unemployed. Management and workers were fused into a system of high-quality productivity, improved technological changes and healthy competition in national sales and in the export markets. The scientific management principles initiated by Frederick Winslow Taylor and his admirers and followers like Henry Gantt led to further progress in overall productivity and general working conditions. Again, as Drucker (1974) has observed, ‘a healthy business and a sick society are hardly compatible…The health of the community is a pre-requisite for successful growth in business.’ This observation is essentially applicable to the Indian society. Our business is healthy but our society is sick, as can be seen in the case of caste cruelties, khap panchayats and discrimination against women and the weaker sections of the society. In a largely poor, plural and socio-economically highly imbalanced society, the responsibility for the common good does not lie solely with the governments—central and state—but also with private citizens and with corporations that utilize five elements—air, land, water, forests and other natural resources, and inner and outer space—that belong to the public domain, but are exploited for private profiteering. The private corporations certainly have a responsibility for the welfare of the total society where they operate their business or industry. In fact, managements of all business enterprises have to be concerned with the ills of society in their own enlightened self-interest. Not only owners and managers but top executives and others in the higher levels are the socio-economic and cultural leaders today. When they ignore the condition of people around them, they become shirkers of social responsibility. A free enterprise is not entirely free since it has to be an accountable enterprise—accountable not only to their managements but to the society as a whole. Business corporations, especially the multinational corporations (MNCs) in this era of globalization, have to maintain a close relationship with local, regional and national governments of the country where they do business, without trampling upon the human rights of the local people, and without weakening the sovereignty of the state and central governments. A Conceptual Framework for PR z

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The chief executive officer (CEO) of a company, the mayor of a city or the principal of a college has to be an honest individual. Their professional competence should be above reproach, but more than everything else, they should have basic human qualities, besides basic honesty and integrity; they should respect those who assist them to reach their business, political or educational goals. This will earn respect for them from those whom they manage. The age of autocratic and authoritarian management systems and practices is over. However, there are other basic factors besides honesty and respect for human rights of the managed. Profit is a sine qua non for every business enterprise, be it private sector, public or semi-government sector. But no institution should exist only for profit. Though not a voluntary community service or a charity organization, a business enterprise, a city government, an industrial or business corporation, a media unit or an educational institution should not consider profit-making as their sole goal, although none of these can survive the economic vagaries of the time without making reasonable profits. The trouble comes when they lose sight of their social objectives and employ all means to make profit even at the cost of ethics, losing perspectives on what is reasonable profit and what is robber barony.

PR and Top Management Public Relations (PR) managers have to advise top management on ethical matters, especially in these troubled times. Of course, they can do this only if PR is given a high status in the organization charts of business and financial, manufacturing and public health organizations. Today, even educational institutions have lost sight of their real goals in society and have started to treat themselves as business organizations with unconscionable profit motives. The total number of graduates in social and natural sciences runs into the millions, but they do not find employment, particularly in the rural areas of India. Engineering and medical graduates too are not motivated to serve the rural areas. Instead, they search for jobs in urban areas of native or foreign countries. There is no justification for this. Maybe, our educational planning needs a closer scrutiny. 4

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Perhaps there is an urgent need for improving the living and working conditions in rural areas. This is as much a PR management problem as a sociological problem, because many avenues of employment are available in the rural areas but most educated people go out of the country. And the governments support their action at the cost of losing educated people available for many rural jobs. Many schemes for improving the lot of the rural unemployed, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), for example, are not sailing smooth because of resistance from corrupt local officials. Not doing any harm to people through one’s business or professional performance is a worthy goal for people in managerial positions. Though the recent global meltdown did not affect the professions and professionals in India, and though the salaries and perquisites of top executives in private and government firms have increased several fold between 1996 and 2008, the condition of the farm and factory workers—the real producers of wealth in any nation—is still pitiable in India. Comparatively speaking, wages and salaries in other developing countries are slightly better. We should take a historical view of this matter for gaining a better understanding of it. Conditions have changed in the advanced, developed countries during the last 100 years, but in many poor nations of the world that grade low in the UN and other world agencies’ statistics, the majority of the people struggle on the daily average income of less than `50 (that is, less than one US dollar a day). In India, almost 70 per cent of the people earn less than `20 a day (one US dollar is equal to `46 or so). People in managerial positions in these countries have been promising a sea of change in the lives of the majority through the ‘trickle-down development’ process (Bernays, 1952).

The Post-industrial Society There is an elite tendency to call the present society in both developed and developing countries (that is, rich and poor countries) as the post-industrial society where computers and computerization have transformed almost all systems of information transmission and communication at the upper levels. Information Technology (IT) deserves A Conceptual Framework for PR z

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to be hailed as the primary engine of socio-economic development in post-industrial societies. But the ‘post-industrial’ stage has to come after the ‘industrial stage’. Can predominantly agricultural societies be called post-industrial? According to the ‘post-industrialists’, the era of manufacturing is over and the industrial society has vanished. But this is true only of the rich, developed countries while small sectors accommodate a tiny percentage of the people of large developing countries such as India, China and Brazil. Can India exist on IT or Information and Communication Technology (ICT) when almost 60 per cent of its people, particularly the women, are still un-educated and illiterate? More than 50 per cent of the people in urban areas and nearly 65 per cent of the people in rural areas live in absolutely poor conditions—living in slums, and experiencing severe health and nutritional problems caused by poverty, unemployment, lack of awareness about basic hygiene and lack of access to towns that are sources of some food, water and medical resources. The national policy on business and industry does not seem to take serious note of this national problem. Business policies have to concentrate on overall conditions prevalent in the country where the business is conducted and come to some agreement on the political goals and priorities of the nation concerned. When we consider that we have to feed, clothe and shelter a little over a billion people, all our talk about post-industrial society becomes mere hot air, totally non-applicable to the largely illiterate and miserable majority of the population of India. All talk about computerization, hardware and software of communication becomes meaningless when not even the central or state government secretariats are computerized and those uneducated and illiterate millions in India are unable to get anything done through those government departments housed in the secretariats. There is not even an intelligible and standardized language for use in government offices in many states. Ordinary people have to seek the help of English-knowing people to get their grievances drafted in petitions to authorities. India, therefore, has a severe PR problem. Despite having many development schemes, government, semi-government or private organizations seem to have some in-built inhibitions against diversification and proliferation of business and industry. Is it because of the false 6

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characterization of the Indian society as a knowledge society? The progress of any nation depends, no doubt, on the knowledge situation in which its people are placed. We call ourselves a knowledge society even when more than half our population cannot read and write. The illiterates, they say, can depend on audio-visual means. Can anyone vouch for the audio-visual facilities that are available to our illiterate half? Can we honestly say that our illiterate fellow citizens have access to visual literacy? What is the true nature of our civil society? On an average income of less than `20 or 25 a day, how many can have access to a radio or television set, a computer or a DVD, especially after meeting the essential expenses for food, clothing and shelter? With illiteracy and lack of schooling/training for any work, and the consequent incidence of large-scale poverty, ignorance, ill health and unemployment for many decades, we have in India a very sick society, sociologically speaking. PR in India, therefore, must be viewed not simply as a management tool but as a social function, as pointed out by Bernays (1955). To close our eyes and claim that we do not see any dirt and destitution around us is tantamount to self-deception and shirking of social responsibility. From their comfortable surroundings, the elite consisting of planners and people’s representatives, business magnates and industrial collaborators do not care to see the dirty poverty around them, the like of which is not seen anywhere else in the world. Their economic priorities synchronize with priorities set elsewhere on percentage-based economic growth that ignores the ground realities. The middle class joined the upper class in deriving most of the benefits of development during the last 60 years. Planners and leading business and industrial managers have to look at genuine relations with the public in order to help them solve their day-to-day existential problems instead of repeating what PR does in other countries. Private or government PR managers have to explore how public relations as a management tool can motivate entrepreneurs and senior executives to uphold some basic social responsibilities to improve the living and working conditions of the large majority of the nation’s people. Instead of starting huge projects of development and then appointing PR personnel to improve the image of the company or governments, let the promoters of the company and the administrators in government start with the A Conceptual Framework for PR z

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basic assumption that in all management planning, PR must have an important part to play right from plant-location to winning the approval of the local population—the immediate ‘sufferers’ or ‘beneficiaries’ of the project and how the internal and external publics of the project will ultimately be the recipients of the fruits of development. Before a project is initiated, its private or government sponsors must take the local people into confidence and assess their basic needs—food, clothing and shelter, education, public health, transportation and communication (telephone, post office, radio, press and electronic devices including television and the Internet). Before starting the project, the management should assess if the project will affect the health and welfare of the local people, and how local people’s services can be utilized. PR, like charity, begins at home. It must be a primary ingredient of all development efforts—panchayat, state, national or international. It is not a means to impress others or promote our image, to acquire anything through taking advantage of the uneducated and illiterate people. It must come naturally from the inner springs of humanity naturally, and it must be sustained out of a genuine sense of equality with other human beings. It is not a ploy to present a semblance of equality with others and take economic advantage of weaker sections. It must emerge from our love and concern for fellow-beings. The moment an iota of artificiality in PR is detected, the target audience, the ‘beneficiaries’ of PR actions become suspicious and the practitioner’s acts start smacking of deceit! Addressing the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Dr M.S. Swaminathan, eminent agricultural scientist and Member of the Rajya Sabha said recently that accessibility to food has become difficult for the poor, and pulses have gone beyond their reach. The elite in India including the business magnates and industrialists do not see the paradox of food-grains rotting in godowns while people go hungry. ‘Poverty does not seem to stir our conscience,’ Swaminathan said. He gave some very shocking statistics that should stir the conscience of all PR people in India—20 per cent of the world’s undernourished are in India; 43 per cent of India’s children are undernourished; only 11 per cent of anganwadis in the country have access to clean drinking

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water and 7 per cent of them have toilet facility (see newspapers of 25 March 2010 for more details). With all these adverse conditions, it is imperative that PR in public and private organizations turn to local, regional and national projects that will raise the level of people’s awareness of the realities in the country, without all the time praising what PR did in the past and what PR could do in the future. But we should be aware of the growth and development of PR in the world in ancient and modern times.

Proto-PR A ‘Continuum of Management Thought’ is given by Claude S. George Jr (Associate Dean and Professor of Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) in his book The History of Management Thought. Continuum indicates that many modern principles of management evolved from ancient practices and that they had their beginnings in Mesopotamia and Egypt, among the ancient people—Babylonians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Chinese, Greeks and Persians. Hammurabi, King of Babylonia in the 18th century BC established a minimum wage for workers and much later in the 5th century BC; Cyrus, King of Persia, in his long wars with the Medes and the Babylonians, employed the principles of human relations and made a study of workers’ motions while handling strategic materials. In modern times, James Watt and Matthew Bolton in the 18th century AD practised proto-PR in their manufactory in Soho, England, when they used to announce bonuses for their employees every Christmas. The departments of employment (that was the name used in those days for personnel departments) dealt with not only recruitments and transfers but also with recreational activities and diversions during lunch-breaks, although they did not have any deep concepts or steady practices. Communication between management and labour was either few or nil even during Christmas parties. Management was management and labour was labour—the twain seldom met except perhaps at the time of censuring or release from service.1

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It is common that there are different cafeterias in Indian business/ industrial establishments: managers may have a deluxe dining hall, management staff and supervisors will eat in a fairly clean room and the workers will have a ‘Janata’ café, if at all there is one. (Usually, workers brought their own lunch from home or ate outside the factory premises in make-shift shanty eateries!!) The practice of maintaining separate glasses even today for the higher caste and the lower caste customers in some public refreshment kiosks is still prevalent in certain states of India (known for their excellence in IT). Even the central government decided in September 2010 to include caste-based census in 2011, and nobody can find fault with the tea kiosks that maintain separate glasses for different castes. Management is a social science and it cannot escape the deleterious effects of the social environment where it functions. An example of the new labour–management relationship in the West can be traced to Robert Owen of Lanark, Scotland (1771–1858) who was one of the earliest company owners to give serious thought to systematic economic development of his time, workers’ productivity, motivation and welfare. He even built row homes for his workers since he believed that productivity was intimately connected to the economic betterment and better living conditions of his workers. But for a long time, Owen did not have successors who thought on the same wavelength, although there were contemporaries such as Henry Clay (1777–1853) in the US who held Owen in high esteem.2 But at the turn of the 20th century, engineers such as Edward W. Taylor (1856–1915) and Henry Gantt (1861–1919) in the US, J.B. Say (1767–1832), Francois Fourier (1772–1839), Comte de SaintSimon (1760–1825) in France, Georg Siemens (1839–1901), founder of the Deutsche Bank, and Eiichi Shibusawa (1840–1931), the Meiji statesman turned businessman, and Henri Fayol (1841–1925) in France. Frank B. and Lillian M. Gilbreth (1868–1924; 1878–1972), Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), Chester Barnard (1896–1961) and Elton Mayo (1880–1949)—all in the US, studied the decision-making process in organizations, and Ian Hamilton (1853–1947) in Britain realized the importance of balancing formal structure and policies that energize the workers and their organizations. The worker–management relationship was studied with greater attention when the discipline of management began to be taught in 10

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the inter-war years. The Harvard Business School first began in the 1930s to teach courses in production management and Elton Mayo specialized in teaching industrial psychology and human relations there. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed special courses in advanced management for young executives in mid-career. In brief, the closing years of the 19th century and the entire 20th century saw regular advancement in management thought, industrial production and worker–management relationships. The period also witnessed trade unionism, higher wages, hourly wages, eight-hour workday and 40-hour work-weeks, and payment of bonuses and incentives. Scientific management served in increasing productivity, long-range planning, decentralization, training of workers, supervisors and junior and senior executives, management development programmes, sales and marketing managers’ special training, streamlining of accounting procedures, personnel management, advertising and public relations. The years between the two World Wars (1919–1945) saw big changes in personnel administration, recruitment procedures and hiring practices, fitment of the right persons for a rapidly expanding inventory of jobs, promotion of human relations, mathematical modelling, application of psychology to industrial management, emphasis on human behaviour in decision-making, sociological concepts of group endeavour, strengthening of the statistical foundations of various management theories—game theory and operations research, systems analysis and information theory, and managerial philosophy based on individual motivations. When MNCs began to expand during the 1970s, appropriate theories were developed with attention on the culture of nations where the MNCs operated. Now is the period of globalization with special care being given to liberalization and privatization. In the current decade, which incidentally happens to be the first decade of the 21st century, newer concerns are getting attention— environment, ecology, genetic modification and the genome project, global warming and the melting of the polar ice-caps, climate change, chemical hazards and pollution of the air, water and soil. National and international companies are now worried about the consequences of unlimited use of the natural resources of the forests and mines, which can lead to global deforestation and the deterioration of the earth and A Conceptual Framework for PR z 11

consequent ecological and temperature changes. Global warming can lead to sudden and unexpected flooding of the rivers and lakes, fresh tsunamis, sea- and earthquakes and forest fires, destructive cyclones and hurricanes. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India has not given its accord for Vedanta, the mining company in Orissa, for ecological and environmental reasons. Also, we cannot forget that the practice of keeping workers’ wages and working conditions low and indifferent in Indian enterprises is still continuing. Even payment of `100 a day (for a miserable `12 per hour) was considered generous for farm or public service work recently. How can the purchasing power of nearly 860 million Indian workers increase when most of them somehow struggle to survive on less than `40 a day (that is, on days when they have work). Should our business world be satisfied with increasing the purchasing power of middle and upper middle class citizens, mostly living in the metropolitan cities and large towns? Salaries of white-collar workers, teachers in schools and colleges, personnel in government departments, employees in universities and other places went up recently almost four times or even more; wages for the agricultural and industrial workers did not go up in many states and even in the MGNREGS the pay is fixed as `100–125 a day, that is, `12.50 to `16 an hour. The debate on Indian poverty is still unsettled. The Tendulkar Committee has shown that the controversy between economists and sociologists in the Indian academic world has been growing recently. The ‘Great Indian Poverty Debate’ is of course interesting to read about but not of much use to the poor themselves whose poverty has to be measured according to daily per capita income (PCI) rather than by national yearly average. Seventy-seven per cent of India’s population lived at an average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) of `15 per day in 2004–2005, according to R. Ramakumar of TISS, Mumbai (see his editorial page article in The Hindu of 2 January 2010). Here we cannot ignore the speed with which Members of Parliament (MPs) simply raised their remuneration from `36,000 a month to `80,000 a month. Can we forget that the pay and allowances for government jobs and IT personnel exceed several hundred thousands 12

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and they have been revised at least four times during the past two decades. The farm and factory workers are still getting a maximum of `25 an hour in certain parts of the country—not throughout the country. There is no way India can hope to raise the purchasing power of the millions without raising the minimum wages. It is also necessary that poverty is measured in terms of calorie intake rather than monetary income. The harsh realities of poverty in India can be assessed better if more attention is paid to the availability of food per capita, the quality and type of food available and the health indices applicable to a nation’s people rather than the monetary averages that are likely to give a false picture of the poverty of the millions. Most estimates of PCI are based on the addition of the huge assets and incomes of giants such as the Tatas, Mittals, Ambanis, the Azimjis, the Birlas and those of the upper and middle classes and then averaging the total of all the incomes. From any angle, such averaging is highly unrealistic, if not cruel. Life in India is a big ordeal for almost 80 per cent of 1.3 billion people, a substantial number among them facing not only destitution but loneliness, ill-treatment, neglect and above all lack of compassion and love either from their own kith and kin or from strangers. There is no institutional support from the communities where these unfortunate people live. To make matters worse, those who have some kind of employment have little or no time to attend to the medical needs of their unfortunate fellow-beings since their own well-being is at risk. This is why community centres of welfare are a must in civil society. The Below Poverty Line/Above Poverty Line (BPL/APL) categorization is convenient for economists and statisticians when they try to make sense of the income disparity of people in general; but it leads them to forget that poverty is multi-dimensional and that welfare measures aimed at all citizens should not be biased on the basis of APL/BPL dichotomy, rights to food, education and communication, health and clean environments of living and working, and other basic human rights. This is probably the reason for the prime minister to stress the media’s obligation to work for the basic rights of all citizens at the inauguration of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi on 30 October 2009 (see newspaper reports on 31 October 2009). The prime minister was for increasing investment in rural infrastructure and education A Conceptual Framework for PR z 13

and he did not want to sacrifice these efforts for speeding up major economic reforms that were being held up by poverty eradication efforts, according to some international reformers. Here is direct involvement of PR promoters, some of whom are genuinely concerned about the image of India in international circles. The question is: Do we need an Incredibly-Clean-and-Shining India to be marketed as a brand? How can we appoint brand ambassadors of such an India when in reality, only a few wards of our major cities throughout the country are presentable to the outside world and the majority of our people are living sub-standard lives? That is why such thinking individuals as Sunil Khilnani discount the idea that India should be marketed outside as a brand in the image of ‘a developed country’. Khilnani, a professor of South Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in the US was speaking to an elite audience in London when he discussed the idea that growth alone was not enough to hold India together, and that selling India outside on the strength of growth statistics was unrealistic (see newspapers of 24 September 2009). And internally, too, India is projected as a developing country moving in the fast lane to the destination of a developed country. When government PR people do this exercise, they simply forget the government’s own statistics or they deliberately lie. Some people in several parts of the world are disturbed by thoughts about the changes in ecology and environment, climate change and general decline in the quality of life. They are worried about the legacy they are going to leave for future generations—their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But the majority of the people in developed countries and in the developed sectors of the developing countries do not seem to be concerned at all about the poor millions who are currently suffering both environmental degradation and miserable socio-economic conditions. Look at what is happening in Nigeria and other West African countries, in Darfur, and in many tribal areas of India. Corporate communication executives (senior PR personnel) cannot escape their new responsibility of making their corporations and their internal and external publics aware through all the tools at their command that, as inhabitants of the same planet earth, we are in this together and we either swim or sink together. Singing paeans to enhance the glory of their corporations and building better images of their 14

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bosses, without being aware of what is happening to their planet, PR personnel may simply end up succumbing to the vagaries of Nature and the greedy manipulations of Human Nature. Corporations are the leaders in the new era and PR executives (corporate communicators) are the conscience-keepers of their CEOs. Corporations have new tasks and responsibilities and PR has to pursue them for the benefit not only of their companies, customers/clients and their shareholders but also of the general public, the ordinary citizens who can become valuable customers if only their income and purchasing power could permit it. When will management realize that India’s social problems can be turned into business opportunities, not only for the business world but for society as a whole? Solving social problems can lead to the betterment of the society, as well as, industry. This realization will yield dividends to society as a whole including the business world in India which, by any standard, is a country that needs diversification and proliferation of production. Instead of recognizing that India is still throbbing at the interface between the rural and industrial stages (not post-industrial, at all) the country has to enhance production in many new fields beneficial to the burgeoning population. Giving higher wages for the factory worker and the farm labourer (raising it at least moderately from the low level at which they have been kept chained all these years), top managements including PR counsellors and executives must advocate the fixing of a minimum hourly wage for all workers at least at a modest `25 an hour. In rural areas of many states of India, the daily wages are just `60 (for eight or 10 hours of work). The purchasing power of the industrial and farm workers in India is accordingly quite low. Several thousands of workers migrate to Kerala for casual work at `275 a day. They work for a few months and return to their native villages in Assam, Bihar or Orissa. But this is no permanent solution for the big problem India is facing—large-scale unemployment, and inter-state migration that results only in straining the meagre municipal facilities in Kerala and other states that accommodate citizens from other states. Eventually, this can also lead to other social problems for all concerned. Government of India has now introduced the largest employment guarantee scheme in the world—the National Rural Employment A Conceptual Framework for PR z 15

Guarantee Act (NREGA) which was started in 2005 with a guarantee of 100 days’ work for the jobless. Now the scheme is aiming at providing work for 200 days. But the implementation of the NREGA is not picking up fast enough and it is facing severe problems of corruption and even official resistance and elected representatives’ stiff opposition. Will the private industry step in and help the government to create jobs and implement the scheme so that the purchasing power of the average person is increased, ultimately benefiting both government and private industries? As the workers’ purchasing power increases, their living conditions will improve and there will be an overall improvement in the society. Moreover, more people in the rural areas will be gainfully employed (Sainath, 2009).

Government PR, MGNREGS and Minimum Wages Let us examine in some detail, the NREGA recently re-named after the Father of the Nation on Gandhiji’s birthday in 2009 and it is now known as the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS. The NREG Act was passed in Parliament during 2005 under the initiative of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the major political group that rules India today, with the support of the MP from different political parties. As The Hindu of 29 October 2009 commented editorially, The NREGS differs from other poverty alleviation measures in two major ways: 1. It is built around notions of citizenship and entitlement; and 2. It facilitates disclosure by means of regular social audits mandated by the Gram Sabhas (Village Councils or panchayats) which will identify and plug pilferage and corruption. Beneficiaries, over time, become aware of their rights and the lies of the Gram Sabhas.

A sample 10-day social audit conducted in Bhilwara under the leadership of social activist Ms Aruna Roy (a former IAS officer who resigned to take up full-time social work) and others of the Mazdoor Kisan Sabha Sanghatan (MKSS) revealed incidence of corruption, bribery and other 16

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serious lapses including clear evidence of political and administrative misdemeanours involving sarpanchs (village panchayat presidents), suppliers of materials, gram sevaks and others connected with the conduct of the scheme which was specifically dedicated to the generation of jobs and removal of poverty. The social audit revealed that muster rolls were manipulated by the officials concerned who mishandled job cards, technical and financial sanctions, etc. The job cards of several dozen villagers were withheld by the sarpanchs and other officials. The complaints made by many were not attended to by some senior officials including a district collector. Several instances of official misconduct and corruption were revealed at the jan sunwais (public hearings). Since the local MP happened to be the union cabinet minister in charge of rural development, the chief minister of the state of Rajasthan was made aware of the high-handedness and anti-social behaviour, large-scale corruption, misappropriation of funds, etc., of the officials and elected representatives. Those who worked against the social activists and the poor beneficiaries of the scheme were the very officials and political leaders entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the interests of the workers. The anti-labour administrators and elected representatives sat on dharna, criticized the scheme, manipulated receipts from suppliers of materials and reduced the number of workers by using JCB and other heavy machinery for digging and removal of earth. This was like entrusting the fox with the care of the chicken coop. The NREGA was started with the modest hope of providing at least 100 days in a year for the poor people who were idling for 365 days in a year. It seems the average number of days of work the scheme could create for 2008–2009 was just 48. This shows how backward the implementation of the scheme has been so far. There are also other severe problems—long delays in wage payments (for months, in some cases), corruption in several panchayats, failure of entitlements reaching the poorest of the nation and official indifference to job creation, the very basis of the scheme. The purpose of the scheme seems to be defeated. Further, NGOs such as MKSS and others are facing the wrath of MPs and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and even the chief minister of the state, according to some reports. Social auditing has been stopped by government decision, thereby, indirectly supporting corruption and misappropriation. Of the Rajasthan government’s budget of A Conceptual Framework for PR z 17

`9,500 crore for the fiscal year, 2008–2009, the allocation for the NREGS was `330 crore and it has been found that more than `3 crore has been misappropriated in a short time by the officials and others connected with the implementation of the scheme. There is much more to do for making MGNREGA a great success. Civil society must take greater interest, not simply the civil service. Although this is a scheme initiated by the central government, its success depends on ‘selling’ it to the government’s own administrators in various wings of the civil service—the IAS, the IPS, IRS, etc. But private companies can also contribute through participation in the civil auditing done by NGOs. Both the government machinery at the centre and in the states, the major private industries and local self-governments (LSGs) can help the unemployed, and such public-private collaboration is what is needed the most in India and other ‘developing’ countries. This can promote civic projects beneficial to society as a whole. This will also enable the private enterprises to meet their social responsibilities and earn reasonably big and legitimate profits for their companies. Private companies can also help strengthen the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) by providing them requisite technical and social/ human resources. They can look around their factory or office premises and determine what social and public services beneficial to the people in that locality are essential and how they can be taken up either singly or in collaboration with government funding. Poverty alleviation, if not total poverty eradication, is still the number one problem in the world. It is so in India too. Many of our social ills are traceable to unyielding and everlasting poverty. Our development programmes in the past 60 years depended on the charity of the state, implemented indifferently to please this section of SC/ST or that section of the OBC on an ad hoc basis to appease agitating groups. Fortunately, this approach has failed. The present scheme is giving great hopes to the rural people, and it is not targeted at specific groups but the entire village. There never was such a programme in the past and therefore, it fills the hearts of the villagers with unlimited hope, although the past four years of its implementation have brought out the various pitfalls and deficiencies, the most important of which is the limited number of new jobs created so far, and the unpardonable delay in the payment of wages. 18

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The successful implementation of the scheme will expose the weaknesses in our democratic system, particularly, the outmoded systems of administration that favour the crafty officials who bend rules to amass wealth through exploiting the poor and citing the administrative ‘scriptures’ enshrined in dusty and dog-eared rule books drafted in British times when the natives were always suspected and the officials could get away with murder citing those ‘sanctified rules’ that went against the interests of the people. Many of our administrators have a tendency to say ‘No’ to everything and seek shelter under some rule or other to justify their decision. To say ‘No’ is easy. To say ‘Yes’ means taking up responsibility and being ready to act. By saying ‘No’, the administrators can enjoy the ‘comfort of inaction’ and avoid their mistakenly nourished ‘pension tension’. Many administrative staff and supervisors have wrongly entertained the misgiving that their initiative will land them in actions that lead to a denial of their pension or at least inquiries into their administrative conduct. What is needed is bold action on the part of our administrators, and even a strong movement by them and the public to change existing rules and regulations framed several decades ago when the ‘natives’ were always suspect. The MGNREGA has opened the way for transferring cash to the poor in distress. It will also lead to the creation of assets that will be enjoyed by the whole village—wells, ponds, tanks, fords and rivers that existed without any cleaning or maintenance in the recent past but can now serve as sources of water for the entire village. It can result in the building of pucca school buildings instead of make-shift camps that double up as school during the day and as venue for undesirable activities when the sun goes down. The new pucca school buildings can serve the educational needs of the community and still double up as village commons where adult literary classes and training programmes for the youth can be held. The people of the village can thus develop a sense of belonging to the village as free, civil and cooperative citizens—not as people belonging to this or that religion or caste and treating fellow citizens as ‘the other’. Although we say India has a 5,000-year-old civilization, we behave in the most uncivilized manner, treating our neighbours as beings belonging to species other than human. This pseudo-speciation should come to A Conceptual Framework for PR z 19

an end and we should develop the habit of looking at others as human beings fundamentally the same as we are. When we call ourselves ‘industrial’ or ‘post-industrial’, we are twice removed from reality. We are not an industrial civilization, yet. The percentage of agricultural labour is over 60 in the entire country; it is around 60 in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and UP, 70 in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Millions of small and marginal farmers do not own their own land, but labour on leased land. Land reform is an unfulfilled pledge made by the founders of our Republic. Strengthening small and marginal farmers in many states through steady work and earning the financial stability through MGNREGS work—not only agricultural work, but industrial work, civil engineering projects, etc., is beneficial to the removal of poverty and the raising of the purchasing power of the rural, semi-urban and urban poor. More creative use of the IT, ICT and ITES aimed specifically at the generation of jobs and the removal of poverty is to be made by the big IT companies of India. The latter can strengthen social audit and reduce fraud. Computer systems must be integrated so that the MGNREGA payments are made quickly, and ill-treatment of workers can be attended to in an effective manner. The whole system can be made more efficient and effective, transparent and transformatory through strengthening the IT system. In the present circumstances, workers find it difficult to go to banks and post offices situated far away from their place of dwelling and work. And as Mihir Shah, Member, Planning Commission observed in an editorial page article in The Hindu dated 14 August 2009, rural areas where MGNREG schemes function must have post offices and banks. He asks, ‘Why does not the officer concerned withdraw money and disburse the emoluments to the workers using his handheld mobiles or portable lap-tops networked with the district headquarters?’ This will heighten workers’ faith in the scheme and quicken the payment to the poor workers who depend solely on the daily wages. How can they afford to wait for days or weeks to get paid? Mr Shah also asks for the elimination of variable Schedule of Rates now being followed and the introduction of a national minimum wage for workers. As suggested earlier, why not fix `200 for an 8-hour work day for farm workers and `250 for factory workers? But according to several 20

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people, fixing a minimum hourly rate or `25 for farm workers and `30 for factory workers is better so that yearly increases can be negotiated on an hourly basis. But implementation of the hourly rated wage payment has to be strict. Let the computer be of quick service to the illiterates, especially computer-illiterates. The social use of computers must be the major concern of the district officials, sarpanchs, and social workers as much as the application of the computerized system to the computer engineers, data handlers and sociologists. Let a situation not arise when an MGNREGA worker in Bundelkhand asks the inconvenient question, ‘Why should I work under the scheme…We have to pay bribes, face intimidation and still we fail to get wages for our hard labour on the same day?’ In Chhattarpur and Tikamgarh, small rural districts of Madhya Pradesh, there are 1,600 water bodies and structures waiting for repair and rejuvenation. In the whole of India, there will be hundreds of thousands of wells, ponds and rivers which need deepening, cleaning and quick attention. The MGNREGA must generate millions of jobs for people who have no work and no income now. The villages where the scheme has been implemented have shown that despite many problems (including delayed wage-payments, non-issue of job cards, misappropriation, etc.), many thousands of poor agricultural workers have derived the benefit of the scheme and avoided the services of the money-lenders and acquired essential household items such as electric fans, kitchen appliances, steel utensils and even bicycles. But there are serious problems such as failure of workers in getting a job within 15 days, and non-payment of unemployment allowance, etc. There are also serious issues such as resistance to NGOs and social auditing. Attention is again invited to the important reports by Ms Vidya Subrahmaniam in The Hindu between September and December 2009, especially, her report on the op-ed page (p. 9) on 17 December 2009, where she describes how the Rajasthan social audit has revealed largescale diversion of funds in certain villages of the state and how the state government has eaten its own orders and indirectly supported corruption and defeated the very purpose of the scheme. It is not only in Rajasthan, but in Jharkhand and other states that government officials (who are supposed to do everything possible to implement the Scheme) take advantage of the illiterates and defeat the purpose of the Scheme. A Conceptual Framework for PR z 21

Professor Jean Dreze goes to the extent of saying that the scheme promotes slave labour. He attributes the hunger deaths in Baran district, Rajasthan to the criminal delays in wage payments (Subrahmanian, 20 July 2009). When the workers are not paid daily for their day’s work, there is justification for calling it slave labour. Government PR must do all it can to arrange daily wage payment. Announcing a scheme with fanfare and christening it after the Father of the Nation is not difficult to do, but implementing it and achieving the purpose of it is not easy to accomplish. It is the height of hypocrisy that homage is paid to Mahatma Gandhi without caring to implement some of the schemes he had in mind to banish poverty in India. To get any legitimate payment from government sources is a Herculean task because the necessary rules for payment were framed long ago when an alien government did everything through their middlemen, the ‘administrative engineers’ to avoid payment to the extent possible. ‘Avoid payments’ was the administrative diktat faithfully followed by the implementing minions. Let the first principle be: make sure that the arrangements are made for payment to workers who have done the given work. Make the payment on the same day as soon as the workday comes to an end. This must be the principle followed by all departments, government or private. Daily payment is a matter of life and death for most people who live from day to day and it is justice. It is also a matter of human rights. There is no free work, as there is no free lunch anywhere; the worker has to be paid; it is a matter of fairness and of equity. Do not blame the banks or the post offices. Make sure you have cash in hand before you engage the worker. No daily worker is wealthy enough to ‘do work now and get paid later’. The scheme has the specific goal of paying the poor, not fleecing him. Postponement of the assessment of public works by engineering supervisors is another ploy. The worker cannot afford to wait till the supervisor takes his own sweet time to assess the work. The work has to be supervised then and there and the worker paid at the end of the day. Above all, those who act tyrannically must be punished by the district collector or the suitable authority. Jean Dreze says that many government functionaries look at the Scheme as a ‘headache’. Create delays in payment, and the workers themselves will sabotage the MGNREGA. 22

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But MGNREGA-2 was launched through Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras, filling the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) with MPs and friends belonging to the ruling coalition, according to critics. And it is strange that in this age of IT and ICT, the programme officers at the block level have no data on delays in payment, non-issue of job cards, and no clue about what they should do to prepare the ground for greater employment. Public relations executives in government and private organizations have to think seriously about the availability of food for the people and its availability through livelihood opportunities and purchasing power. They also have to be aware that gargantuan schemes must succeed for avoiding conditions of hunger and famine. Creating employment is the best way to defeat famines. As early as 1859, a Famine Commission of the British Indian government said: ‘Indian famines are not famines of food, but of works; where there is work, there is money and where there is money, there is food’. In 1946, Mahatma Gandhi said at Noakhali: ‘To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages’.3 Besides food, the body needs non-food factors such as safe drinking water, environmental hygiene, primary health care and access to toilets. As M.S. Swaminathan says, food security legislation requires both food and non-food factors. Several government programmes have initiated steps to increase food production. But there is severe micro-nutrient malnutrition caused by deficiencies in iron, iodine, vitamins A, B-12 and zinc. Dr Swaminathan calls this ‘hidden hunger’. In addition to widening the food basket, agricultural scientists and social scientists have to promote the production of community gene, seed, food and water banks in each village, and the establishment of community kitchens. Moreover, grain silos have to be constructed at the rate of one silo for 10 villages so that in times of scarcity of grains, supplies can be implemented through the silos to people who have the ration cards. We need at least 50,000 silos for the country as a whole, and their construction itself will offer jobs for the millions. The National Commission on Farming (NCF) under Swaminathan’s Chairmanship, recommended that the total cost of production plus A Conceptual Framework for PR z 23

50 per cent should be the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy. Prices of other grains can also be fixed this way. With the universalization of the Public Distribution System (PDS) and other measures aimed at people in the lower income groups, and the further strengthening of the job creation and employment schemes, people’s purchasing power can be increased. When schemes for the supply of pure drinking water and the maintenance of environmental hygiene, etc., are implemented, the employment scheme will be strengthened further. All this will eliminate chronic poverty and hidden hunger. The MGNREGA has already paid over `35,000 crores and created 450 crores of person-days of employment. In the face of global scarcity of water, the priorities of the work to be undertaken include watershed management, water conservation, drought-proofing, flood protection, land development, minor irrigation and linking of rural areas. Our private and public executives currently engaged in the promotion of the images of companies and governments must be concerned about the low score India earns in the Human Development Index (HDI) published by the UNDP every year. Among 179 countries listed, India occupied the 132nd position in 2009. The MGNREGS sites could be developed into permanent complexes where child care, nutrition, health and educational services can converge. Why are our PR executives more concerned about the image of their corporations, their owner-managers and cabinet ministers than about the image of the whole country among the countries listed in UN and other world publications? As pointed out by several thinkers, India’s image as the land of the poor, the hungry and the illiterate cannot be wished away. Serious work has to be done by private and public PR executives in the coming years. Instead of cursing our huge population, let us rejoice that we have a youthful population as our great asset, provided our scientists and planners devise ways and means to create more jobs and engage the young in national reconstruction. Family planning can be strengthened but the best guarantee for its success is the availability of more schools, colleges, more primary health centres and above all the promotion of literacy and education of the young women in our rural areas. In this chapter we shall also discuss Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s Vision 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium. The big question raised by 24

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Dr Kalam and his co-author, Y.S. Rajan in their 1998 book was: Can India become a First World nation within the next 20 years? Ten years have passed by since this question was raised, and still it is relevant for the next one or more decades. Dr Kalam has devoted a lot of time for writing on national development taking into special consideration the strengths and weaknesses of different states of India. For example, during one of his visits to Kerala, he wanted to make Kerala a model state for the rest of India. Addressing the members of the Kerala Legislature in July 2005, he gave a 10-point agenda that he hoped would make Kerala an economic power-house by 2015 (Vilanilam, 2009). The President stressed the importance of providing urban amenities in rural areas (PURA), an idea worthy of pursuit throughout India, not just in Kerala. The future development of the entire nation depends on improving the facilities in rural areas using modern technology of IT and ICT. Dr Kalam’s observation a decade-and-a-half ago is still valid: ‘India is a paradox in many ways. It is rich in natural resources, possesses a thriving industry and has a large pool of technical manpower, but the large mass of its people are illiterate and poverty-stricken, and in terms of human development indices it is among the worst of nations’. But so far nobody has stressed the need for fixing where necessary and revising the minimum wages of factory and farm workers. The middle and upper middle classes clamour for upward revision of existing remuneration and they get it. The wage earners fail to get any real revision that will increase their purchasing capacity which alone will improve the overall working and living conditions of the majority of the people. Now let us turn to some very recent PR efforts of national and global significance in matters relating to health, soft drinks and education.

Health Gates’ Visit to Amethi in March and May, 2010 Of great international and national significance is the recent visit of Bill Gates in the company of Rahul Gandhi to Amethi, the latter’s parliamentary constituency. According to media reports, the worldrenowned philanthropist who heads the Bill & Melinda Gates A Conceptual Framework for PR z 25

Foundation (B&MGF) and the Microsoft Corporation, is likely to institute a partnership with the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust that runs welfare activities in the Amethi and Rae Barelli constituencies of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and sponsor several programmes for the promotion of health in those and other districts. Belinda Gates had already visited some villages in UP in March 2010 and committed $55 million for health programmes. The Gates Foundation is likely to promote a series of health and economic development programmes including special activities for the prevention and treatment of AIDS. The MGNREGA and the philanthropic activities of the Gates are projects with far-reaching benefits for the poor in India; they deserve the full support of all those who are interested in the welfare of the poor. But there are other corporate activities with foreign involvement that do not get encouragement from many people. One such activity is the production of Coca-Cola and other aerated drinks in India where there is acute scarcity of water in many states. The national and multinational companies engaged in the extraction of scarce water from underground and surface sources are not exactly doing a service to either the affluent or the poor sections of the Indian population since pure drinking water is a life-giving elixir for all sections. Many areas of the country have already started suffering acute shortages of water and further exploitation of this scarce resource is likely to pollute the existing sources and put the population at jeopardy. More about this is mentioned later. Let us concentrate here on what the B&MGF is doing for the promotion of health in the rural areas of India.

Microsoft and the Gates Mr N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, by-lined a front page report titled: ‘Gates Foundation to go all out to reduce child deaths in UP and Bihar’ in the 29 March 2010 issue of his newspaper.4 Ms Melinda Gates spoke about innovation and the philosophy of giving. She told Mr Ram that along with innovations in Science and Biotechnology, the Foundation took keen interest in social and cultural change. So far she has visited the Barabanki and Rae Barelli districts and learned the work done by the non-profit organization, PATH, 26

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supported by the B&MGF, and by a research project called Shivgarh. Her discussions with Chief Minister Ms Mayawati focussed on the Foundation’s work in bringing down the Under-5 Mortality rate, polio eradication, children’s immunization, maternal and childcare, and rural development in UP. The B&MGF’s present commitment for its work in UP during 2010–2015 is a follow-up on other and larger investments. Ms Gates’ optimism about her project arose out of her realization that India had already got the infrastructure for improving rural and urban healthcare. The Foundation, set up in 2006, is one of the largest philanthropic trusts in the world with an asset of $33.5 billion, grant payment of $3 billion in 2009, and grant commitments of $22.61 billion. The Gates couple, motivated from younger days by the motto of giving back to society what was earned from society, had also got a more inspiring motto: ‘All Lives Have Equal Value’. Warren Buffett’s collaboration with the B&MGF and his Berkshire Gift enabled the Gates to ‘scale up’ their altruistic work for helping people ‘to lift themselves out of poverty’. Towards the end of the interview, Melinda Gates revealed the Gates’ commitment to ‘give away all our money, for the solution of the problems of our lifetime’. One big problem of their lifetime and ours is infant/childhood mortality, indeed. Although the number of under-5 child deaths has come down from 50 million to 9 million every single year globally, we still have a million kids dying in India, with maximum number of deaths in UP and Bihar. One reason for such heavy mortality in India is the absence of a conscious move to bring about socio-cultural changes, particularly among young mothers in the rural areas of most of our Northern states. The situation in the Southern states is slightly better. Socio-cultural changes are essential to make young mothers more conscious about the steps they must take for proper childcare even at the pregnancy stage. There is a cultural habit among them to delay breastfeeding until the priest picks up an auspicious day for starting it. In fact, the young mothers should start breastfeeding soon after delivery and even if the delivery occurs in the worst summer heat, infants should not be fed goat’s milk or water, both of which are likely to be harmful to the child. As long as the mothers’ breast-milk is available, A Conceptual Framework for PR z 27

infants should be fed that milk and kept warm at all times. Cultural practices should be replaced by health practices, preferably under the advice of qualified doctors and nurses at the primary health centres or village level workers in the neighbourhood, not by conventional dhatris and daayis. Melinda Gates had a meeting with the Chief Minister of UP, Ms Mayawati. The Gates’ Foundation is working out a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state of UP for the investment of $55 million in the next 3 to 5 years. India’s poverty is aggravated by the extremely low status of her people’s health, especially in the most populous states of Bihar, MP and UP which also happen to be the states with the highest number of polio cases. The Foundation’s massive maternal and child health programmes in the three states will certainly be helpful. Regarding the Foundation’s ‘disproportionate’ interest in the Global Alliance for Vaccine Immunization (GAVI) and its investment of $1500 million in the Alliance in ten years, Ms Gates told Mr Ram that her husband’s interest in vaccinating the children of the world against polio, etc., was but natural for filling the global gap in healthcare measures. ‘We started first in childhood vaccination and population stabilization and branched out from there’, she said. Mr Ram’s last question to Ms Gates was on the future of the Foundation, as the scale of its gifting and philanthropy was astonishing, especially, after Mr Warren Buffett’s most liberal contribution to augment the Foundation’s Global Health Work. Mr Gates said, It’s not really enough to help someone live a healthy life. You want to help them lift themselves out of poverty. Warren’s money allowed us to accelerate the work of this group we call Global Development. It’s absolutely fantastic. We, like Warren, completely want to take the resources that we have from Microsoft and his Berkshire Gift and spend that basically on the problems of our lifetime. None of the three of us thinks there’s a crystal ball that covers 500 years from now.

To Mr Ram’s philosophical question, ‘You are not looking to immortality?’ Belinda Gates replied quite nonchalantly: We (three) are not looking to immortality…Bill and I have made a commitment that 50 years after the last of the two of us has died—I’m 28

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pointing to myself because I’m younger but you never know—all our money would have been given away.

We look admiringly at Gates’s and Buffett’s generosity and their one-world view. How did they arrive at this magnificent munificence? They were touched perhaps by the helplessness of the majority of humankind in the 21st century. Three of the richest human beings in today’s world have decided to contribute liberally towards the betterment of humanity. We have already referred to the Gates’s liberal philosophy of giving back to society, what society liberally let them receive from it. Warren Buffett’s philosophy could be summarized in an extract of a one-hour interview with him on CNBC. First, let us glance at some interesting tidbits from the remarkable life of the world’s second richest man who has already donated $31 billion to charity. Mr Warren Buffett bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started investing too late. He bought a small farm at age 14 with his savings from delivering newspapers. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha that he had bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house which does not have a compound wall or fencing. ‘Don’t buy more than you “really need”’, he warns. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world’s largest private jet company. He advises people to think how they can accomplish things economically. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of those companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. Of course, he assigns the right people to the right job and he delegates. Mr Buffett has given his CEOs only two rules: 1. Do not lose any of your shareholder’s money. 2. Do not forget Rule number 1. WARREN’S MOTOS Warren does not socialize with high society crowd. His pastime after he gets home is to make himself some popcorn and watch television. A Conceptual Framework for PR z 29

‘Don’t try to show off, just be yourself and do what you enjoy doing’, he says. He does not carry a cell phone, nor does he have a computer on his desk. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man met Warren Buffett for the first time just five years ago. He did not think he had anything in common with Mr Buffett. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half an hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill became a devotee of Warren. Warren’s advice to young people is fascinating: Stay away from credit cards and bank loans. Money does not create man; man creates money. Live your life as simply as possible. Do not do what others say—listen to them, but do what you feel good doing. Do not follow brand names; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable. Do not waste your money on unnecessary things; rather just spend on those things you really need. After all, it’s your life so why allow others to rule your life? Stay focussed. Invest in yourself.

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Soft Drinks Water or Coke? That Is the Question What is more important to humanity? Water? Or Coke? Do we want to jeopardize the availability of water by value addition to a product based on water? This is the primary issue before humanity today. Nobody in his right mind would oppose industry. But if industry is harmful to the majority and adds water-borne profits to the coffers of a minority, it becomes an ethical problem. All over the world, there is scarcity of water, the elixir of life for humankind. Nobody with the 30

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current state of knowledge can think of a world without water. The moon may have plenty of water but it is not cheap or easy to bring it down to earth. Moon-water is not a practical solution to earth’s acute water-shortage. Excessive exploitation of water leads to droughts, destruction and dryness, an unnatural combination in life as we know it. Millions of people like colas and other aerated drinks but if many more millions go without water because of the making of colas, the industry that has recently won several awards would become inimical to people. Like tobacco, it becomes harmful to humankind. Votaries of aerated waters have to abandon their thoughts about the imagined benefits of colas and other aerated drinks when they see right before their eyes men, women and children standing in endless lines every day (sometimes at night too) for water from public taps—taps that are dry most of the time. They should also see the polluted water people are getting in vicinities of cola plants. Producers of Coca-Cola in Plachimada (Palakkad District of Kerala) and Kala Dera in Rajasthan, and producers of Pepsi in Kanchikodu and other places, are aware of the presence of cadmium, lead and chromium at levels considered toxic by World Health Organization (WHO) standards. But still they want to continue the production of colas ignoring the health hazards created by over-exploitation of groundwater and surface water. Although the Coca-Cola plant in Kerala has been forced to close down from 2004, cola plants in other areas are still functioning with vigour, perhaps jeopardizing the availability of pure drinking water. At least this is the perception that has emerged in recent anti-cola reports. One cola-making plant consumes 10 lakhs (a million) cubic metres of water. Recently, the Kerala government issued a notification that PepsiCola makers should draw only 2.3 lakhs cubic metres of water instead of 10 lakhs cubic metres. The matter is under litigation now. The Coca-Cola company has tried to defend its stance and repeat that they will continue to work with the proper authorities to resolve the public controversy. The company argues that its studies have not shown any adverse effect of the drink. The people of Plachimada and elsewhere have pointed out that company studies are ‘cooked up’ by company officials or ‘bribed researchers’. Although their agitation A Conceptual Framework for PR z 31

in Palakkad district under the leadership of Ms Mylamma, a tribal activist, came to an end with Mylamma’s unexpected death, and a high power government committee has concluded that Coca-Cola production system was causing ecological damage; the matter has not been fully settled legally. According to the India Resource Centre (IRC) that spearheaded the agitation, the Coca-Cola management is misleading shareholders about the financial and criminal liabilities that the company is incurring in India. The IRC is also of the view that consumers in the West are ‘wising up to the negative impact of these high-sugar drinks’. But sales in India and other developing countries are rising and the Company is focussing much more on its operations outside the US. There is now an 11 per cent increase in Asian and African markets and a 29 per cent increase in Indian sales. The double-digit growth in India, Vietnam and the Philippines because of increased consumption by the youthful clientele in Asia generally, Coca-Cola, like tobacco, is influencing the cola sales despite the health risks—diabetes, lung cancer, obesity—associated with both. But the tobacco companies (ITC, for example) are gradually moving into other areas like hotel and hospitality management, travel and tourism. Perhaps, the Indian counterparts of international cola companies can move into more healthy and welcome areas such as fruit and vegetable drinks, frozen foods industry and the construction of silos for the storage of grains and pulses, instead of spending billions of rupees for constructing bottling plants for fizz drinks of no nutritional value. As mentioned elsewhere in this book, India needs at least 50,000 silos for 600,000 villages, and this huge project will provide employment for several hundred thousand people who are unemployed now and they can come to the aid of both the poor and the rich whenever there is scarcity of grains owing to the failure or inadequacy of the monsoon rains. We have discussed some essentially good projects for the betterment of life in India—the health and welfare of the millions in rural areas with international cooperation, the starting of industries with special orientation towards the provision of urban facilities in rural areas (PURA) and the construction of silos. Let us now turn to the improvement of higher education and research with global cooperation. 32

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Education Higher Education and Research Modern higher education in India is considered to have had its beginnings in the middle of the 19th century when three universities in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were established in the same year, 1857. But colleges were functioning in a few major cities and large towns in the British Provinces from the latter half of the 18th century. However, the fillip to establish English schools and colleges came from Lord Macaulay’s famous Minute of 1835 following which attempts to educate the natives through the medium of English were intensified. The idea was to spread English education among the elite who were expected to spread it in turn among the masses in a gradual manner, slowly but steadily. This two-step flow of education was also known as the ‘filtration model’ in which higher education filtered down to the lower levels over a period of time. Education of the masses became a laudable goal only since Independence. In fact, mass education throughout the world is a 20th century phenomenon. Recognition of the role of the people, the human resource factor in national development is also a fairly new phenomenon. During the Independence Movement, it was highlighted by national leaders that India’s ancient system of education was destroyed by the British, but it remains a historical fact that despite patriotic and revolutionary rhetoric indulged in by many, no substantial change was made in the educational system since Independence. The spirit of the Karachi Resolution of the Indian National Congress in 1931 was repeated in 1955 at Avadi, near Madras, including the Resolution on Fundamental Rights—free and compulsory basic education and abolition of untouchability, etc. But education continued to be the privilege of the middle, upper middle and upper classes, particularly engineering and medical education. There has not been any substantial progress in universal education. Education was not a fundamental right of the people. Although great philosopher–statesmen such as Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan were of the firm opinion that democracy would suffer A Conceptual Framework for PR z 33

if education was not given top priority and that a nation was to be built in its educational institutions, particularly, universities designed to give a universal outlook to the youth of the country, education was not considered a basic right. For that to happen, it took a new amendment to the Constitution. The educational scenario changed in the country only very recently with the introduction of the Right to Education Act of 2009 whereby all children between the ages of 6 and l4 were entitled to receive free and compulsory education, irrespective of place of birth, gender and socio-economic status. This type of change had occurred in most parts of Europe, the US, the UK and Japan even during the 19th century. One of the constitutional goals of independent India was to provide universal, free and compulsory primary education for all 6 to 14-year-old children before 1960. But it is to the credit of the current administration in India that the dream of the Founding Fathers could be realized at least now, 60 years after the formation of the Republic of India. The quality of higher education in any country is directly proportional to the quality of lower education there and despite all the good steps taken recently to improve higher education, much may not be achieved if lower education is not improved. The new Education Act will certainly give the right to every child for schooling, but we still do not have infrastructural facilities for realizing that right. Assuming that we are able to meet the demand for access to elementary education, can we provide higher education facilities for all those who pass the qualifying examination? There are two major problems—one quantitative and the other qualitative. The quantitative problem is that we cannot accommodate all the children who want to go for higher education. We have, at present, under 20,000 colleges in the country and about 250 universities. The number of under-18 children who have no choice but to continue higher education runs into several million and we need at least 75,000–100,000 colleges, which unfortunately, we do not have now. Nor will we achieve much by building new colleges. The qualitative problem is that no student who completes 10 years of schooling is qualified to take up any kind of employment because children are not exposed to the real world of work—any work—during 34

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their schooldays, with the result that they are compelled to continue studying—some managing to get into the Plus Two classes and some others in technical or vocational schools. Even admission to the last two years of schooling is a big problem or it has been made into a big problem by educational planners.

Why This Plus and Minus System? If our governments (at the Centre and in the states) can create jobs, especially in view of the thousands of technical jobs essential for fulfilling new obligations of globalization, half the admission seekers will think twice about higher education for another three years after 12 years of schooling. In fact, young men and women should get a high school education that will help them secure gainful employment and settle in life. This was the practice in pre-1950 India. After a few years of work, they can, if needed, go to college and earn a degree. The college system has to be revamped, its rigidity should be removed and it should be made more flexible. There should be uniformity in core subjects which every school and college student ought to have taken. In most Western countries, school education is from age 6 to age 18, that is, five years of primary education, three years of middle school or junior high and four years of senior high. Western System of School Education Elementary Middle or Junior Senior High Total schooling:

Age 6 to 10 Standards I to V Age 11 to 14 Standards VI to VIII Age 15 to 18: Standards IX, X, XI, XII

5 years 3 years 4 years 12 years

Source: Author’s own.

During the last four years, children receive instruction in some technical or vocational courses. After 12 years of schooling, every person is on the threshold of adulthood, permitted to vote and girls are eligible to marry, although boys have to wait for three more years to become eligible to marry. If children are expected to be eligible to vote or get married by age 21, they should be ready to take up a job that will sustain them as independent householders. Education should provide them with A Conceptual Framework for PR z 35

essential information and practical skills that will help them to take up a job and maintain it. Instead, what we do now is to let them study more and still hope to find a job. We are not providing the life-skills essential for them to enter life with confidence, no practical orientation, no coordination between hand and head, no manual skills and no useful mental equipment. Every high school ought to have a workshop where students can learn practical aspects of many jobs—both office and technical jobs. Girls and boys may be given training in several fields such as data processing, nursing, stitching, sewing, cooking and food preparation. It does not mean that those who learn cooking have to go as cooks. But all of us will benefit if we know the fundamentals of cooking. No job is gender-specific. No occupation needs to be caste-oriented. The evils of caste can be curtailed if there are Christian carpenters, Brahmin bakers, Hindu histologists, Muslim mineralogists and male nurses and midwives. Education must make us all the more human even at the high school level. Twelve years of schooling must be the new system followed throughout India. In a country where there is almost 40 per cent unemployment, schemes such as MGNREGS must be geared to the creation of new jobs. Education must provide the tools for creating new jobs among the rural population. IT should help the decision-makers to design new avenues of employment. Competing and securing new contracts in the IT sector is a worthy endeavour indeed but creating new jobs in our rural sector is a must for the millions who are unemployed. The optimism evinced in the initial years of globalization has faded, it seems. Globalization has not so far led to any real improvement in job generation, especially in the primary and secondary sectors; in the tertiary sector, there is great hope but since half of the population is still illiterate and uneducated, the service sector jobs are not within the reach of the rural millions. A sustained and long-lasting solution to the problem of poverty depends on the creation of adequate employment opportunities through a broad-based programme of development, according to the Approach Paper to the Ninth Plan itself, but nothing much could be achieved during the two Five-Year Plans that followed the 9th Plan. Our educational systems—both higher and lower educational systems—have not succeeded in re-orienting education for the needs of the country. 36

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Tackling poverty is the most important task for planners and educators in the country. Although some statistics show that poverty has declined, the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector set up by the Central Government in 2007 stated that ‘at the end of 2004–05 about 835 million or 77 per cent of the population of the country were living below the income of `20/- a day’. There are economists and even government officials who have no hesitation to ignore the government’s own statistics, say some reports (For example, see a report in The Hindu, 29 March 2010, p. 12).

A New System of Higher Education After making the necessary changes in the high school curriculum and syllabus, our attention has to turn to a new system of higher education. The most important change to be made here is in making new courses available to the college entrants. The present system of confining the students to two languages and three subjects on an annual or bi-annual basis must yield place to a credit and semester system (CSS) involving many courses from which the students can choose according to their interest, natural inclination, talents and the market requirement.5 All students have to take certain core courses in language skills; mathematics; elementary but essential aspects of the nation’s and the world’s history; politics, civics and economics; communication and media matters; sociology, fundamental scientific and technological knowledge, etc. Students can specialize in any particular branch of knowledge in which they are interested, by background training and natural inclination. Of course, they should also have opportunities to choose certain 1-credit courses in physical education, games and sports and fine arts. All students must be exposed to environmental science and climate change, natural disaster management, etc. Certain aspects of the various subjects will be organized into assimilatable course units and offered in different semesters. A general pattern of semesters and credits is given below. There may be slight variations from university to university, but not in colleges affiliated to the same university. Generally, for graduation at the end of a 3-year period of study, a student must complete at least 120 credits, with 20 credits in a semester. A Conceptual Framework for PR z 37

Altogether, there are six semesters divided into three years as stated below, but there may be variations passed by individual universities: Duration

Semester

Number

Credits

1st year

January 1 to August 31 September 15 to January 14

Semester I Semester II

20 credits 20 credits

2nd year

February 1 to May 15 June 1 to August 31

Semester III Semester IV


3rd year

September 15 to January 14 February 1 to May 15

Semester V Semester VI


Total graduation for credits

120 credits

A credit is a point awarded to all students who attend a class of one clock-hour a week. Usually there are a minimum of 15 weeks in a semester. In a calendar week, there are five working days; so in 15 weeks, we have 75 class days or 75 hours for which the student gets one credit. But certain course units require three hours of teaching every week and several hours of home work for the student. Such course units get three credits, and are called 3-credit courses. The maximum credit a course can get is four and the minimum one credit. Four credits are assigned to certain courses that require some practicals and projects, internship and special assignments. Such courses are rare. Most courses have three credits. One-credit courses are in sports, music and extra-curricular activities. We can see that in three years, the student gets a minimum of 375 × 6 = 2250 hours of instruction and practicals. Exams are given as part of the semester. There are minimum two exams—Mid-Semester and Final. In certain cases, the instructor gives three tests. All tests are internal and given by the teacher who teaches the course unit. The grades he assigns on the basis of his evaluation are sent to the Academic Registrar who tabulates and publishes the final results within five days of the Final Test given by the instructor. Usually, all Instructors give the Final Test during the same period, the last week of each Semester. No questions are set outside the college or university and no evaluations are done by external examiners. All exams are internal and the grades are announced within five days of the Final Test.6 This is the flexible, autonomous system followed in higher educational institutions in most foreign countries. Every college must provide a number of courses, a smorgasbord, and a buffet of intellectual 38

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dishes appropriate for the country, from where the student can choose according to his or her particular tastes, talents and inclinations. There will be faculty advisers in each division—the pure and applied sciences, social sciences, arts and the humanities. Even an engineering or medical student will have to take certain courses in history, social sciences, humanities and the arts. The basic principle is that everything is relevant to everything else. This approach to higher education recognizes the fundamental unity and interdisciplinary character of all knowledge. Students at the undergraduate level are still feeling their way or experimenting with their own capabilities and likings and in one or two semesters, they will realize where they want to concentrate upon. After making that decision, they can determine the field of their special interest and capabilities and take advice from the faculty adviser and finally, embark on their major. The new system gives flexibility and choice for the student. One criticism about Indian higher education is that it is socially irrelevant. There is some truth in it, but attempts to make education more relevant cannot succeed if the present rigid structure is continued. We cannot dispute the fact that Indian higher education has, over the years, become rigid, highly formalized, repetitive and callously oblivious to its essential role in national development. Another criticism is that the institutions of higher education do not recognize the social and economic realities prevailing in the country. Private institutions ought to be encouraged but they are being encouraged in a big way to start institutions and charge heavy fees. Even government institutions have realized, though belatedly, that quality higher education is impossible without raising the fees fixed long ago. But nobody seems to have recognized the need for banks and other financial institutions in the country to change their mindset. At the same time, very heavy fee is charged, especially by promoters of engineering and medical education, although they do it without providing the essential facilities for quality education. Educational loans are being advertised by some banks but those are meant for people who mostly go abroad. For loans to study in India’s own colleges, it is a hard task for students and their ambitious parents to get bank support. Parents are willing to risk everything to take loans and achieve opportunities for their children for higher technical, engineering and medical education. Political leaders speak about many good things A Conceptual Framework for PR z 39

including easy loans from banks, but many parents complain that they are driven from pillar to post when they approach the banks. By law, every student who goes for higher education and needs financial support must get educational loans and grants. Necessary legal arrangements must be made by the Central and state governments to offer educational aid to deserving students who apply for aid. The governments should make educational loans statutory. Parliament and state legislatures must pass the necessary laws. Great corporations and philanthropists help students in other countries through loans and grants. Grants are free to the most deserving; loans are given to those who qualify for financial help. Loans are repayable in easy installments, say in a period of 24 or 36 installments. Another criticism is that Indian higher education follows the priorities set elsewhere. This is not a valid criticism in this era of globalization since we who followed the British system for historical reasons have been following a system started elsewhere but adjusting it to local needs and priorities. The same can be done even now, taking into consideration the essential needs of a global economy of which we are a part and can still accommodate our special needs and priorities. We can think globally and act locally. The CSS can succeed only with a great deal of honesty on the part of the teachers and the taught. Its success depends also on the readiness of the teachers to innovate and introduce new course units to make education more relevant to the times. Knowledge changes or new knowledge appears at regular frequency; but the university system does not reflect the new knowledge in the courses offered in colleges now. Our students are not even aware of the big problems India is facing now or it is going to face in the coming decades. For example, India has certain dubious distinctions in the 21st century. Our educational priorities must be set with an awareness of the realities in our country. India is the country with the largest number of illiterates—some 500 million people who cannot read and write. It is going to be the country with the largest number of blind people in the world. It is going to be the country with the largest number of AIDSaffected people.

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It has the largest number of malnourished and diseased millions, with few signs of sudden reduction in their number. The majority of the poorest of poor people (both income-poor and human-index poor) in South Asia will be in India. The majority of those who earn below a dollar a day are in India. Some 835 million Indians live on less than `20 (40 US cents) a day. Half the number of people in urban and rural areas of India do not have access to drinking water, nutritious food, enclosed latrines or bathrooms, pucca houses and schooling facilities. India, in the next decade, will be the country with the highest number of people with the lowest number of hospital beds, getting the poorest of medical treatment facilities. At the same time, the costly 5-star hospitals are likely to increase in number in urban/city centres. Facilities for hi-tech medical procedures and surgical interventions are increasing day by day. Curative medicine gets priority over preventive medicine. India’s big medical problems stem from a lack of pure drinking water, uncontrollable contamination of water sources, pollution of air and soil, contagious diseases and iatrogenic (hospitalgenerated) diseases (from faulty waste disposal methods) and diseases contracted from hospital internship. The proliferation of slums around hi-tech hospitals and sophisticated office complexes, the crude disposal of waste, inadequate drainage facilities in areas where luxury hotels are situated are common sights in every metropolis and major city.

The awareness about all these problems is quite low among the students who come out of our universities. Even among those aware of the problems, there is no enthusiasm to look for solutions through education. If our education makes the educated callous or indifferent to the environment, what good is it? If our educated do not react to the moral, physical, intellectual and environmental decay in society, then what good is our education? The activities of a university must be linked to the broader socio-economic, political and cultural needs of the country. A Conceptual Framework for PR z 41

The gap between the educated and the uneducated, the literate and the illiterate, between those who know and those who are ignorant, those who work and those who do not (for no fault of theirs) is reaching the critical stage in India. The decline in social cohesion is almost frightening. Violence is on the upswing and Naxalism is growing. The 21st century priority for India is education and literacy for all—not just for a tiny minority. Although Indian educators talk about social equality through education, their noble ideals are not supported by concrete action. The 2009 United Nations Development Report indicates that huge numbers of humans on the face of the earth are still living in misery despite the scientific and technological progress achieved during the past three centuries. Nearly two-third of the world’s people live on an income of less than two US dollars a day. The lifestyle of nearly 1.5 billion people is worse than what it was before and the majority of them are in South Asia (mainly India). To make life better for these hapless millions, it is essential that education, research and extension must address the problem of poverty in a more scientific and organized manner. As a former Chief Justice of India, a former Judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague observed, ‘The success of our new economic policy will depend greatly on the ability of Indian education to meet the (new) challenges and enable Indian industry to take its policy in the mainstream of the emerging global economy’ (Pathak, 1992).

A New Educational Management System Needed The total number of university students in India comes to about nine million, equivalent to the total population of several European countries. To provide formal channels for educating all these millions may not be feasible and, therefore, the distance education mode and open universities are the answer. Informal and formal channels of education are necessary when the number of intended beneficiaries involved is huge. Moreover, the system of affiliation has to be stopped since it has become exceedingly cumbersome. Autonomous institutions of higher learning have to replace the affiliation system. De-affiliation will naturally

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lead to the evolution of independent institutions that are autonomous financially, academically and administratively. Education must lead to independence of the mind from cultural, historical, economic and political serfdom. We need independent thinkers who can work for the overall benefit and betterment of the social environment existing in a given country or locality where the educational institutions are situated. De-affiliation, autonomy, decentralization and ‘de-politicking’ will solve many of the problems existing in the field of higher education. But they can be implemented only through a complete restructuring of the system, together with steps to make every unit accountable. Representation of the academic community in various bodies of the university should be increased to at least 90 per cent. Basic principles should govern a university’s day-to-day functioning and overall performance. Teachers must teach, do research and innovate on the basis of fast changing knowledge so that they can equip the younger generation with the essential knowledge and skills to live and work in a changed India. Students must learn the art and science of adjusting to the new circumstances of living and help in the process of making the working and living environment healthier and happier. The nonteaching staff, the administrators, must recognize that the institutions of higher learning exist mainly for the academic community and the society around and not for their own privileges and promotions. They should facilitate the teaching and learning tasks, research and extension responsibilities in accordance with the needs of the time. Libraries should become the hub of higher education. They should be equipped with the latest information gathering and retrieval, reprographic and dissemination systems. They should be connected with other libraries and worldwide networks of information. The libraries and instructors have equal importance in higher education because without the help of information systems, neither the teacher nor the student can update information. It is estimated that one-fourth of the university and college libraries in India do not have qualified librarians who can guide the library users to sources of adequate, appropriate and relevant knowledge. The significance of libraries in the higher education system has not been properly understood by the people who run the system.

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Evaluation Finally, a word about the system of evaluation followed in the higher education institutions. There should be impartial evaluation that should go on simultaneously with teaching. In fact, teaching and evaluation must go together; teaching is incomplete without evaluation. Evaluation should be based on objective criteria. Evaluated material with grading and comments should be returned to the students. The teacher who teaches must do the evaluation and the method of evaluation must be explained by the teacher in the very first meeting of the class. The system of one teacher teaching, a second teacher setting the question papers, a third teacher evaluating and a fourth one doing the ‘revaluation’ must end once and for all. Everybody agrees that the Indian higher education system has to be rejuvenated and reformed. But depending on foreign institutions to do the job of renovation and rejuvenation may not be a wise solution, if educating India—all India—is our goal. Each nation has its own priorities. Will foreign institutions, however excellent they may be in their own countries, see the national priorities of India in the same light? Has any country solved its educational problems solely by importing excellence from other countries? Has the UK or the US or Germany done it? University PR officials and executives including the Vice chancellor (VC) must be aware of these matters. We have examined some of the national priorities of India which our PR executives can concentrate upon in the new millennium. Let us now turn to the history of public relations in the world and in India, in the next chapter.

Notes 1. This was far different from the practice observed in a tire manufacturing factory in Mansfield, Ohio, where I had the opportunity of working for a few weeks in the summer of 1971 during my graduate studies. I was taken aback when I was waiting in line for picking up lunch one day in the Company cafeteria. The man standing ahead of me was Mr James Hoffman, President of the Company. Mr Hoffman, without tie but with shirt sleeves rolled up, was exchanging pleasantries with a blue-collar worker wearing an overall, as if they were long-lost friends. ‘In India, the manager

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2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

or senior executive behaves as if he has come from another planet, not to speak of Company Presidents having lunch with their employees’. I thought. This was ‘political democracy’ translated into genuine PR not sham PR to please someone on an ad hoc basis. My very first day in Mansfield Tires gave me an insight into the relationship between labour and management in the US. (Incidentally, Mansfield Tire & Rubber Company was, in the early 1960s, the first collaborator of MRF Ltd, now India’s largest tyre manufacturing company.) This is a well-known quote. See Gandhiji’s Words of Wisdom, 1991, Trivandrum: Sadaachaar Foundation. The same issue carries an account of the full interview Mr Ram had with Ms Belinda Gates, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the B&MGF. The CSS was introduced in the 40+ departments of the University of Kerala in 1994–95 by this writer. It was extended to the colleges under different universities in Kerala by the Kerala State Higher Education Council in 2007–2008. This or some other suitable calendar must be followed in all colleges/universities on a permanent basis through proper statutory academic bodies of the State, nationally. All political parties must recognize the scheme and follow it. This calendar, come what may—rain or shine—must be followed. Unless an earthquake or some other national disaster strikes a region, the university calendar should not be tampered with.

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2 THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN PR Public Relations (PR) is the most modern and the fastest growing branch of communications, barring the Internet and the mobile (cell) phone. All over the world, nearly 500,000 people work in PR. In India, nearly 150,000 persons work in PR agencies, PR departments in Business Corporations, PR and Information departments in secretariats in the States and Federal Government and on a modest scale in the universities, colleges and other educational institutions in the country. PR employs all the techniques of communication and mass communication. PR is now an integral part of news gathering and dissemination in addition to being in close connection with advertising and publicity, customer relations, other aspects of business communication and sales promotion, as well as, in development projects planned and implemented by governments.

Definitions of Public Relations We shall examine a few definitions of PR from various angles. Like all definitions of concepts, the definition of PR too depends on the

circumstances in which the definer is placed. Briefly, PR signifies the relations an organization has with its public. Usually the word ‘public’ has no plural because it signifies many people—the citizens of a country, a large mass of people from different races, ethnic origins, skin colour, different levels of economic, social, political and cultural status, following different religions, rites and rituals or following no religion at all. But they are all tied by certain common civil bonds of law, rules of governance and judicial practices, loyalty or opposition to the government ruling them at the time, enjoying or suffering together the curses and blessings of nature. But we are using the term, public, in a narrower sense. An organization deals with a number of groups—the group of shareholders who receive the dividends on their investments in the company/organization and the company’s employees, who, with stock-holders, form the internal public. The public outside the organization consists of the customers, the users of the products and services of the organization, together with government departments, suppliers of various raw materials, business contacts, the media of communication, the users of the public facilities promoted by the organization and finally, the general public, the citizenry. These are the external publics of the organization. Even in countries that follow the capitalist philosophy, the government is an integral part of the organization’s external public because the work of the company cannot be performed without contacts with the government of the time. Newspapers, magazines and other printed forms of communication, radio, television, films, Internet, portable/mobile medium, people working in all these media form an essential part of the external public. A university has students, teachers, administrators and the general public as its public. Sometimes the colleges affiliated to the university form one public of the university but the parents/guardians and the general public are the public, not only of the affiliated colleges, but also of the university. Then, of course, there are large suppliers of books, notebooks, examination papers, etc., forming another public for the university. The university has to maintain relations with these groups plus the media. In general, every organization has two kinds of public—internal and external. Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 47

PR serves in promoting understanding between the organization/ management and its public; it establishes the means and the media to cement the relationship between and among the various internal and external wings of an organization. This is a fairly acceptable definition in all countries and climes. But in addition to it, we have to look at PR from the development perspective, especially in developing countries. There are some who think that ‘developing country’ is a euphemism for ‘poor country’. As we said earlier, an organization—whether public, private or public–private—is primarily a social organization. It exists for society. If it does not, it becomes anti-social and hence, likely to be opposed by the public. It is not only organizations that have different publics; individuals too have close relationships with different groups—members of the family, neighbourhood, workplace associates, social, political, economic, or cultural organizations, etc. For the successful conduct of personal or organizational affairs, the individuals and social groups have to maintain good relationships with other individuals and groups. Open conflicts are to be avoided although individual differences of a minor nature are inevitable. As the days go by, we see that socio-economic and cultural organizations are proliferating and becoming more complex. With evergrowing variety and complexity, the need for maintaining close contacts with other members is growing. A small shop may have only two or three persons (usually maa-baap or pitru-putra) working in it but a large one may have hundreds or even thousands of employees. There was a time when the manager knew every employee individually, but no more. Although attempts to cultivate personal relationships are desirable, it is almost impossible now. Therefore, there comes the necessity of a department to look after the relationship between the management/executives and the workers on shop floor or in the office. To manage means to get things done through people working with you and assisting you to reach ultimate goals set before you and the organization. In the business environment or on the factory shop-floor, you have to get things done through people. ‘Business is people’ has almost become a cliché. But in practice, especially in India, PR managers are not

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enjoying the status of persons with access to the top management. This will be evident from what one of the earliest thinkers and practitioners of PR in the world, namely, Edward L. Bernays, thought as the PR manager’s main function. Bernays, the first to write a book on PR, Crystallizing Public Opinion, defined a PR Manager as ‘a professional equipped with education, training and experience to give counsel to a client or an employer on relations with the public’. According to several people, PR personnel, especially in India, do not satisfy Bernays’ definition. As mentioned earlier, PR must be a top management function and the PR manager must enjoy the confidence and respect of the managing director or president or CEO of the organization. He or she must be designated as a senior vice president incharge of PR. He/she must be a person with high professional education and skills in communication and must be confident in advising the top management about the actions taken or not taken by it in winning the support of the customers, shareholders, employees and the general public. What we usually find in many big corporations in India is that standards of PR practice are highly variable. PR personnel are called in by the top management to organize some function or other in an ad hoc manner, without any reference to the basic philosophy of PR in management or without an overall, integrated and holistic vision of the role of PR. Some PR people are almost like domestic servants in the manager’s eyes; they are called in and out and entrusted with duties that can be fulfilled by any person with average intelligence and education. Their duties do not require any special talent or high education. Since when has there been a need for the services of a highly qualified individual for booking a ticket for bus/train/plane journey or arranging a dinner or an entry into a special show of a movie or dance programme? Many corporate executives do entrust PR personnel with such duties. Can we call these tasks the tasks of a PR executive? There are also several instances where the PR officer has to do the dirty work of bribing key government officials or accompanying VIPs on trips to places of tourist significance. Do we need highly qualified people to do such work? Are we not trying to degrade PR by calling some person a PR executive and then entrusting him with such work?

Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 49

Most of the PR officials in private and government business/industry are not advising management on the good or bad consequences of managerial action on the publics of the organization. This is the bane of PR in India. In developed rich foreign countries too, a quarter of the PR personnel may be doing such work, but in quite a number of corporations, the vice-president incharge of PR or corporate communication has the freedom, privilege and positional importance in their organizational chart to be part of the top management team and give advice on the consequences of managerial actions on the various publics of the organization. It may take a few more decades for India to assign an honourable position to PR. However, this matter needs serious consideration by all concerned since it is estimated that PR is gaining greater importance in this era of globalization and almost 150,000 people are already employed in PR, with a total amount of `5,000–`10,000 crores spent on PR every year. Let us trace the history of PR in some advanced countries such as the US and the UK. PR in the US and UK evolved gradually and was not born full-blown like Minerva. Experts in human relations worked on the problems workers were facing in terms of the difficulties encountered in the actual process of working as well as living conditions. Whatever improvement came in the general condition of living turned out to be beneficial to the workers too. There was overall development in the socio-economic, political and material well-being of the population of the US and Europe in the last decades of the 19th century. Science and technology made tremendous progress, as reflected in better homes with heating and plumbing as well as better roads— macadamized first and then concreted or tarred; fully lighted with street lights and fully protected for the pedestrians with tree-lined sidewalks and concrete rests, garbage disposal bins and fire-hydrants, parking areas, parks and town halls for use by the whole township and medical facilities for all citizens—made available through a public network of services. However, thousands of workers were engaged in hazardous work, especially in mining of coal, asbestos and other dangerous materials. Dust from excavations, particularly during the building of railroads and bridges, tunnels and tanks proved quite hazardous to 50â•…


workers’ lungs. The use of asbestos in the construction industry also led to severe lung diseases amongst construction workers. There were no laws at the time against the hazards of occupation. The first Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) became law as late as 1970. Thus capitalists—the investing managers—were not restricted by health and safety laws for the entire period, 1850–1970. Many thousands of workers died from occupational diseases contracted from hazardous job practices and materials used at the workplace. At various periods, hundreds lost their lives in mining, road and railroad tunnelling and other work involving unsafe practices and dangerous chemicals. There was no personal protective equipment for workers. John Rockefeller, head of the Rockefeller clan, became the most powerful business and industrial tycoon in the world during the late 19th and early 20th century, making a mark in the railroad and oil exploration businesses in the US, but his image in the country was not good. He earned the reputation of an evil rich man, a robber baron.

PR and Press Agentry There has always been a close tie between PR and the press/publicity. PR and the press (media) became large-scale business activities having inevitable business relationship with manufacturers of products and with financial institutions. In the initial days of PR, those companies that advertized their products in the press always received favourable write-ups and editorial attention. But there were people whose major avocation or vocation was contacting the producers and the editors for collecting advertisements. They were called press agents and their activity was called press agentry, an honourable door-to-door canvassing of ads and publicity material, to win goodwill for the products manufactured as well as for the manufacturing company through free publicity. The companies paid for ad space but did not have to pay for publicity given to their products and activities. This tit for tat goes on even today, but it was at its height in the early decades of the 20th century when businessmen and manufacturers got bad publicity through muckrakers who were over-enthusiastic writers or journalists who exposed the Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 51

under-belly of many a business and businessmen. In those days, there were only the print media—newspapers, weeklies and monthlies and they had to depend on robber barons for ads. They especially looked to the giants of the time—the Rockefellers, the Fords, the Du Ponts and others, owners of big corporations who were clearly in need of selling better images of themselves to the public. Image-building for these big entrepreneurs was absolutely essential and they yearned for flattering write-ups about themselves and their companies. Newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had to rely on press agents for ads. The press agents competed with one another but all of them became a force to reckon with. Those who wanted to improve their images had to depend on the press agents. Despite their bad reputation, press agents were a necessary evil. The term public relations had not yet received recognition. But we see the beginnings of the concept in the activities of some press agents who wanted to counter the muckraking journalists such as Ida Tarbell who attracted the keen attention of the public and of the corporations themselves. In fact, Ida Tarbell, a pungent columnist, wrote several scathing reports about John Rockefeller and others. Rockefeller decided to use the services of professional writers to counter the unfavourable publicity with favourable write-ups in the press. He hired the services of Ivy Ledbetter Lee, generally known as Ivy Lee, a well-known publicist at that time. Considered the Father of PR, Ivy Lee had already got recognition and fame as an effective news reporter. He was the first to start a firm for the express purpose of carrying out PR for a service charge. His partner was George F. Parker and the first PR company in the US was called Lee and Parker. Some of the early statements made by Lee are worth recalling. For example, he said that his firm was not a secret press bureau and that all the activities of his company would be open and aimed to send the news of his clients to the target newspapers. Lee asserted that his company was working for general business corporations and that it would be writing in the newspapers on everything the readers ought to know about the organization. Lee could establish through such frank statements that PR was not a substitute for false propaganda. His frequent interactions with 52â•…


newspaper readers could dispel various misunderstandings about corporations. He fulfilled his duties and obligations to the clients through unexaggerated, frank and truthful statements. He did not try to hide corporate mistakes and liabilities. He believed that honest statements would remove public’s misapprehensions about corporate actions.

PR during World War I: Ivy Lee and Ed Bernays Every country makes use of PR to inform its citizens about the activities of the three wings of the defence department, especially during wars. Sometimes, the title PRO is replaced by public information officer but most countries have retained the title, PRO. Edward L. Bernays, who worked in the United States public information committee during World War I, directing the PR activities of the US Defense Department, was an outstanding thinker and writer, his book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, as already mentioned, was the first book on PR its first edition appeared in 1923. A nephew of the world famous psychologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Edward L. Bernays too had a keen interest in applied and mass psychology. His contributions to PR in the western world are so important that many people tend to think of him as the real father or founder of PR. But, generally, Ivy Lee is honoured as the father of public relations. Bernays who graduated from Cornell University in 1912 opened the first recognized PR firm with Doris Fleischman in 1919. He had a long and fruitful life. He expired in 1985. For almost 60 years, his writings and statements were considered authoritative and he commanded great respect from PR professionals all over the world. The great communicologist and seminal thinker in the field of communication and politics, Harold Lasswell, Harvard Professor, had said in 1928 that the term public relations was helpful in shielding the profession from the ill repute increasingly associated with the word propaganda; it was people like Bernays who liberated PR from the contempt and hate associated with propaganda. But Bernays’ own 1955 definition of PR raised the prestige of public relations as a highly honourable profession. Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 53

He said, ‘Information, persuasion and adjustment—the process or effort that makes use of any of these three to build public support for a public institution, activity or movement can be called PR (Bernays, 1952). But in 1985, he improved upon his own definition. He said, ‘PR is a process that gives ethical advice based on research findings, for helping clients achieve their social goals’ (Bernays, 1952). Readers will remember that this book started with the social goals of business. May this writer advance the hypothesis that Bernays’ definition of PR given above is the most appropriate for India and other developing countries and that PR practitioners in poor countries, that is, countries that are grappling with the problem of poverty among a huge mass of people for several decades, the social goals of PR get priority over image building and such other conventional PR pursuits? We shall discuss the ramifications of the social objectives of PR fully later, but let us turn to Bernays’ early and later definitions of PR and his stress on social goals. In the earlier definition, Bernays looked at the immediate gains an organization could derive from information, persuasion and adjustment. This was derived from what psychologists consider as the most powerful tools—power, patronage and persuasion to get things done by others. Information is power, according to many thinkers, especially in management circles. Persuasion can come from intense pleading, mild exhortation, attractive remuneration or other compensations. The middle factor, patronage, is in effect bribery, an unethical practice. Persuasion is the most honourable and acceptable path in a democracy. The last-named factor in one of Bernays’ definitions, namely, adjustment, can sometimes be misinterpreted as a weak-kneed response to a given circumstance. But this does not seem to be Bernays’ intention. Adjustment to circumstances is inevitable because without adjusting to the new circumstances, one cannot manage the people or promote understanding between the organization and its public. Denying adjustment is denying the reality. Sometimes the organization has even to lose face while confronting the internal or external public. Adamantine attitudes are not healthy. Therefore, adjustment becomes essential. Adjustment is at times admission of a mistake, but at other times it involves recognizing the reality of the opposition and seeing its point of view. The common

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aim is betterment of the organization and the well-being of the internal and external publics. Power or status is not blindly honoured these days since we are not living in an autocratic age. Power was the tool of the autocrat who extracts work from his subordinates through the sheer force of his position evidenced in his big Benz or his posh cabin and other appurtenances and office-given perquisites, his haughty manners or the extravaganza of his social life. Those days are over. People who work with you and for you are not slaves any more; they are human beings just like you, ‘having (similar) senses, affections, passions—fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer’ as you are (Merchant of Venice, Act III, Sc. I). We have already indicated that PR signifies the relations an organization has with its various publics. A democratic government’s publics consist of citizens, the public at various socio-economic levels, both internal and external. Employees of government in the various secretariats and departments have to be counted in the hundreds of thousands. The government’s internal public is of the order of millions, a huge public indeed. Creating understanding between the decisionmakers in government and its employees, who double up also as citizens and join ranks with the citizens at large, is the most essential. Similarly, huge corporations have huge muster rolls and registers of office staff. Selling an idea by the top managements in both government and private institutions to the employees is a Herculean task. Often, decision-makers take employees for granted and direct all their PR efforts towards the citizens. But addressing the citizens is not enough. The employees are a very huge sector in the government and nongovernment PR efforts. Once the personnel at vari-ous levels within the organization are convinced about the usefulness or merits of a project, they become unofficial ambassadors for the quick dissemination of the top managements’ decisions among the various publics. Often, organizations that spend huge sums of money for getting favourable write-ups in print media, or audio-visual fare in the broadcast media tend to ignore the above. Sometimes they find unexpected visible opposition or suppressed resentment from their own employees.


Sometimes, they try to implement decisions that are apparently harmless, but encounter stiff opposition from unexpected quarters within their own internal public. Although the aim of promoting understanding between the organization and its different publics is accepted as a worthy goal of PR, the internal public is not taken into confidence leading to disastrous results. Consultation with the internal public before attempting to make even slight changes in procedures is of the utmost importance.

Media Relations The central government has several big projects such as MGNREGA, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ( JNNURM), etc. Except for a few national newspapers such as The Hindu, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Times of India and The Statesman—all in English—newspapers in India are not bringing full details (and pitfalls, if any) of these projects before the people. Regional newspapers in the major languages of India seem to ignore such national news except at the time of elections or when the editors or publishers have their own special agenda for opposing or supporting a particular project. The Indian language newspapers are pre-occupied with political gossip most of the time, perhaps, thinking only about what is appealing to the local people or mistaking that readers are turned off by national news. This is a major problem that needs deeper probe but we are more concerned here with what the media promote as important. The view that readers are not interested in national news could be incorrect. The newspapers’ profits are not made mainly through circulation but through advertisements and sponsored political news, especially at election time. An impressionistic analysis of prominent regional newspapers with some readership among the region’s citizens settled in other parts of the nation showed that issues affecting the lives of the aam aadmi (the common man) were not covered with as much enthusiasm as they show in political squabbles and scandals of local relevance (Vilanilam, 2009). Another important finding in a study was that the media in India still look at the national and regional elections from the point of view 56â•…


of caste and religion, as was confirmed by analyses done before and after the 2009 elections. The media once again confirmed that their mindset was, and still is, retrograde, reinforcing their own view that the Indian electorate go by caste prejudice and personal preference and not by economic interests or a national–political vision. Politics is primarily national and international; regional and local considerations are of secondary importance. The media have not discussed the pros and cons of the decision taken by the central cabinet that the 2011 census should be caste-based. There has not been adequate discussion in the English newspapers and there has not been any discussion at all in prominent regional, Indian language newspapers. This does not mean that local or regional issues do not colour or control political decisions. It means that the primary consideration should be national and international because the regional or local issues cannot be totally separated from national and international factors. A nation’s media has to give adequate importance to matters affecting the entire nation. There is no major economics or politics carved out for Kerala or West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh or Andhra Pradesh, separated from national economics or politics that is in turn influenced by international factors. No big business corporation can confine its operations within the narrow limits of one locality, one region or several regions. Business is national and international. Media in India seem to take shelter under the excuse that politicians and candidates for office do not discuss the vital socio-economic issues and, therefore, they simply reflect in their reports the opinion of various local parties. Unfortunately, our newspapers have developed a habit of reporting statements of politicians as if statements make news. Such items of news are pseudo-news and the events organized for politicians and others to make their statements are pseudo-events. They are products of stage-managed happenings. Some people call them mere PR events and utterances. Genuine efforts are being made by some organizations to build images of their companies or their bosses, but the total effect of these efforts is not great, since the events organized this way do not reflect the genuine issues confronting the people. They do not throw light on issues concerning the basic needs of the large majority of Indians. Others are of the view that the Indian media are fully behind the upper Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 57

middle class and they ignore the large majority of the jobless, lower middle class and the poor. They may report poverty and poor people in certain situations, but their reports do not have any long-lasting effect. In other words their reports are casual, perfunctory and event-based, not deep and theoretically framed for serious consideration by political, economic and social leaders. Still others think that statement journalism, satrap orientation, political antics and big country pretence and comparison have become the common characteristics of our media in most recent times. How many pay revisions have taken place during the last two decades for the middle and upper level employees? Even for MLAs and MPs? How many such revisions have occurred in the wages of agricultural and industrial workers and what are the respective percentages of increase? No doubt, media relations are cultivated by PR executives and politicians in India but recent reports have indicated how the politicians have used the media in an undesirable manner and how the media have become so vulnerable to political manipulations that they are acting as conduits for their political customers’ easy buying of columns for a monetary consideration. Most media have lost their original purpose and noble goals; they are being bought by the politician and the businessman. Both the media and the politicians have lost sight of the priorities of the majority. When will they realize the legitimacy of the hopes of the majority and advocate the necessity of fulfilling those hopes? Those hopes are rather modest—two square meals a day, safe drinking water, easy access to the nearest shop, school, water source and hospital; adequate clothes; secure shelter that will guard them from the vicissitudes of the wind and the weather; good ( pucca) school buildings and regular and honest teachers for their children; above all, a steady job that will become a dependable source of income enabling them to buy the most essential things for themselves and their families. The PR departments of state governments and central government personnel entrusted with PR, if any, have to motivate the ministers and the department chiefs to work towards the attainment of these goals through concrete executive, legal, judicial, economically feasible actions and not through speeches, films, exhibitions and road-shows.

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You have nothing to explain to the majority of the people; they understand what they need. It is a pity that the decision-makers do not understand their needs. As indicated elsewhere in this book, administrative reforms are a must because they will enable the common man to get the money sanctioned for welfare measures, compensation for some huge personal loss to the citizen concerned, or for large-scale development schemes, at the right time and in full measure to meet the basic needs without allowing the money to lapse—the money that was budgeted, sanctioned by letter or announced at pubic meetings. Will the media be motivated by the PR executives to investigate how much budgeted amounts have lapsed out of procrastination on part of the executives during every one of the past five-year plans? The media simply flit from one issue to another as the days go by and show a structural debility to follow up most important issues until they are brought to conclusion. The most important issues in the media follow the proverbial saying: ‘Here today, but gone tomorrow.’ The following is a list of priorities before every government of the country, irrespective of its party affiliation (Vilanilam, 2009): Strengthening of agriculture through appropriate land reforms l Irrigation l Implementation of the recommendations of the National Farm Commission l Land reforms and land allocation to the landless l

Absentee landlordism has to be curbed or totally eliminated, particularly in states such as Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. States like Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura, and Punjab have made some definite improvement in the distribution of land, but there is a great need for improving the land distribution system in every region of the country. This will certainly bring about an increase in the employment situation and in agricultural productivity, both of which will increase the purchasing power of the millions who depend on agriculture in India.


Construction of silos and other grain-storage facilities. Silos are essential (in addition to the FCI godowns) for speedy gathering and long-term protection of grains in villages, where according to many studies, at least one-third of the annual production of grains is lost to rodents. The production of grains in villages has to be linked to local means of protection and long-term storage and also to the PDS which has to be strengthened in all states. Whatever new building construction, administrative systems, etc., are needed to implement these schemes should be included in the MGNREGS so that more people can be gainfully employed and several clusters of villages can be helped through each development project. Women’s empowerment is a must in the whole country. In many states, gender discrimination at home and in society is quite prevalent. Women throughout the nation and the men connected with them, boys and girls, have to be conscientized about the daily discrimination women are facing without being aware of it. This will empower girls and women so that child marriages, sati, deprivation of food, subjugation, physical abuse, sexual exploitation and other social evils can be curbed, unequal treatment of girls and women at the workplace can be eliminated and infant and maternal mortality can be reduced, particularly through elimination of infanticide and foeticide. Cases involving rape, molestation, acid-throwing on girls and such other atrocities are taking 10–15 years for prosecution and final judgment. Such cases are handled by the executive, legislative and judicial wings of our governments in various states in a cavalier fashion. Justice delayed is justice denied, particularly to women and the weaker sections of our society. A case in point is the 19-year delay that occurred in the disposal of the case relating to the molestation (and subsequent suicide) of a girl child of 14 years by the Director-General of Police (DGP) of Haryana (reported widely on 26 December 2009). To make matters worse, in states like Haryana and a few others let khap panchayats to encourage honour-killing in their areas and innocent young men and women are killed to protect the honour of their gotras. The only crime committed by these young people is that they fall in love and get married or decide to elope. The Government of India is still unsure if it is a crime to fall in love. Instead of punishing love with 60â•…


death, these misguided elders must look at the public health and environmental issues prevailing in their neighbourhood.

Public Health and Hygiene Improvement in public health and hygiene may be carried out through uninterrupted supply of safe drinking water and educating the women of the house about essential hygienic practices that can lead to elimination of health hazards for the entire family. Provision of drainage and waste disposal systems in every village and town will lead to great improvement in the nation’s health. If public toilets are provided with free running water, half the nation’s ills will vanish. Medical colleges in the country have to stress preventive medicine rather than curative medicine. Let a large number of young medical graduates and nurses get specialized training in rural health. The government should make 12-year High School compulsory in all the states giving opportunities to the students in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th standards to gain practical training in some trade or vocation so that when they pass high school at the age of 18 or so, they can face life with confidence and take up a job instead of wasting more time on earning a useless degree in liberal arts or science during the next three or four years. Those who want to pursue higher education after a few years of work must have the freedom and the facilities to do so. This suggestion is made because past experience has shown that substantial percentage of students in the primary, secondary and college levels drop out, causing much frustration in individuals and tremendous wastage in the national economy. Existing systems for education and training have to be reformed and strengthened so that there is rejuvenation in the whole field of education with emphasis on national development. Village schools must also double up as literacy mission centres during after-school hours so that the adult population of each village gets an opportunity of learning the three Rs and some training for a skilled job. There should also be provision for the young and the old for informal and non-formal channels of education, so that brilliant young women and men can learn several techniques helpful for the betterment of the Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 61

facilities available in rural areas. For example, they can get involved in the construction of roads and deepening of water sources in the village such as wells, streams, ponds, tanks, canals and rivers. They can learn the art and science of collecting rain water, purifying it and storing it for future use. They can learn the techniques of waste disposal without much expenditure. Also, ways to motivate people at home and in the neighbourhood about calorie intake, value of eating nutritious food and acquiring basic knowledge about the physical, nutritional, psychological and spiritual aspects of life can also be learnt. Above all, village artisans can be made literate and educated so that a few of them can become inventors of devices that lessen or lighten the drudgery of work through the use of new tools and products. They can give their inputs in the jan sunwais and other meetings in the village, where practical ideas of job creation in the village, or cluster of villages can be discussed. Today, the NREGS officials are at a loss in many states about how to create new jobs. They can certainly evolve a mechanism by which they can ascertain those who work for the MGNREGA get their minimum wage of `125 or `200 as prescribed, either through the nearby bank or post office. If a bank or a post office is not available in the village where the scheme is being implemented, payment has to be made by the official concerned, in cash drawn a day or two before the payment date from the district commercial or cooperative bank. But the youth of the place can work towards the establishment of a cooperative bank in the village which can take up the responsibility of disbursing the wages to the workers on the same day or the next day. There are so many practical ideas of great help to the villagers, which can be taken up by the literate and educated youth in the village. PR people working for the government have to implement these ideas with enthusiasm and with cooperation from the villagers. As suggested earlier, some of these ideas can be taken up by the private corporations that establish their manufactories or mines in the remote villages. They do not have to leave everything to the government of the state. Or, they can give their services as a gift to the people for whose development they are supposed to establish their business or manufacturing organizations in the locality. This will earn them respect and cooperation from the local people.

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Private companies have a mistaken notion that they are doing a great service to the country when they establish their business in the village and exploit the resources of the village—natural resources such as plants and trees, iron and other ores, coal, silver and gold. They may publicize that they are creating employment and bringing prosperity to the village but in actual practice, the number of local people employed will be small and the people of the locality continue to live in abject poverty for many more years. This has happened in many areas of India during the past 60 years or more. Jamshedpur in Jharkhand is an exception because Jamshedji Tata and his descendants succeeded in developing a large township at the site of their work. Today, Jamshedpur is a fairly big town with essential life-sustaining facilities enjoyed by the inhabitants of the town and its surroundings. But many big businessmen in different states, despite their growing into behemoths of the business and industrial world, have unfortunately forgotten their social responsibility of developing their sites into livable areas, not to speak of sustainable townships. The entrepreneurs got all the advantages but they did not care to return at least a modicum of those benefits back to the people of the locality. Their industries grew without reference to their surroundings. One could see this phenomenon in many parts of India. PR is, thus, related to this since, here, we are talking about public. Whatever be the definition of PR, it is not easy to pin PR down to one particular definition because the characteristics should be related to the socio-economic and cultural situation prevalent in the area, country or region to which we plan to apply the definition. But in general, PR creates a favourable impression about a person, organization, idea, product, country or institution. It helps in promoting and achieving desirable and favourable ends for a person, product or institution/organization through just, proper and legally valid means of persuasion and communication. Another way to define PR is—PR is the organized and planned activity that a company undertakes for establishing friendly relations with its various publics for mutually beneficial results. The biggest public of an organization is the general public, that is, the people who make use of the products and services offered by the organization and the public that surrounds the organization.


In a country where basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, education, employment, public health and hygiene are yet to be fulfilled for the large majority of the people, companies, corporations, business organizations and factories must have a proper plan for the fulfilment of those needs, at least for their workers and for those who live in the immediate neighbourhood of their organization. The cost for this will be partially met by the local self-government, (the LSG’s capacity to help is low indeed, but as a matter of principle, LSGs should participate) the state government (20 per cent), the central government (30 per cent) and the remaining 50 per cent must be met by private entrepreneurs who are planning to establish the manufacturing or business enterprise, at least for 10 years. Ultimately, PR should promote the goodwill of the society towards the organization as also the responsibility of the organization towards the society in which it functions. Is the firm concerned about the safety and well-being of the workers and those who live in the neighbourhood? Very often people’s or workers’ feelings do not reach the top management unless PR persons make an effort to do so. People’s reactions have to be gathered in a proper survey and the results conveyed to the top management. PR should not mislead the public by sugar-coated reports about the company’s activities nor should it mislead the management by suppressing the grievances of the internal and external publics of the firm.

The Origin of PR in India One of the earliest people in human history to recognize the significance of PR was Emperor Asoka (272 bc–232 bc) whose rock edicts and pillar inscriptions were actually imperial messages to the subjects of his vast empire. Some of those are still extant. Rulers’ obligations to the ruled form the basis of those messages. A few centuries after Asoka, history shows us the PR efforts of another bright star in the firmament of early times—the magnificent doings of Augustus Caesar of Rome. His way of communicating with the people of his empire was through his own statues installed in various parts of his empire. Caesar’s statues served in enhancing his own image among 64â•…


the people of Rome and some distant areas in Italy and other regions conquered by him. Even in modern times, images of founders and leaders of democratic and autocratic regimes have found their way into statues, stamps, coins and portraits. These images have helped in spreading information about those leaders and enabled them to earn a good name not only for themselves but the nations they led. That way, their statue-erecting efforts are examples of PR in early and later history. But our main concern in this section is to trace the origin of PR in the industrial era. Whereas modern PR originated in the early part of the 20th century in the US, it had its beginnings in India in the latter half of the 20th century. It was connected with advertising as it did in the US, but the progress was not much because advertising and PR can progress only in tandem with industrial progress. Industry in India made very little progress in the early decades. Changes begin to occur during the early years after Independence, particularly with the introduction of the First Five-Year Plan in 1951–52. Although the thrust was on agriculture in the First Five-Year Plan, industrial projects received attention in the Second Plan and many huge projects such as the steel plants in Bokaro, Bhilai, Rourkela and other places were started. Similarly big chemical plants, the mining of iron and other ores, etc., received great emphasis in subsequent plans. All these big projects were in need of public relations personnel. Similarly, the expansion of the nationwide railway system, coach factories, etc., gave rise to greater attention on PR. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, several foreign collaborations took place and many new industries came up. But the economy grew big in the 1990s with liberalization, privatization and globalization. PR received great attention from the era of globalization that started in the 1990s. The practice of engaging PR personnel in every new industrial and business enterprise became established during the last three decades but one cannot say for sure that the PR managers/officers are getting serious attention even now. As pointed out earlier, PR in India is still an executive job, not a top management job. It is not closely connected with planning and organizing the command, coordination, control, standards, theoretical concepts, research, safety and security of premises Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 65

and people, as well as, the cooperation and developing functions of top management. Nor is PR actively concerned about techniques of production, buying and selling policies, finance capital and its optimum use, personnel management and training, inventory control, accounting, cost accounting, statistics or balance sheets. Yet PR people are in a way informed about all these when the occasion arises for senior executives to let targets be informed through various PR tools and channels. PR is thus ubiquitous like the Elder Hamlet—here, there, everywhere, but nowhere. Not directly involved in any of the activities mentioned. Our main task in this chapter is to trace the history of modern PR in various parts of the world. We have already indicated how Ivy L. Lee and Edward L. Bernays laid the foundation of PR in the US. PR in the modern sense can be traced back to the 1920s, but according to Graham Kemp, the phrase ‘public relations’ became popular in Britain only by 1933 when Sir Stephen Tallents was appointed PR Officer at the Post Office. It was after a seven-year stint at the Empire Marketing Board where he had the freedom to spend a third of a million pounds of government money annually for publicity (in those days, a very big sum), that Tallents organized public relations for another government agency, namely the British Postal System where he caught the public’s attention when he created the ‘Girl with the Golden Voice’ campaign that played a major role in selling the new telephone service in Britain. Incidentally, the British Postal System handled the telephone service and the same system was followed in India for a long time. In India, the original name was Indian Posts & Telegraphs Department which, again, handled the telephone system. In the initial years, radio was under the post and telegraphs department. Radio users had to pay an annual fee to the post office. In the early years of television in India, subscribers had to pay a user fee to the local post office. But when radio and television turned commercial, both came under the Prasaar Bhaarati Corporation of India and the telephone system was brought under the Bharat Sanchaar Nigam Limited (BSNL). Continuing with the story of PR in Britain, commercial organizations copied the techniques of Tallents and the post office. Following World War II, public relations burgeoned in industry, commerce and government. In the 1970s and 1980s, British PR expenditure was of the

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order of 25 million pounds a year and since 1990, the figure must have almost doubled. It is estimated that out of the total, 30 per cent goes for press relations. Perhaps, this is true of the US too. In recent years, more money goes for PR efforts through audio-visual media such as film and television and illustrated print media aimed at women. Nowadays, press conferences, facility visits, house journals, photography, entertainment and the commissioning of special material for the radio and television (sponsored programmes, for example) and above all the Internet gobble up the bulk of the budget for PR in most organizations. Bernays’ clients included Procter and Gamble, General Motors, American Tobacco Company (ATC) and several such big corporations. During his long life, Bernays was fortunate to see the need for re-defining PR based on his long innings in the field. As indicated before, he redefined PR as—‘a process which gives ethical advice based on research findings, for helping clients achieve their social goals’. This definition is quite apt for India and other developing countries that are trying to modernize their economic and social systems in the light of liberalization, privatization and globalization, the three buzz words that continue to inspire many industrialists and business persons. All these three concepts are basically good. One has to think globally these days and act locally, but the local action must be in tune with the basic needs of the local people, especially to avoid cases like Singurs and Nandigrams. India has had a long history of privatization, although basic industries and the banks were nationalized. Rumours float around that more financial institutions are going to be privatized. Other rumours are—banks nationalized during former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s time will be de-nationalized and privatized; steel companies started as basic national industries will be privatized; the railways, the largest employer in India will be privatized; all the universities will be run by private agencies and in collaboration with foreign universities under the direction of Harvard, Yale and other Ivy League institutions of the US, or under the direction of Oxford, Cambridge, etc., of the UK; Japanese and German manufacturers will take over Indian companies, etc. In short, India will be taken over by huge corporations and


institutions of the world leading to another century or so of foreign subjugation as a result of globalization—the rumour goes. All these fears are misplaced. Indian leaders are equal to leaders of the developed nations, in intelligence, education and training. When the US and Europe are reeling under the effects of the global meltdown in financial stability, India is performing so well that she has gained in stature and is earning kudos from the developed nations. There are critics of globalization and privatization. There are political parties that believe that India ought to embark on development projects in the spirit of laissez faire that will ultimately help the 340-odd million of the absolutely poor to overcome their misery and enter the path of dignified living. It is true that the basic needs of this absolutely poor section of the country have not been met so far. But our scientists will soon succeed in applying their brilliant achievements in space science and technology, telecommunications, atomic science and medicine to put to use in solving the problems of the poor. One of our recent presidents expressed that hope, and rightly so, that ‘our three-way fast lane of liberalization, privatization and globalization’ would provide safe pedestrian crossings for the un-empowered in India.

India Has a Big PR Problem Despite all these hopes and aspirations, we have to admit that India, as a nation, has a big PR problem. On the one hand, there is a great deal of enthusiasm for computerization, information technology, telecommunications, space and atomic science. Much has been achieved by the country’s scientists and technologists in these areas in the past two decades, but when it comes to the very basic needs of a huge population and the general health and well-being of the majority of about one billion people, we are still far behind other nations, as shown in UN, World Bank, IMF and other international as well as national statistical documents published annually. Our science seems to gallop like a race horse while our sociology is limping like a wounded donkey with a heavy burden of the past on its back.

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Bernays’ 1985 definition of PR was made in relation to the 20th century US experience. But Indian PR professionals must give serious thought to it and venture to give ethical advice to policy makers about the big gap between the haves and the have-nots, between those who are literate and those who are illiterate; between those who have access to clean drinking water and those who are destined to be satisfied with muddied, filthy and unhealthy water; between those who have some access to water and those who have no water at all; between those who use water copiously for watering their lawns or for preparing aerated water and those who struggle daily for some water for cooking a meal; between those who have pucca dwellings and those who have to huddle with dozens of others in slums or unfinished tenements abandoned by contractors in the town or those who have to take shelter under the open sky. According to the government’s own statistics, some 830 million people live on less than `20 a day. When will this situation change? This question is a very big challenge to PR in India in the 21st century. Most organizations in India have not yet recognized this as their social responsibility. PR managers and officers are not given a higher position in the organization charts of big and small companies in India. Some American, British, European, Canadian companies give the PR manager or vice-president-PR a higher status in their organization charts.

Public Opinion Research Both the public opinion research outfits and sales promotion organizations came under PR in the US from the 1930s. George Gallup, Elmo Roper, Claude Robinson and others started the practice of measuring public opinion in a social scientific manner in the 20th century. Their studies, research, surveys and opinion polls became helpful to politicians, big business magnates, social leaders and everyone who headed projects of importance for citizens. The product that is promoted in India today with great verve and enthusiasm through reality shows is the mobile phone. Citizens are encouraged to phone-in their views on who is the best singer, actor, dancer, mimic, among adult, adolescent and child contestants. Communication through the cell phone is utilized by willing citizens (in their hundreds of thousands) to promote the revenue of Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 69

sponsors and the media. This can be willingly done by those who have plenty of spare money, black or white. Nobody seems to see any oddity in this promotion of extravaganza in a country where 830 million people have a hand-to-mouth existence. At the latest count, there are 600-odd million mobile phones in India. During national elections, several public opinion research groups become active not only in the US but in India too. Pre-election surveys and newspaper reports have come under a cloud these days, especially following the revelations in 2009 about the practise of some media, particularly newspapers and television, publishing features and reports for monetary considerations. The media are a big phenomenon in India now. Further, to mislead the people without any qualms about the objectives and ethics of true journalism was not considered a serious crime against the nation. It was not uncommon among the media in the 2009 elections to use this new practice, which the media themselves call euphemistically, ‘paid news’. Unfortunately, it is not just paid news, it is untrue news, sponsored news, misleading news or unethical news, dictated news, news not dedicated to the truth. Let us face the truth and call a spade a spade, instead of trying to skirt the issue. Journalists and media proprietors are willing to sell their souls in order to make a fast buck. How can we trust the media anymore? Readers are invited to the several news reports about the presentation of such non-news as news, particularly the practice of presenting advertisements as news in the second half of 2009, the practice having been detected during the general elections conducted in April/May that year, but probably carried on by greedy media for several years. It is gratifying that the Editors, Guild of India strongly condemned the practice, which it pointed out, ‘whittled down the foundations of Indian journalism’. This condemnation was highlighted in The Hindu and other leading newspapers of India nearly six months after its first detection in the months following the general elections. In addition to a detailed front page report by Anita Joshua (2009) it carried a long feature by Magsaysay Award Winner P. Sainath on the editorial page, entitled, ‘It is Shameful to Misguide People’. Sainath (2009) said, ‘Well-known PR firms, professional designers, and ad agencies served the richer parties and candidates. They made up “news items” in the standard fonts and sizes of the desired newspapers and even “customized” the items to make them seem exclusive in different publications’. 70â•…


The whole issue deserves further probing by the Press Council of India or a much-needed Third Press (Media) Commission to be set up in a year or two. Many of the top functionaries of the Editors’ Guild also happen to be media persons who probably missed some of their own colleagues doing the biddings of crafty politicians, weighty business persons and government functionaries with absolute negligence (feigned or deliberate) of journalistic ethics. The whole matter assumed heavy importance when Parliament was paralyzed by the opposition for several weeks in November–December 2010, demanding the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the corruption alleged in the allocation of the 2-G Spectrum case. News was presented in many newspapers in English, Hindi, Marathi and other languages in such a way that readers could not detect that they were simply advertisements. ‘Everything—layouts, fonts, and print-outs, and even the bad pictures came from the candidates’ and their promoters. Chief editors, senior reporters and others connected with some outstanding newspapers such as Sakaal, Navbharat and Deshonnati were involved in this malpractice. They could offer no excuse for their misconduct other than perhaps their owners’ oral instructions. Journalists and activists from the districts sent over a hundred issues of 21 different newspapers to Sainath and his team of investigators. Paid news has become so notorious that people have lost faith in newspapers and other media. No wonder the media established in the April–May 2009 general elections that there were no issues at all, except the personal achievements of candidates who paid heavily to the media management through ads, reports, etc. Names of the non-paying candidates were sparingly mentioned or not mentioned at all. Here was unethical journalism at its best (or worst?); and this was PR too at its worst! Market research is also common in India. University departments of communication, mass communication, journalism, media studies, etc., several press institutes, press academies, the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi and PR departments of various state governments undertake public opinion research at the time of launching new products, projects or development-oriented activities. Large commercial firms conduct such assessment of public opinion and market research to determine people’s preference for certain types of consumer items. Media research organizations conduct public Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 71

opinion surveys when new TV or radio programmes are launched. In all such research, PR departments and PR personnel take an active role. One can conclude that the PR of early and late 20th century acquired new tasks and responsibilities. But the concern among citizens is whether PR personnel are likely to mislead the people by cooking up the results of political surveys and public opinion polls. PR should not create suspicion in the minds of the citizens. Are PR agencies and personnel manipulating the minds of the citizens? However, we cannot ignore the role played by public opinion research (POR) and its role in PR. Let us have a quick glance at it here.

The ‘Persuasive Arts’ Advertising and public relations are ‘persuasive arts’ that are changing both modern media and politics, a fact pointed out as early as 1972 by John Tebbel, Professor at the New York University. While discussing the ferment in the persuasive arts, ‘Broadcasting’s Hidden Power: The TV-Radio Reps’, he points out the far-reaching influence of the TV and radio sales representatives working in the commercial wings of these media. They exert great impact on programming by determining when and what programmes will be broadcast or telecast. The public have to be watchful of the commercial influence on programme content and media’s social responsibility, particularly when unholy alliances between media managers and political manipulators collude in programming activities. Programmes are so devised by vested interests as if they look like programmes meant for upholding the interests of society but in reality protecting, promoting and preserving the commercial interests and profit motives of the sponsors, media managers and political manipulators. The late Herbert I. Schiller, well-known American professor of mass communication was also worried about such unholy alliances.1 The worldwide economic influence of the big advertising and PR agencies as well as the market research and public opinion research outfits of the world on developing countries in Africa, Latin America, South and South-east Asia does not end with economics but extends to the ‘business of culture, and the culture of business’, according to Schiller. Global advertising, public relations and public opinion research manipulate the 72â•…


minds of the opinion leaders (politicians, decision-makers in the central, state and local self-governments, religious leaders and academics) in an unobtrusive manner to the extent possible and if necessary through secret means) by professional image-makers in rich countries and business corporations. When this is combined cleverly with media programming (entertainment and news), the result is deadly. The study of media contents (in column centimetres in newspapers and in seconds/minutes in radio and television) will reveal how much of the contents originates from PR offices of corporations and from PR agencies. National and international media users are getting considerable numbers of planted stories in different types of media, without the media being aware of it. Schiller refers to a Business Week (US) study, the results of which showed that three out of four companies had fed news material to the media nationally and internationally—business news favourable naturally to the corporations rather than to the people of the receiving countries. The long and the short of it is that from the time that media has grown into huge conglomerates, large business behemoths, the practice of PR agencies and public opinion research firms getting into the business of manipulating the media started. Currently, the practice is alive in national and local media, although we have to be aware also of the international manipulation of national media.

PR Institutions in India: PRSI and PRCI The Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) was established in the 1950s. Mumbai had the first chapter in 1957 and gradually, chapters came up in Calcutta, New Delhi and Madras. The Mumbai chapter was first established under the title of National Association of PR practitioners, with the objective of promoting the recognition of PR as a profession and to formulate and interpret to the public the objectives and potentialities of the profession. PR had also aimed at promoting the public image for high-profile people, commercial business organizations, non-profitoriented programmes. Functions of PR in India, according to the stated objectives of the PRSI related to communication, community relations, crisis management, customer relations, government affairs, industry relations, investor relations, media relations, mediation, publicity, speech-writing and Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 73

visitor relations. These objectives are not different from PR objectives upheld worldwide, but there is no specific reference to the socioeconomic and political environments in poor countries. PRSI, PRCI (Public Relations Council of India) and other organizations have not yet seen the need for looking at PR as a serious discipline deeply intertwined with the progress of national development. They are seeing it as a management tool for the promotion of the name and prestige of business and business people and their stress on professionalism and national awards takes away the potentialities of PR professionals in changing the attitudes of government and private company officials towards the public. PR without any proper understanding of the priorities of a nation and its people is either making a lot of meaningless noise or insincerely promoting images of the top brass in the organization chart. A look at the image of the country itself in international circles will convince anyone of the shallowness of current professional objectives. PR practitioners have to conscientize the top brasses in their organizations about the need for improving the images of their country as a whole rather than the images of their bosses. Look at the socio-economic level of India in UN, UNESCO, World Bank and IMF documents and statistics and reflect on the causes for the absolutely pitiable image of the country during the past two decades. As said before, PR, like charity, begins at home.

Responsibilities of PR in 21st Century India Literature on the history of PR indicates that conventional PR has three major tasks to fulfil although they are not fully performed by PR agencies or PR Departments and their personnel. 1. Advise management according to the needs of the socio-economic, political and human situation in which the company or organization functions. 2. Help management to establish policies for the promotion of good relations between the organization and its various publics; and 3. Prepare and reach the information about the policies, services and products of the organization to its publics—both internal as 74â•…


well as external—that ought to receive such information. Most of the communication activities are directed at the employees, customers, government departments, media personnel and the citizens in general. An organization or company’s private aims and public welfare must coincide and PR must help in spreading the appropriate information among its internal and external publics. The organization has to explain through appropriate PR tools how its private goals are helpful in fulfilling the basic interests of society. If the company’s aims are different from those of the society, PR may fail even if the most sophisticated ideas and tools are utilized by it (Kemp, 1973). One cannot ignore the influence of lobby groups in many countries, particularly in the capitals of countries—Washington DC, London, Tokyo, New Delhi, to cite a few examples—to influence government policies and public opinion. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee in the US (AIPAC), which influences American foreign policy has its lobbying groups in Washington DC. When a lobby group hides its real purpose, it is called a front or a front group. Governments may also hire PR agencies to sway public opinion to its favor. Corporations may hire in addition to their own PR personnel, PR agencies to liaise with the media and public/social groups to influence public opinion for promoting a new product or for gaining support for an already launched product or idea. These are the realities of PR in the world which has its influences on PR in India. We have to look at PR studies from this background. But lobby groups are functioning in India too as evidenced by the case filed by Ratan Tata in the Supreme Court of India regarding the taping of his conversation with a lobbyist in New Delhi, named Niira Radia.

Review of Recent Literature and Conclusions Activities of modern PR are helpful in gaining goodwill for the organizations but they are not entirely free from undesirable acts that damage the reputation of individuals in private and government organizations through promotion of untruths about individuals and groups. But one has to be wary of such abuses taking place in the media Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 75

and business world and proceed with the hope that the basics of good PR will survive this temporary setback and become highly useful in building bridges of understanding between the corporate institutions and their publics. We in the modern world need an integrated, strategic management perspective and for that what we need is corporate communication linked essentially to the workings of the top management in an organization. It is not simple PR that we need for fulfilling this new demand. The new perspective must be a unified, highly integrated function. As Belasen (2007) has said, we must consider corporate communications as a means to unify the external image with internal identity, promote relations with the different publics of the corporation— investors, government, employees, clients, customers and the general public with social responsibility. Or, as Bahl says, answer the 5Ws and H of the journalism practitioners—why and for whom, and for what a corporation exists, how and when it should act responsively and responsibly for the benefit of the community where it operates (Bahl, 1996). Books and magazines are full of horror stories of business irresponsibility. There are stories of greed and incompetence of corporate leaders. Union Carbide before coming to Bhopal and committing the world’s greatest industrial horror had a history of irresponsible performance in Vienna, West Virginia. If only the government of India knew the past history of Union Carbide before it allowed the company to establish a unit in Bhopal, the large number of deaths in Bhopal from exposure to Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) (more than 20,000 dead and 500,000 injured and cases of debility) the poisonous gas that seeped not only into the lungs of the dead, but continues to poison the living and working environment of thousands in the area even today, some 26 years after the accident that occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984, could be averted (ARENA, 1985). No amount of PR can avoid such occurrences unless the leaders that collaborate with the far off companies check the antecedents of the collaborator. But when well-meaning promoters in poor countries are in a hurry to develop, they simply ignore the accident-proneness of certain industries and the hazards of locating them in highly populated citycentres. In the name of job-generation and reduction of unemployment, can the poor, developing countries ignore these vital safety aspects? 76â•…


Big Business and the Aam Aadmi Should businessmen stick simply to making profits? Or, should they also do something socially significant to bridge the gap between the industrialists and the aam aadmi? Should PR be socially motivated, society-oriented and should it advise top managements regarding social responsibilities? The author’s belief is that PR should help managements and the public to realize their respective social responsibilities and that the tools of PR should all be re-designed with a social purpose. Companies should realize their social goals and PR should act as the management wing to realize those goals, using effective tools to bring the companies’ publics as well as the general public closer to management. Governments, particularly in developing nations, take action to better the condition of the poor, but their action is ‘half-hearted, limited severely by funding and favouritism. Their well-meant “do-good” actions fail in making a dent on heavy social problems’ as pointed out by Drucker (1974). There are two fundamental problems in poor societies or societies having a very large number of poor people and the two problems are deeply inter-connected, viz. low wages of the employed and the high rate of unemployment. PR has to address this fundamental problem in poor societies like India’s which are pluralist. It should strive to find solutions to these central problems. In fact, these are not twin problems, but a single problem, namely, employers’ unwillingness to recognize the depth of poverty in this land of 100-odd millionaires and half a dozen billionaires, at the latest count. India is not a totalitarian society but its top managers sometimes behave in a totalitarian way and they compel the government to discard democratic methods of persuasion so that some governmental actions ultimately benefit the already affluent and harm the poor, the illiterate and the unemployed. Managements of all major organizations, including government, quasi-government and wholly private enterprises need to concern themselves with the serious ills of society. As mentioned earlier, managers in this society are the leaders but what we find in India is that managements of both private and public enterprises tend to abandon their social responsibility. Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 77

Moreover, multinational corporations that operate freely in poor societies have to work out a relationship with local/national governments taking into account the severe problems faced by the local people. Recently, the government of Kerala tried its best for more than a year to come to some workable collaboration with the TECOM company operating from the Gulf, but the efforts have not succeeded. The government of Kerala says that TECOM is making unreasonable demands, for example, the right to sell the free land allotted by government whenever the company chooses. No amount of public relations on either side may bring about an agreement between the government and the collaborating company because questions of national pride intervene. Similarly, special economic zones (SEZs) contemplated or concluded in several states of India with multinationals may cause (have already caused) serious problems between local governments and the people whom they want to serve. Local beings’ human rights are likely to be trampled upon by the multinationals, it is feared. PR personnel have to conduct local surveys and advise local governments and people about the results of the survey, even if the results are contrary to expectations. When SEZs abandon their social responsibility and become fortified as islands of prosperity in a sea of misery, the local people become arch enemies of MNCs and ONCs (Own Nation’s Companies). Local governments are forced to shoot at their own people, as it happened in Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal a couple of years ago. Are the special educational services imported from abroad likely to cause friction and disenchantment among the local people? If so, what has to be done to create a favourable climate for heightening the relevance of foreign education institutions? PR in university education circles as well as government must direct its attention to these basic problems that are currently vexing the educational experts and departments in the country. What are the real priorities of the nation? This question is of relevance now because of the recent education bills passed in parliament. Can government PR do something about this to turn public opinion favourable to the government? There have been unprecedented improvements in the pay and benefits of a very large section of private and public (government) employees during the past 10 years. But there has not been any attention on the improvement of minimum wages for the millions of daily wage 78â•…


labourers who are still getting `5 or maximum `10.50 per hour. This is a deplorable situation in the 21st century India where prices of everyday commodities have registered an increase of 50 to 100 per cent during the past three years. Can people simply forget that their own representatives in parliament voted unanimously (some with their silence) to raise their own total remuneration to almost `100,000 per month (of 20 or 25 days, that is when Parliament is in session this works out to `500 an hour assuming that an MP works eight hours a day like the hapless workers in industry and agriculture and get a measly `120 a day (`15 or `16 an hour). In many states of India the non-NREGS worker gets much less than this. Vivek Pinto (1998) has discussed the problem of low wages for agricultural workers. Pinto raises the fundamental question—can Gandhi’s moral and ethical principles serve as a basis for establishing a harmonious, poverty-free, non-violent and self-reliant society? The book provides a moral framework for transforming Indian agriculture and society at large to meet the human needs of India’s poor. Agricultural and related issues cannot be viewed in isolation from basic moral and human values, Pinto asserts, but the question is—can PR executives draw any lesson from this line of thinking in a globalized world of business? Similarly, Fernandez (2004) discusses details of corporate communication in the knowledge era and stresses the need for understanding and evolving PR strategies using traditional and new media and even using philanthropy as a tool for corporate communication. But is there a better method to improve the dignity of Indian workers, bent and bowed nationally by very low wages and treated shabbily as human beings, other than improving their daily or hourly wages which is their due? Communication that succeeds is commitment to raising the pitiable remuneration being paid to the farm and factory workers who still receive a pittance of `10 per hour, that is, whenever they are employed. Workers in India are exhorted in the 21st century to receive wages at the late 19th century levels. Why is this not considered a legitimate reason for the low purchasing power of Indian workers? Are public relations and human resources personnel unaware of the low daily-wage rates existing in India? Mohan Thite of the Griffith University, Brisbane, discusses ideas that persuade people to unlock their knowledge power and he talks about the knowledge economy, human relations and knowledge management. Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 79

Although the foundation of people-centric culture gets attention in his work, he has very little to say about the existence of absolutely pitiable wages of the large majority of non-knowledge workers who too are important contributors to the 21st century economy (Thite, 2004). He has nothing to say about the poor, illiterate half of India whose plight has not made any great improvement through India’s past 11th Five-Year plans. Theaker (2001) of the UK Institute of PR traces the history and development of PR, exploring also the ethical issues connected with politics, lobbying and journalism. Daymon and Holloway (2002), both at Bournemouth University in the UK, examine research methods in PR and marketing communications and point out the essential connection among research in various branches of communication—advertising, marketing, media relations, promotions, employee communications, public affairs and other forms of management communication. But there is no mention of the practice of paying low wages for workers in developing countries and the effects of that on workers’ performance, physique and physical well-being, and psychological satisfactions. Civil society in India can improve only when its base is strengthened. The base of any society is the agricultural and industrial workers, but they are all underpaid and their purchasing power is quite low. The deprived are not making more than `50 on an average working day, either in wages or salary, but they form the majority of the voting population in any election. As mentioned elsewhere, about 830 million of the 1,003 million people in India are ‘enjoying’ the daily income of `20 (equivalent to less than half-a-dollar). They vote hoping to get a better situation in life, but their governors—the very people whom they elect—while voting in Parliament for their own pay-hike and better emoluments and perquisites, totally forget their electors most of whom are paid not even `25 an hour for most of the hard work—agricultural or industrial—they perform. What social movement in India is pleading their case or cause? As mentioned by Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, recently, poverty is not declining fast enough since ‘Much more needs to be done to improve the living standards of the poor’ (Singh, 2009). He said that in order to achieve our objective of fast inclusive growth, 80â•…


the economy had to grow fast enough to create new job opportunities at a rate faster than the growth of the labour force. ‘To achieve our objective of inclusive growth, we need to pay much greater attention to education, health care, and rural development focussing on the needs of the poor’. Will foreign universities and health care plans, insurance and investment of national pension funds in private international schemes help? Do public and private PR personnel have something to say about these vital financial matters affecting the future of the large majority of India’s population? Even with the best external relations and leadership that promote genuine internal public relations, a company may face unexpected problems with its employees. These are mostly employees’ own making, but the company has to be aware of them and take some remedial actions to help the employees to the best extent possible, and in that process help the company itself, if not immediately, at least within a month or two. We are referring here to some common diseases among employees, both, management staff and workers—workaholism, money mania, alcoholism, drug addiction and the accidents at the workplace caused because of these characterological problems and frequent absenteeism and quarrels with fellow workers and supervisors. Lack of skill in adjusting to unexpected personal problems and imbalances between professional and private life can also create several problems at the work-spot. Sometimes leaders in the factory or business environment, that is, persons holding managerial positions, do not try to understand the employees who face severe adjustment problems, particularly family problems; instead, they try to correct the situation through some authoritarian steps such as issuing oral and written warnings, summoning to censure meetings and taking punitive actions such as suspension. Such authoritarian measures may not lead to any remarkable improvements in the employees’ behaviour and performance. Perhaps counselling in informal settings first, and then if necessary more formal settings, with the help of psychologists trained in personnel management counselling will be needed. Internal PR has to be improved through such methods. It is not just PR in the business world that we are discussing here. We are looking at what PR of all organizations in India should really Growth and Development of Modern PRâ•… lâ•… 81

be concerned about. Although there are people who point out that the problems confronting PR in India are not to be brushed aside lightly, it is good to remember that India along with China and a few other developing countries is offering signs of positive growth statistics. But we cannot forget that there are danger signals—inflation, price rise and scarcity of vital ingredients of development, including unsettlement of political and administrative problems. Statistical growth has to be translated into steps that lead to the smooth transition from poverty to prosperity for all, peace in all sectors and the success of democracy. Other writers may not approach PR from this angle. With an overall perspective of the role of PR, let us go to the nuts and bolts of PR writing to improve the performance of PR personnel in the private as well as public sectors in India. In two chapters we gave the conceptual framework for PR in India, the history of PR and the need for elevating PR to the top management in the organization chart and the social responsibility of the top managers including PR managers. In the following chapters we shall deal with the tools of PR—for internal as well as external organs; handling audio-visual media; leadership qualities of PR personnel. Chapters 6 and 7 will deal with internal PR and external PR, respectively and the skill in time management all professionals, especially PR managers must possess. Chapter 8 will deal with international communication, including satellite communication. The last chapter discusses cross cultural communication and its relevance in this era of globalization.

Note 1. Readers are invited to go through Emery and Smythe (1972). The problem was detected and discussed by the academics and media professionals in the US as early as 1970, but it is very much alive in India in the 21st century.

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3 twentieth century Corporate PR and PR Writing As Dilenschneider and Forrestal (1984) said two decades ago, modern PR is a product of the 20th century and it had its origins in the early part of the century. We may add three more names to the ones that supplied concepts of PR—Pendleton Dudley, John Hill and Carl Byoir who also belonged to the publicity or company publicity era, that is, before the term, public relations came into common parlance. Like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, they made good use of the newspaper for corporate publicity. All of them were newspaper correspondents and writing for the press was their major tool of communication. They were either newspapermen or editors of industrial or business/trade publications, although John W. Hill, the founder of Hill and Knowlton (H&K), a big PR firm now, also wrote like Bernays, a seminal book, The Making of a Public Relations Man. Hill (1993) wrote in his book that one of the primary duties of a PR man was to ‘handle news about industrial companies, most of whose officials had no use for newspaper reporters and no desire to give any news. Those who had news to report did it with incredible ineptitude. It was clear to me then that most companies had need for help in the area of press relations’.

Hill believed that the essence of PR was ‘better communication’ with the media. He was president and CEO of H&K, a PR agency that shot into prominence from 1953 onwards because it was hired by the American Tobacco Industry to stop the propaganda techniques employed by the media, particularly, newspapers in mid-20th century and to counter the campaign against smoking. The tobacco industry had to face serious scientific data that suggested a strong correlation between lung cancer and cigarette smoking. Although he had faith in the media, Hill did not have a great deal of faith in the media-men—the newspaper and television correspondents. He had cultivated close relationships with the media since the 1930s and Hill and Knowlton had also worked with the liquor and chemical industries, areas where the health risks of products had emerged as issues in the past. Whenever government agencies pointed out the hazardous effects of tobacco and other products made by big businesses, Hill countered through his PR company all allegations against big business. His client-list included steel, oil and aircraft industries. H&K employed the following PR tactics under John Hill’s direction. They started a major tobacco-industry campaign where all the major cigarette manufacturers such as R.J. Reynolds sponsored medical research on lung cancer to establish whether there was any definite connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Persistent dissemination of news that existing studies indicating such connection were incomplete and inconclusive, and therefore fresh research was necessary. ‘There was more to know’ and the tobacco industry was to become a committed participant in nationwide scientific research. It was necessary to maintain vigorous control over the research programme to make it a vital part of science in the service of the public (public relations). A cigarette information committee of the tobacco industry, dedicated to defending smokers against all media findings (‘Smoking was the right of every free citizen’) was found. Other strategies used by John Hill, Reynolds, or Hill and Knowlton are listed below: 1. The tobacco industry should embrace science instead of dismissing it. 2. It should conduct ‘collective research’ instead of indulging in research to prove that one brand was safer than another. 84â•…


3. It should pursue one and the same policy—a unified front on smoking and health. (Actually, this unified policy continued uninterrupted from 1954 to 2003.) 4. Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) was formed by Hill and Knowlton. 5. No flamboyant campaign against anti-smoking activities, activists and propagandists was carried out, but moral valence of science in American culture was supported—protects science at all costs from the threat posed by the media on scientific grounds. 6. ‘A Frank Statement to Smokers’ was drafted by H&K and published as an advertisement in 448 newspapers in 258 cities on 4 January 1954. This advertisement and the establishment of the TIRC would calm the crisis, the industry hoped. H&K’s writing expertise—whatever be the cause—is worthy of our admiration and John W. Hill’s skill in presenting ideas in an effective manner is really worthy emulation. One may disagree with his views but cannot but admire the manner in which he shaped and presented his ideas and his tactics. Without taking sides, non-smokers have to admit that these tactics worked for almost 50 years. Meanwhile, medical research and its results established with unambiguous proof that smoking is dangerous to health, especially to the tender lungs of young men, women and adolescents (really speaking, adolescents are just children under 18 years of age). But there is considerable awareness now about the dangers of smoking. The tobacco industry in India is now diversifying into other products such as soap, hospitality and hotel services. John Hill’s resentment against newspaper and television reporters was not shared by other public relations experts. They continued using the media, particularly newspaper columns and magazines and from 1960 onwards, they used television channels for pro-active and reactive purposes.

Media Relations: A Significant Aspect of PR We know that PR came to be practised as a profession in a significant way only from the second half of the 20th century. Of course we have seen in Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 85

the earlier chapters of this book how PR has been practised from ancient times. We can say that people living together in any community, ancient or modern, or working together in communities, and in fact, for everyone and for every society, there will be strings or webs of relationships that bind them together in many common activities. The goodwill of the public is absolutely essential for every organization, and the goodwill of our neighbours is essential for every one of us. For building bridges between communities and people, some activity of public or individual relations is necessary. However, in a large community, mutual understanding and relationship become difficult because the time a community or individual can set apart for contacting others is limited. In a modern society, the time at our disposal becomes extremely limited and public means of communication—either through printed means or broadcast/telecast means, news of common interest and importance can be quickly passed from a person to a group of persons or from one community/group to another community/group with similar interests. The media of public communication become important in modern styles of living. There was a time when people in general lived a more leisurely life. In today’s busy environment, there is the need to set apart special time and occasion for work and entertainment. But for all citizens to derive the benefit of work and leisure, their government has to evolve policies and instruments that make it possible. A central organization has to evolve public policies and programmes that permit the citizens to get the information they need instead of guessing about many things or seeking the information from the nextdoor neighbour. Such gathering of information is time-consuming, liable to mislead, carelessly presented and even forgotten by the informationgiver because of the lack of time or convenience. Public means of communication becomes inevitable in modern society. Look at what we do every day to gather information, receive news of general use, information that we ought to have. In cold regions, the inmates of a house, particularly, the school- or college-going children, or adults who have to travel a long distance to work or shop, listen to the radio early morning to learn about the temperature, the weather conditions, traffic bottlenecks and so on. This is particularly true of families living in the western countries. Persons have to choose their 86â•…


clothes according to the weather—if it is extremely cold, one has to bundle up to face the cold winds. The heaviness of the clothes depends on the weather and one has to wear clothes according to the weather conditions. Moreover, on certain days, one has to carry the umbrella, or wear special shoes to protect oneself from the rain. We do not check the weather every morning with the meteorological department. The medium for giving this information is either the radio or television (newspapers are not read very early in the morning, especially in rural areas.) For practical reasons, the radio (even a battery-operated, portable transistor you can put in your pocket) is the ideal medium for checking the weather in any part of the country. But in most parts of India, this weather check is not very essential because variations are found only in the northern region, especially in areas closer to the Himalayas and hill stations, or mostly in the autumn and winter seasons. Those in the south who listen to weather bulletins as an essential part of the hourly newscasts on the radio, will find that the weather is mostly the same every day, although there will be some heavy rains during the monsoon months. But for these changes, the weather in the south is, according to some, mostly the same, with variations in the degrees of intensity—hot, hotter, hottest. People in Western countries receive from the car radio or pocket radio while they are moving around, data regarding frequent changes in the conditions of the roads, particularly in winter, because some roads will be closed for traffic on account of heavy snowfall. There are many such examples where public means of communication becomes inevitable. There are so many broadcast channels (both radio and TV) that are wholly devoted to news, weather, music, etc. Here in our states and big cities, we have new FM radio channels—FM, DD channels of Prasar Bhaarati, Radio Mirchi, Radio Mango, etc. The BBC, CNN and other 24-hour news channels in the UK, US, India and many other countries have weather bulletins not only of use to the people of those countries but people globally—mostly for local people and the national travellers and globe-trotters. For us it is important to recognize that writing for all the media is an essential part of the training for candidates aiming to graduate in media studies. We start with writing for the newspapers first. Skill in writing Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 87

for all the media is important because we live in a multimedia world, although priority will be decided in individual countries and their media use. Let us first discuss how the media of public communication are important for PR people. What draws people together—the targets of PR everywhere—is a common cause. Suppose there are some flash floods or bad road conditions. If you get the information before hand, you can try alternative routes to your destination. Public communication of events and issues is helpful to the public in many ways. Similarly, public understanding and approval will be helpful to the citizens in general. If there is a big jaatha in your neighbourhood, information about it given in advance will help you to plan your travel route accordingly because the jaatha may take a few hours and prevent your own driving, bus journey or even easy walking. Information received from the newspaper, radio or television may come to your help. You can either take a different route or request your supervisor for a two-hour leave of absence. You never know when public information becomes highly useful. Since PR’s primary duty is to give information to, as well as get information from, the various publics of the organization, it has to use the media of public information—all the media which are dependable and particularly those media that are favourable to your organization. Remember, one of our aims is to influence public opinion. There is definitely nothing wrong in influencing public opinion for the right reasons—it is not to mislead people with the wrong information; or to influence the public unduly and put down the competitors; it is not to be used for propaganda, however much the financial wizards in your organization may plead for it. Public opinion is the ultimate power in a free, democratic society but it should not be gathered through unfair means. Ethical considerations are essential. As the old saying goes, ‘you can fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time’. We have already seen how paid news is unethical; free write-ups obtained through foul means are also unethical. For example, many companies spend substantial amounts of money during pooja, Dusserah, Onam, Bakr Id (Ramadan), Deewali and Christmas and Easter for decoration, gifts of various kinds including sumptuous dinners in posh hotels to influence 88â•…


people in powerful positions. There are some organizations that spend little or no money for this purpose. What would be the right decision? Spending money for greeting cards is not unethical; giving gifts of a diary or calendar cannot be faulted. These expenses are justified and considered harmless, no doubt. But spending huge amounts of money for pleasing key people, building a home in the hills for the family of a government decision-maker and writing it off as season’s gift could be interpreted as bribing in kind. There is no justification for it. Corrupting some through such costly gifts is a sin against humanity, particularly in a country of many millions of homed or homeless poor. Propriety and honesty are essential in PR. Sometimes foreign and domestic tours including costly air-travel are arranged for the families of government officials. These days, the pay-scales in governments, both state and central, are reasonably high and quite sufficient for a fairly comfortable (and honest) life. In pre-globalization (pre-g) days, there was at least some rationalization possible for bribe-taking but not anymore. However, corruption is rampant in India. There seems to be no end to people’s criminal ambitions. PR should never succumb to such temptations. Instead, PR should work against corruption at all levels.

Advertising, PR and Publicity These are interconnected but very different while standing alone. Advertising is paid publicity. Publicity is free. PR is related to the other two, though different. PR ought to be conducted at the policy level since it is part of the management function. Advertising can be organized by a department that arranges the ad matter in consultation with other departments of an organization, either executed through direct media relations or through an advertising agency, payment for space in print media or time in the broadcast/telecast media. Publicity is obtained free of cost through the press or media relations maintained by the company. Good publicity is obtained through good relations between the media and the company. Bad publicity ensues while the company does not rise up to the public’s expectations or when

Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 89

the media are turned against the company for several reasons including bad blood caused by the activities of either side. The responsibility of the PR department is to maintain close relations with the media and answer queries honestly and to the point when media personnel search for factual information about the company and its activities, particularly its annual meetings, board of directors’ meetings, profit-estimates, future expansion plans, etc. Free publicity results from the frequent or occasional contacts between the media representatives and the PR personnel. Whenever some new personnel of importance joins the company, or some new line of products is planned or produced on the pilot plant, the chairman or CEO of the company calls a press conference and satisfies the curiosity of the public through deft handling of the questions posed by the reporters/correspondents. Sometimes the CEO calls for a special meeting with the media people to give full details of the new products, diversification of the manufacturing process, blueprint of the company for the next year or two, export plans, collaborations with foreign companies, or when experts with new know-how and experience join the company. These meetings and conferences come under the domain of the PR personnel. It is they who contact the media representatives, special invitees (internal and external) and make all arrangements for the meetings. They also anticipate media questions and provide the CEO and other top officers with appropriate answers based on their prior consultations with the people concerned. They also make suitable arrangements for handouts to be given during or after the initial introductory remarks by the CEO. On certain occasions, the PR manager herself may have to address the gathering and make initial remarks followed by the CEO’s remarks. The PRO or PR manager can anticipate some questions from the media and prepare suitable answers that help the CEO or departmental heads to make appropriate remarks. Audio-visual media representatives, including photographers from different media outfits, television crews and others are also arranged by the PR personnel. Advance leg work is done by them so that everything moves at the precision of a clock and ends as expected. Sometimes

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totally unexpected things may happen at the meeting. For example, a cantankerous old shareholder may raise some questions about personnel policy of the company (having in mind his own grouse about the nonappointment of a distant relative of his as a supervisor), or a clever young man representing his father-in-law, a shareholder with five shares may raise a leading question about the games and sports policy of the company (knowing very well that the company does not have a games and sports division for any department). To all such questions, the CEO’s college-going son (who sits on the dais temporarily representing his father who has gone out of the conference hall to make an urgent call to London) has no clue as to what answer he should give. The PR manager rushes to his rescue and gives satisfactory answers to the questioners. But the PR person is above all a good writer, speaker and organizer; his or her skills in speaking and writing deserve special notice. There is a need for expertise in composing persuasive letters that are usually brief but at times, depending on the circumstances, explanatory enough to extend at the most to a couple of pages, speaking fluently in a pleasant manner on many topics to different audiences and adjusting to the needs of the audience. Skills are required in serving special requirements of the media of public communication (newspapers, radio and television), of being capable of planning and scheduling, organizing special programmes for the company including product exhibitions, sales promotion conferences, etc. But a good PR person refrains from influencing the public through paid news.

The Functions of a PR Manager PR functions relate to communication, community relations, crisis management, customer relations, government affairs, public affairs, opinion research, industrial relations, investor relations, media relations, mediation, publicity, ghost-writing for others, speechwriting for oneself and public speaking, attending promotional media programmes, reception to dignitaries, handling crises and crisis situations, social media communication and employee communication. The first world assembly of PR associations held in Mexico City in August 1978, defined the practice of PR as ‘the art and social science Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 91

of analyzing trends and predicting their consequences, counselling top leaders in the organization and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both the organization and the public interest’. Others define it as the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics. The functions of a PR manager will depend on how the organization defines PR. But as stated before, PR has to look at the national priorities and the issues of importance that the public in general face in a developing country. PR will not be meaningful if it confines itself to the needs of an organization’s internal and external publics; PR thought should transcend organizational issues and concern itself with the immediate needs of the large majority of the general population in a developing country since any long-term neglect of these needs and issues of the general populace will adversely affect the needs of the organization.

The PRSA The practice of PR is spreading widely. On the professional level, there is an organization called the PR Society of America (PRSA) that has been a leader in the field and an inspirer of national PR Societies in various countries including India. PRSA is the world’s largest PR organization. It has a community of more than 21,000 professionals working with great enthusiasm to advance the skills and performance of PR practitioners. It fosters a national student organization called PR Student Society of America (PRSSA). Students of PR in various colleges and universities get an opportunity to attend workshops and conferences and they maintain close contacts with fellow members who help one another with information on job opportunities and professional advancement, including the latest developments such as blogging, social networking and Internet.

PR and Publicity These two concepts are not synonymous but PR campaigns include activities that ensure publicity of the organization that promotes PR.

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Publicity is the free dissemination of advantageous and favourable information about a product, person, service, cause or organization.It is the result of effective PR planning including media relations. In more recent times, professions, organizations and individuals use technology as their main tool to ensure that their messages reach target audiences. Tools include surveys, research or the use of focus groups, social media such as blogging and other technology. But press releases, media kits, brochures, newsletters, annual reports—in short, anything designed to give shareholders, employees, customers and the general public essential information that will enhance their understanding about the company/organization and promote its image—are the tools employed in public relations and publicity. But more recently, social media are being greatly used to promote publicity and establish sound public relations. For example, blogging, Twittering, and Facebook use are the most used social tools of two-way communication, rather than newsletters, brochures and annual reports—conventional tools of communication that are one-way. However, even conventional tools have their use and place of importance. Newsletters, news releases, photographs with captions, copies of media clips and even data sheets and chatting on the Internet have their special importance in certain situations. Let us therefore have a quick glance over them too. First, the press releases.

Press Releases and PR Writing Although PR is different from publicity and advertising, the three disciplines are not entirely unconnected, as already indicated. Copywriters in agencies are sometimes requested by PR people to write press releases or material meant for the media to use whenever the latter are approached for publicity. The material to be used by the media is often prepared by the PR people, but sometimes their efforts can be bettered by professional copywriters trained in news-writing and PR-writing.


PR Writing by Copywriters Copywriters are used to do hard-sell persuasive writing but still, their years of experience in media or media-related work will make them competent to handle media writing too. Press releases are sent to editors of publications, not readers of advertising matter. Therefore, care has to be taken by the copywriters to write press releases with an eye on what appeals to the editors. Another important consideration is that the experienced copywriter can polish the company’s press releases in a style that appeals to the newspaper or magazine editor. Although the company and its PR people have no control over when the press release will appear and in what form—or whether it will appear at all—the company’s write-up is likely to receive full attention from the editor because he/she depends on the company for ad revenue. However, editors are more interested in the news value of the press release, the fresh information about the company’s performance and prospects. For this reason, the copywriter or whoever is responsible for the press release has to make it newsworthy. If the press release is just a replica of an annual report or a renewed version of a statement made by the CEO a couple of weeks prior to the present release, the editor may not take it up for publication with real enthusiasm. Therefore, it is important that the company’s press release always carries some idea that can be treated from the news angle. Otherwise the release will be just a ‘warmed over ad’ as Robert Bly (1985) would call it. ‘Editors really use press releases’, says Bly. This observation is based on a study done by Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) which revealed that 111 stories on the inside pages out of a total of 300 stories (more than 33 per cent) were taken from press releases verbatim or paraphrased. The editor or senior reporter put in some additional facts not contained in the original press release, only in some cases. This is a very important finding. Editors take nearly 40 per cent of press releases, re-write them at times and use them in their newspapers or magazines. We do not know how many television stories form

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verbatim reproductions (with visual matter) of original press releases but an educated guess is that like the newspaper, its younger cousin, television also uses about one-third of the press releases sent to the TV news editor. There are valid reasons for this heavy media dependence on press releases. 1. It is much easier for a newspaper to use a press release than sending one’s own reporters to a company, since few reporters in many newspapers go out for their regular beats which more often than not include police stations, courts, political party offices and scenes of crime or attack. The PR or communication departments of corporations may not figure in the list of daily beats. 2. The cost involved in sending a reporter to the scene of action will be much higher than the cost of using an already prepared press release. In the case of television, the cost is still higher because of the camera crew, the outdoor broadcasting vans (OB vans) or transmission from a distant point. 3. The prepared material can be attended to leisurely by the editor who can check the facts mentioned in the press release and in that process get more information from the companies concerned. 4. The companies also derive free publicity since the print media or broadcast media make use of the already prepared press release as fresh news report. 5. The members of the public have a built-in prejudice for printed or televised news; they have a similar time-old prejudice against printed ads and televised commercials. Publicity materials in the media are more credible as against ads. The members of the public do not have any idea about the nature of communication because they are totally unaware that sizeable quantities of news and information they receive—read, view or hear—are prepared before hand by people who have special interests in certain viewpoints and the media encourage the practice for monetary as well as functional advantages.


What is a Press Release? A press release is a computer-printed or mimeographed news story prepared by a company or an organization well in advance of the time of a special event, for distribution at a press conference or formal meeting, to the media for the purpose of publication through various media units. It highlights the achievements of a company at a particular time, or treats historically its growth and development, or its present status. It attracts the viewers, listeners and readers to the special features of the company’s products, services, performance, financial status, and the special activities of its personnel. Before distribution, the PR department has to make sure that the press release is given on a special letterhead with full address and telephone numbers of the company, name of the person to be contacted for further details, etc. All the names mentioned in the release should be given in full, with initials (Box 3.1). Box 3.1 A Sample Press Release

RENT & DRIVE LTD., 11/12 PERUVAZHI, Pond Walk, WAGAMON 680180, KERALA For immediate release In-house Contact: S.V.Velu, PRO August 29, 2010 Land Phone: 0495-295-5555 Cell: 994654321 Sub: Lecture by Dr N.N. Notty at the Annual All India Sales Conference Our Executive Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Dr Naalaankal Nina Notty will speak on Advanced Sales Techniques for Marketing Car Renting in Developing Countries, at Wagamon at 8 pm on Thursday, 19 September at our Annual All India Sales Conference held at the New Gourmets’ Hotel. The lecture will be followed by dinner. â•… Ms Notty is expected to base her 45-minute talk and slide-show on her recent trip to the United States and Canada; she spent two weeks at the Rent-A-Car Customer Service, Oklahoma City and its subsidiary, Omnimobile Autos in Ottawa, Canada. â•… How renting practices prevalent in Oklahoma City and Ottawa will be useful in boosting car renting in Okhla, New Delhi or Olasa, Kottayam, (Box 3.1 Continued )

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(Box 3.1 Continued )

Kerala (or any of the 50,000 small towns and city suburbs in India) will be explained by Ms Notty, an MBA from Howard University, Washington, DC. (Her Bachelor of Business Administration was from the Anandpur Women’s College, where she topped the BBA candidates’ list in 1999 and won the Gold Medal of the Telengana University given away every year to the highest ranking woman student of sales and marketing studies.) â•… Rent & Drive Ltd. has been receiving Ms Notty’s counsel and direction from 2005 onwards. She introduced new systems and practices in car renting soon after she joined the company. Her leadership qualities in marketing techniques have boosted our annual sales turnover from `1050 million in May 2005 to `10050 million in June 2010. The chairman, Dr Venkat’a Subramoniam, himself a Ph.D. in Marketing from Florida state university will preside. At a recent interview, Dr. Subramoniam had indicated to the media that despite the large number of cars plying on India’s roads, rented cars formed a measly two per cent. There was a clear possibility of augmenting it to at least 10 per cent in two years, he had said. And he was confident that Ms Notty would succeed in reaching that goal. â•… The meeting will be concluded with a Vote of Thanks from our PRO, Mr. Sinkaara Vati Velu. (About 300 words)

No company anticipates that its press release will be published in toto or verbatim by any newspaper editor. All editors look at the press release from the news angle. Will the Pond Walk Times publish the above release? Maybe it will, since there is a hook in it about increased turnover in 2009. Moreover, the company is an important all-India advertiser. Will the district newspaper cut any part of the release other than the vote of thanks part? It is doubtful, except perhaps the educational background of the chairman and Ms Notty. Remember what we have already said: Editors look for press releases containing news. Most probably, the editor of Pond Walk Times will use a different headline, a headline that highlights the news part in the first two seconds of reading.


Perhaps this press release is one of the shortest among all the 150 news releases the paper received that month. No newspaper ever publishes all the releases reaching it. Generally speaking, editors will not publish descriptive stories about products, services, or personalities unless the story carries something new, something of use to the readers. The first lesson a PR person must learn is that no publication will carry a press release that has no news interest to its readers. Your news release about your new product, Augean Cleaner, may not interest the readers of Popular Mechanics whose clients are more interested in automobile spare parts, race cars, etc. Thus the first lesson for PR managers is:

Choose the Right Medium Several writers on PR have given those items that can tickle the news nerve of editors. Some outstanding items are given below, categorized into four major divisions: 1. The Product: A new product; an old product with a new name; a product improvement, a new version or model; an old product available with new ingredients, packed in new containers, materials with new colours, or in new sizes; a new application of an old product; new accessories available for an old product. 2. Sales Promotion: The publication of new or revised sales literature—brochures, catalogues, data sheets, surveys, reports, reprints, booklets; a speech or presentation given by an executive; an expert opinion on any subject; a controversial issue, new sales personnel, including sales representatives, distributors, agents, special events such as a sale, annual sales conference, open house, plant tours arranged for the community, charitable acts or other community relations activities such as contests or lucky-dips. 3. Personnel: New employees; promotions within the firm; awards and honours won by the organization or its employees; original discoveries or innovations (such as patents); new branches and branch managers; unusual people, products, ways of doing business; case histories of successful personnel.

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4. Organization’s General Performance, Charitable Community Relations Activities, etc. Major contracts awarded to your firm; joint ventures, technical collaborations; management reorganizations; major achievements such as number of products sold, increase in sales, quarterly earnings, safety record; case histories of successful applications, installations, projects; ‘how to’ advice; change of company name, slogan, logo; opening of new business, etc. When editors want further details about the company or its activities, the PR manager can send a general brochure printed and kept ready for public use. The brochure can be sent along with the press release to new or old publications whose editors are new to the area. But do not send a bulky packet to editors; they are allergic to bulky packets! As far as possible send only the press release. Whenever facts about the company are needed in a properly arranged manner, the Editors should be fed FACT SHEETS. It is the duty of the PR department to store such information on the computer and revise it from time to time. A Fact Sheet can be mailed along with the Press Release when all the facts cannot be included in a one- or two-sheet Release. This reminds us of the length of the press release.

What Is the Ideal Length of a Press Release? Usually, it should be confined to one or two pages carrying not more than 600 words. Extra material can be included under proper headings in additional sheets. Fact sheets and general information brochures can be sent separately, but not along with the press release proper because newspaper people are usually turned off at the sight of bulky material. Newspaper editors and correspondents may politely receive the bundle, even with a show of enthusiasm at the press conference, but nothing substantial will happen later on. If you have enough interesting information to share with the public, do not try to stuff it into a two-page news release; instead, write a 5-page feature article and send it to the editor, who may use it in the weekend edition.


Do You Have to Use Special Stationery? Big companies do have special stationery for press releases. The words, ‘press release’ or ‘for immediate release’ will be printed in green or red. It will have the name and address of the person to be contacted for verification and extra details. Plain white bond paper will be enough. Spending a lot of money on special stationery for press release does not ensure the publication of the material it carries. Publication of your press release depends on the news value, accuracy, immediacy, available space, conciseness and precision. The closeness of the PR manager with the editor of the newspaper may be useful but not always. Your personal relations with the editors have to be maintained at all costs even if publication of your press releases does not solely depend on your contacts.

What Other Things Must the PR Manager Be Careful about? 1. Do not attach a personal letter with the press release. A follow-up telephone is better. No need for a cover-letter. But on the press release itself, print: ‘for immediate release’. If there is an embargo, mention that: “For Release on…(print the date).” 2. There is no right format for a press release. But always put the most important things first. Editors use their scissors from the bottom up. Press Releases should be written in journalistic style with no personal opinions or scintillating adjectives (PR persons will do well to remember what they learned in their reporting course about the inverted pyramid style). 3. Always get it computer printed in double space. Never hand-print it, that is, never use a handwritten press release. Even a single spelling or grammatical error is unpardonable; it will create a bad image about your organization. 4. Should the PR manager or PRO write the press release? Or should the writing be entrusted to a PR agency? What counts is not who writes it, but what is written in it. Is the release of news value?

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5. When press releases are duplicated, make sure that all copies are clear and there is no smudging, truncation or faded areas. Photocopies must be sharp, crisp and uncreased; the use of offset printing is preferable. 6. Send photographs with the press release if the newspaper wants it that way. Otherwise, send the photographs separately in special envelopes, without folding or creasing. 7. Check with the editor if coloured, black and white, glossy or matted photographs are preferable. Choose the photographs with care and discretion. Usually include a post script, ‘colour photographs available’ in the press release, if they are available.

Ghost-writing Busy bosses do not get time to write special articles, but they may need to get their ideas propagated for various reasons. What do they do then? They employ writers, most probably, PR people to discuss the ideas with the boss and put them into articles that blend with the news and features of different publications. PR managers write full-length features and special articles for their bosses. Big-time politicians—presidents, prime ministers and senior ministers—seek the help of PR personnel who willingly do the ghost-writing. The articles are under the bosses’ names. The bosses may not be paid, but still they would like to get their ideas circulated, sometimes with their photographs. Professional writers are employed by CEOs in top companies, who want different types of articles published under their signature: history of the company or organization; case histories relating to past and present luminaries of the organization; some ‘how-to’ articles such as ‘how to cut energy costs’ or ‘a short guide to healthy living using…(name of the company product); articles on some controversy defending the company’s performance or decisions; features on company mergers, acquisitions, diversification, etc. These ghost-written pieces promote the prestige of the company without any expense. Ghost-writers must check first with the editor of the target publication about the intended article and the possibility of its publication.


Such letters are called ‘query letters’. They will help to avoid bad blood between the company and the outside publication.

House Magazines As has been metioned before, house magazines or house journals are part of internal PR. Some issues of the house journal may carry special articles, not necessarily by the CEO or the ghost-writing PR personnel, but by senior heads of departments—sales executives, production managers, finance directors and others including well-read officers of the company, such as the chief of customer services or senior technical adviser. The editor of the house journal, usually, is the public relations manager of the company. Sometimes it is the PRO. In big corporations, it is the senior vice-president, PR. Generally, there is plenty of material available for the house journal, especially when it is published as a quarterly or half-yearly. Depending on the budget allocated for PR publications, its contents will vary. However, news about the company’s major activities and customer relations, and news about the staff in various wings of the company, including personal news such as weddings, school/college distinctions won by children of the staff, personnel picnics, customers’ achievements, distinguished visitors to the company, etc., will be covered with interesting photographs. The house journal can also carry special articles by managers and staff, dealing with some aspect of company performance that is of use to all the personnel.

Speech Writing and Speech Delivery Speeches Speeches are another PR tool for CEOs and senior executives. Written articles are not enough. For various reasons, the CEO and others including ghost-writers may not succeed in getting articles published. On such occasions, speeches come to their rescue. The speeches may be made before a live audience or an unknown public for a radio speech. 102â•…


Here also ghost-writers do the radio feature—speech, questions and answers, even a radio drama on a theme connected with the company’s products—for the bosses. Speeches to live audiences may be made by the CEO or senior executives at the conference hall of the company. Short speeches, lasting 15 to 20 minutes, are ideal. Longer speeches are likely to bore the audience, although the members of the audience may not give visible expressions of their boredom. The average speaker goes at the rate of 200–250 words per minute. Anyone with a low and plaintive tone will not do well in capturing the audience through speech. Some people are good at writing but not at speech. Some write like angels but speak like Polly the cat! A speaker has to have certain special qualities: 1. A pleasant voice, not a squeaky one. Of course, one cannot change one’s natural voice, but there are other things one can do even with certain natural deficiencies. 2. Do not speak fast. Haste makes waste in the speech-making context too. People may not make out what the speech is all about, if you are hasty. 3. Make a list of points to stress. If necessary, write down the points on a reference card (a 4˝ × 7˝ card) and refer to the points one by one in an orderly fashion. First things first. 4. A speech begins with appropriate salutation—ladies and gentlemen. But make sure there are ladies in the audience. Otherwise, start with gentlemen. If you find only two or three men before you, do not start with ladies and a few gentlemen,or vice-versa. 5. State the purpose of your speech. For example, to underline the importance of a person or congratulating the winner of an award, felicitating Ms Moti on her having been adjudged the best athlete in the department of purchase, etc. 6. Come to the main point of your speech. This is the middle portion of the speech. 7. Say something about sports in general and what the company plans to do for encouraging games and sports. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 103

â•‡ 8. Then you reach the final stage of your speech—wishing more honours and kudos for the award winner in the coming years. Say something about other winners in the same company or subsidiary companies, about what the company intends to spend for sports and games in the coming year. â•‡ 9. Wind up your speech in one or two sentences that indicate to the audience that you are concluding. 10. In the beginning, middle or end, season your speech with one or two anecdotes easily enjoyed by your listeners. Do not laugh at your own jokes, yourself. If your jokes are fit for the occasion, the audience will burst into laughter. Most speeches are given by an executive to win the understanding and appreciation of the audience, to inspire, to felicitate, to entertain, to instruct, to edify, to persuade, to congratulate or to condole. But speeches lasting more than 20 minutes are given to impart certain important ideas beneficial to the company. The speaker should not be dissuaded by the obvious expressions of boredom from the listeners. For a large body of information, better read out your own speech or from a feature article published in an appropriate newspaper or magazine. Before doing ghost speaking (that is, writing a speech for the boss) discuss in detail what the boss wants to speak about, what she wants to say to her audience? Ask appropriate questions to elicit answers to what and why. Information gaps can be filled in through your own library search. The boss may not have the time to fill the gaps. Ask for paper clippings or printed material the boss may have in her files. The next step is to know the audience. Connect the topic chosen by the boss to the audience. When you ghost write for your boss who will in turn do the speaking, make sure as to who will constitute the audience. You have to write for the boss’s audience. If your audience is likely to consist mostly of bankers, write a speech that will be of interest to bankers. Your boss will deliver the speech to the best of her ability and in a manner appealing to bankers. Your boss can open her speech with a bang if you can provide an appropriate piece of information, relevant but altogether unknown to the 104â•…


audience until then. If you open any speech in a bland and uninteresting manner, you will fail to impress. Open on a personal note and use the first person singular. If a humorous anecdote can be introduced at the opening stage itself and if it is a personal experience of the speaker, you can be sure your boss will catch the attention of the audience. The audience will go on anticipating a good anecdotal speech from your boss, even if the entire speech is not anecdotal, but occasionally businesslike and matter-of-fact. It is always much better to open a speech with a fit anecdote and if it can be made personal, it will doubly appeal to the audience. Humorous anecdotes must be appropriate to the occasion and the audience. If your boss is a CEO or senior executive, she or he should not crack a night club joke. Peppering the speech with tidbits of warm, well-chosen and humorous comments will appeal to the audience, but too much peppering will make the speech extra spicy and burn the ears. It will give the appearance of a vaudeville clown to your boss. Remember he is the boss of the company and there is a limit to which he can go. The speech should not try to cover too much. A good speech is like a mini-skirt—it does not cover a whole lot but the essentials. It does not fail to cover the key points but excludes a lot of fat. Too much statistics will spoil the broth of your speech. Statistics are likely to put the listeners to sound sleep especially at a post-prandial speech. Choose the essential facts and use numbers sparingly to heighten the effect. Use the conversational tone. Listeners are not readers; they like simple words and short sentences. Avoid high-sounding words that make a lot of noise but are not part of the listeners’ vocabulary. If you are constrained to use strange words, stop and explain them. Your speech should not sound like a memorandum or a thesis. It should attract attention, create interest and desire in the listeners to hear more; it should be credible and motivating enough for people to remember certain points for further action. Use the AIDCA formula—attention, interest, desire, credibility and action. Above all, cast your eyes on the audience—front and back, sideways left to right. Never look at the ceiling, or floor, and never look outside unless there is an explosion. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 105

Follow the KISS principle—keep it simple, stupid. Nobody wants to listen to a tortuous, complex and complicated argument. You may be brilliant, but do not try to impose your brilliance on your audience. Long-winded arguments will only succeed in leading the audience to a pit. By the time they manage to get up from the pit, your speech will be over.

Visual Aids The age of epidiascopes, over-head projectors (OHP) and black boards is over. We are in the hi-tech age now. Everything, from computers, powerpoints and what not, is available today. Speakers these days use audiovisual aids—CDs, DVDs, TV sets and big wall screens. Presentations without carousels and brightly coloured slides were looked down upon in the last decades of the previous century. Presentations without power points are a rarity in the present century. Charts and graphs are a must these days. But these new gadgets hinder the flow of the speech. Therefore, keep them ready beforehand and advise the audience to view them after the speech. Frequent power cuts in India make the speaker look like a fool and, therefore, an after-speech audio-visual show is more advisable. If there are handouts, including tables, charts and graphs, or the computer-printed version of your speech itself, distribute them after the speech, not before. If you distribute them before speech, the audience will wonder what they are, start reading the material and ignore your speech. If you do it during speech, it will hinder the flow of speech, create an unnecessary break; some in the audience may go out for a sip of water or for a smoke or a leak.

Newsletters Many companies/organizations give a high rank to newsletters. They publish and distribute newsletters free of cost to customers and clients, employees and stockholders, editors and senior reporters of journals, prospective clients and executives in their own and other firms. These publications follow certain common principles observed in the 106â•…


publication of newspapers and journals. Of course, they follow rules of writing common among readers as well as writers so that both sections understand each other. Newsletters have certain advantages and disadvantages. Those who publish them can include any news or feature according to their liking, that is, according to what is permitted by the policy makers. With the approval of the latter, they can write on anything without any restriction from internal or external publics. The disadvantage is that they are viewed as official publications by the general public and hence less credible than the stories supposedly freely written and published in the general newspapers or news magazines.

Bad Effects of Premature Publicity and Advertising on PR Advance publicity sometimes acts adversely, especially when too many promises and expectations raised by them are not translated into action. Such advance publicity and advertising before taking any steps to establish even the preliminary base of any development action by the company may give rise to all kinds of rumours and speculations among the public and create a bad image of the organization. Often premature advertising and publicity will result in plenty of orders from customers and clients who then fall into the slough of disenchantment. They even feel cheated and all attempts to remove that feeling of deception may fail. A good example of this was provided by the central government in 2009. Before even finding the land for new central universities, big publicity was given along with advertisement of new courses of study, 13 VCs and some senior officers such as the registrar, were appointed at the new pay scale which had raised the monthly salary to the six-figure level for VCs. Even after two years, the government has not identified the land for the proposed universities but VCs got their salaries remaining without a campus or within rented offices. The government had no qualms in spending `12 lakhs plus house rent allowance (HRA), transport allowance (TA)/dearness allowance (DA) and other perquisites of personal staff including a couple of guards and a big sum every month for office Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 107

expenses even before the offices were established. In state universities, the normal government practice is to appoint a special officer who will help government identify the necessary land and develop the land and its infrastructure in a year or two and then appoint the VC and other officers of the university. This was like putting the cart before the horse, but the central government does not, at times, mind spending crores for nothing. If only the government had appointed a senior PR person to prepare a plan for each new university under the guidance of an officer on special duty with plenty of educational experience. The government seemed eager to derive publicity through press conferences and special articles on central universities. Anyone who dared to oppose the move would have incurred the wrath of the human resources department, if not of the central cabinet as a whole. We need intelligent private business personnel to advise government on austerity at every step. The lesson to be learned from this experience was to arrange for publicity and advertise courses after developing the infrastructure including land, buildings (offices, labs, libraries, recreational and living facilities) for administrators, teachers, students, researchers with all communication facilities, including transportation. Then search for qualified personnel with a vision for developing scholars and researchers for building a new India. Publicity can give your business credibility and awareness. You become the centre of news. But do not forget that it can lead you into trouble if what is publicized is not available to those who believe all the promises and seek their fulfilment. Advertising may corroborate what is publicized but it will have the same adverse effect if what is advertised is not available. About 90 per cent of your PR kit ends up where it belongs—the waste paper basket—especially when the publishing unit finds out that you do not deserve the free publicity you crave for because there is no supporting evidence for your claims. You may succeed in preparing the best press release on the best stationery. You may have a news angle that can easily get the editor hooked. A press release may be developed into a feature story under your CEO’s signature, xeroxed a thousand times and distributed among the public. You may derive a great deal of publicity, which you may 108â•…


strengthen further with advertising. But the end result can be a big zero as far as the image of your institution is concerned because you have put the cart before the horse. You are unable to deliver the product or service your ads and publicity kits have promised to the public. Relations with the public are likely to fail thus totally. PR personnel also participate regularly on radio and TV talk shows because they are knowledgeable people and are always in circulation either personally or telephonically. They are good actors and spend much time before the mirror to make sure their looks and their delivery are all right. On television shows, they present not only their verbal expertise, but slides, diagrams, charts and graphs. Often they exhibit the pictures or logos of their company products and services. They are critical about their own performance. Videos and acting exercises help them refine their delivery of messages, their speech and appearance. According to J.C. Levinson, PR persons can concentrate their attention on certain newsy items that can make good PR for them—a function where a charity/community organization, a cable show, a seminar based on his or her own expertise, celebrating the wedding of an important person in the company, holding a special discussion on a topic where some expert talks about health care, about personal health improvement and participation by children is arranged. The company can sponsor a low-cost lending library in the children’s cancer centre or a women and children’s hospital. It can organize a special function to inaugurate free music lessons for the disabled. There are a number of things which the PR person can organize for his or her company and in the process gain a lot of good will for the company (Levinson, 1994).

Marketing the Corporate Image The most important product or service a PR department or PR manager has to market is the corporate image. The image of John D. Rockefeller and of his railroad, oil and other companies, the image of Alfred DuPont, founder of the DuPont Empire were at a low level in the early part of the 20th century. The corporate images of these two industrial giants Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 109

had to be improved and press agents, newspaper correspondents were hired to do the job. Portraying DuPont’s role in the economy was highlighted in the 1990s and it was publicized through TV ads portraying prominent scientists working for the company that DuPont was engaged in the business of making products that every human being needed every day in their life. Gregory and Whitmann (1999) suggest six guidelines to success in boosting corporate image: 1. Perception: Perception of the company among the target audience or what the target audience believes to be the reality that creates corporate image. 2. Direction: Direction of the image campaign established by the CEO. The CEO is one person who understands the company from all viewpoints. He or she can coordinate the proper image through appropriate and timely discussion with department heads and invest the money needed to achieve the goal. 3. Self-knowledge: Know thyself before deciding where thou art going. What is your image now? Does it really need a boost? Find out through research before, during and after any image campaign. 4. Focus: Do you know your target audience? Whom are you trying to reach? Knowing your audience will help you to influence their perception. 5. Creativity and consistency: What will you tell your target audience? What is the single most important message from you and will it be remembered by the audience? Creativity and consistency go together. The success of your message depends on the answers to who and what, that is, the audience and the message (Gregory and Whitmann, 1999).

PR Crises Business is bound to confront crises—some crises originating from the company’s own actions, others created by company’s personnel and 110â•…


still others arising from external factors. But all organizations have to face light or severe, simple or complex situations requiring immediate solutions. All top managements have faced crises and overcome them, but there are some crises that have not been settled for a long period of time—for example, the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 or the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe of 1986. The US had to go through national panic when the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in 1979 near Harrisburg, capital of Pennsylvania; but luckily it did not affect a whole lot of people. The Tylenol incident (some miscreant managed to put cyanide into the headache remedy, kept sealed and safely stacked on the shelves of supermarkets in the US) caused the death of six or seven people, but Johnson & Johnson succeeded in withdrawing the product from all stores in record time and the company’s timely action saved millions, before the crisis spread nationwide. The Chrysler Company could not hide the practice of selling used cars (used by the sales people at the show room for running small errands such as going home for lunch or dropping a fellow sales person). They would sell those cars as brand new ones after tampering and tinkering with the odometer. Finally Lee Iacocca, the Chrysler President, compelled to appear on television, admitted publicly that it was not a smart act to meddle with the odometers of new cars. He apologized and recalled all the sold cars and replaced them to the satisfaction of customers. Lacing Tylenol with cyanide, tampering with the odometer, letting glass powder into Gerber Baby Food, letting poisonous (MIC) gas onto a sleeping population and killing thousands of people—all these are not daily occurrences but we cannot be totally unprepared for rare occurrences because they can be unpardonably serious, disastrous and deadly. Johnson & Johnson, Gerber, Chrysler and others rode out of the storm, with heads held high because they were prepared to compensate for the losses suffered by their customers. Moreover, the PR directors of these companies were constantly in touch with the major dealers and customers, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the Federal Government Agency that tested the baby food items and employees, investors and health care providers. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 111

As mentioned by Gregory and Whitmann (1999), ‘The key to the entire programme was aggressive consumer communications to stop the erosion of the customer base that research uncovered. A direct-mail message went to the 2.6 million households that included a baby. The message drew more than 2,50,000 replies, three-quarters of which were favourable’. Consider the enormousness of the PR efforts the Gerber Company made in winning back the confidence of its customers, mainly mothers of infants fed Gerber’s baby food. The young women knew that Gerber was the victim, not the villain in this glass scare.

Bhopal But the Union Carbide company was not as fortunate as Chrysler or Gerber. When during the night of 2–3 December 1984, poisonous gas leaked from a tank of MIC at the company’s plant in Bhopal (situated at the heart of Bhopal city where thousands of poor residents were fast asleep) thousands (according to some city residents, some 20,000 people) were killed immediately and some 500,000 were maimed for life. A few thousand children were born eventually with birth defects and a few thousands more became blind or affected with various diseases of the eyes, nose and throat. Every year since 1984, the media in India and in other countries recall Bhopal. The media do not forget its commemoration at the beginning of every December. In an op-ed page article on Wednesday, 3 December 2009, Ms Vidya Subrahmaniam of The Hindu wrote, ‘25 years and still waiting’. The Anderson Saga is one more reminder that the powerful can always count on official help.

Facts in the Bhopal Case 1. Warren Anderson, Chairman and CEO of the New Yorkheadquartered Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) at the time of the lethal gas leak in its Bhopal pesticide plant was placed under house arrest soon after the worst industrial disaster in the world occurred, killing (unofficially, 25,000) people and maiming or permanently disabling over 500,000 for life. Anderson came 112â•…


to India when this big industrial accident occurred but he went back to New York on 7 December 1984. His departure was a matter of controversy. There are questions about it even today. The organizations that work for the rehabilitation of the victims and their relatives are clamouring for his extradition. But all indications are that the US will not agree to the extradition. 2. The Bhopal industrial accident remains unsettled even after quarter of a century. 3. Anderson won his release from house arrest on the promise of returning to India to face trial, although he never did. â•… Anderson, now over 89 years old, is living comfortably in New York. The Indian government declared him untraceable but Casey Havell, a Greenpeace campaigner, paid him a surprise visit in New York. An Indian court has declared him a fugitive from justice. 4. Both the US and the Indian governments, it is said in the article, have been lethargic for the past 25 years in bringing Anderson to justice. 5. In 1989, the Indian government settled for 15 per cent of the 3 billion dollars it tried to get as compensation which finally ended up as `25,000 (about $600) per person. Even this low compensation probably would dwindle further, as the survivors and their relatives had to pay for litigation expenses and as bribes to middlemen including some lawyers and government officials. The victims and their descendants were poor, ill, illiterate and ignorant. 6. Nobody is absolutely sure that the meagre compensation ever reached the survivors or their descendants. 7. The Indian government gave weight to Anderson’s old age and the big health hazards he had to undergo if he were extradited. But it paid no heed to the fact that Anderson, as CEO, was solely responsible for ignoring the findings of his own team of safety inspectors who warned against leaky valves and other hazards that resulted in this big tragedy. Warren Anderson did not act on the report and the Vajpayee government’s Attorney-General, Soli Sorabjee cited ‘humanitarian considerations’ against Anderson’s extradition. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 113

8. The safety standards in the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), Bhopal were far inferior to those maintained in the West Virginia plant of the UCC. But even this claim is not valid since the management guru, Peter F. Drucker has written extensively on the safety violations of the West Virginia Plant of the UCC in Vienna, West Viginia (Drucker, 1974).

The Latest Scenario on Bhopal There was a new judgement on 7 June 2010 in a criminal case filed in the Bhopal magistrate’s court. The verdict made no mention of Warren Anderson at all. Instead, the top executives, SEVEN senior persons in the UCIL were held responsible for the Bhopal disaster and they were found guilty. But there was not a word about the Union Carbide Company’s Chairman at the time of the accident, namely, Mr Warren Anderson. But according to news media of 1 July 2010, Keshub Mahindra, Chairman of the UCIL at the time got bail, on the basis of the 86-year old Mahindra’s petition challenging the trial court’s verdict on 7 June that had awarded a 2-year jail term to him and seven others including former managing director, UCIL, M/s Vijay Gokhate, former vice president, Kishore Kamdar, former world manager, J. Mukund, former production manager S. P. Chaudhury, former plant superintendent, K. V. Shetty and former operator, S. I. Qureshi. They were all awarded two years of imprisonment under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.1 Another important fact is that the UCC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company; the UCC is one of the largest chemical and polymer corporations in the US, employing about 3,800 people. The UCC was incorporated on 1 November 1917. The Dow Chemicals, though owners now, has resisted all attempts by activists to put the liabilities and claims of responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster, on Dow. From the PR angle, it is interesting and instructive to look at a write-up of the Union Carbide’s Bhopal information centre given below: The 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India, was a terrible tragedy that understandably continues to evoke strong emotions even 25 years later…. 114â•…


UCC worked diligently to provide immediate and continuing aid to the victims and set up a process to resolve their claims—all of which were settled 18 years ago at the explicit direction and with the approval of the Supreme Court of India.

The website provides our statement regarding the tragedy, details of response, and other historical and legal information about the incident. In 1998, the Indian state government of Madhya Pradesh took full responsibility for the site. One should visit the Madhya Pradesh website that addresses the Bhopal tragedy, the MP government’s efforts to address the victims’ needs and site clean-up. Since the time of the incident, the chemical industry has worked to voluntarily develop and implement strict safety and environmental standards to help ensure that an incident of this type never occurs again. The website also indicates as follows: The gas leak could only have been caused by deliberate sabotage. Someone purposely put water in the gas storage tank, and this caused a massive chemical reaction. Process safety systems had been put in place that would have kept the water from entering into the tank by accident.

For more information about Responsible Care® see www.responsible. care.com or www.icca-chem.org Visit also www.unioncaarbide.com/bhopal and www.unioncarbide. com There are certain factual omissions in these PR accounts, which Indian and international readers must be aware of: 1. Greenpeace asserts that Mr Warren Anderson, the Union Carbide CEO knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company’s identical plant in the US. Although Union Carbide claims that all the defects were rectified before the December 1984 gas leak and that none of them had anything to do with the disaster, Greenpeace claims that neglecting those hazards in Bhopal caused the explosion. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 115

2. As the Union Carbide CEO until his retirement in 1986, Anderson was charged with manslaughter in the Bhopal disaster case. Anderson, having gone to India after the disaster, was arrested and released on bail by the Madhya Pradesh police in Bhopal on 7 December 1984. He fled back to the US and refused to return to India. 3. He was declared a fugitive from justice by the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Bhopal on 1 February 1992, for failing to appear at the court hearings in a culpable homicide case in which he was named the chief defendant. The CJM issued an arrest warrant for Anderson on 31 July 2009. The US has declined to extradite him, citing a lack of evidence. 4. In the wake of the 7 June 2010 verdict, the safe passage granted to Anderson has created some political commotion in India. But many important people including some advocates in the Supreme Court and media personalities have stressed that the government of India, instead of trying to extradite Anderson should raise the compensation to the victims and their descendants, and the group of ministers (GoM) has agreed to raise the compensation to `10 lakhs to the families of each person killed in the accident, etc. But some important political leaders of the time, including the then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr Arjun Singh and the Prime Minister of the time, the late lamented Rajiv Gandhi were accused of succumbing to American pressure. 5. Mr Swaraj Puri, the former police chief, who was injured in the Bhopal disaster, asserted recently that Anderson must have known about the danger of the plant because an employee had died there a year before the disaster. In August 2009, a spokesman for Union Carbide said, ‘Union Carbide had no role in operating the plant at the time because India’s government recognized that the plant was owned, managed and operated by the Union Carbide India Limited.’ Eight former senior employees of this subsidiary (including its Chairman, Keshub Mahindra) were found guilty on 7 June 2010. Anderson was not among them, but was previously declared a fugitive from justice. All the appropriate people from UCIL—officers and those who actually ran the plant on a daily basis—have appeared to face charges.2 116â•…


The two reports by Priscilla Jebaraj in The Hindu of June 21, on p. 13 of the issue dated 21 June 2010, one entitled “CENTRE TO PAY RS. 250 crore to clean up toxic waste in Bhopal. GoM MEET FOCUSSES ON ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF THE GAS DISASTER,” and “Dow liable for clean-up, damage payment: activists,” indicate the current thinking on both sides—Government and the Industry.

But the most important episode in the whole Bhopal drama and disaster is the one about the mysterious disappearance of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences survey findings. TISS was asked by the Madhya Pradesh government soon after the Bhopal Disaster in December 1984 to conduct a survey of the Bhopal victims two weeks after the lethal leak, while some of the victims were still suffering from the effects of inhaling MIC, although they were on the verge of death. The details of the TISS survey and comments from the Director of the institute at that time, Professor Armaity Desai (later on Chairperson of the University Grants Commission in the early 1990s), as given in the Feature written by Mahim Pratap Singh of The Hindu dated 16 June 2010, p. 10 are given below: A total of 478 students, 41 faculty members, 13 staff members covered 25,259 households in a period of six weeks. The present director of TISS, Dr. S. Parameswaran, was a member of the Survey Team in 1984. The survey started on January 1, 1985 and it was completed in February, 1985 under the direction of Professor Desai.…Since the Madhya Pradesh government had large-frame computers to process the truckload of data generated in the study (TISS did not have such computers at that time), Chief Minister Arjun Singh persuaded TISS to leave the voluminous data with the government. According to Professor Desai, ‘that was the last we heard from them.’ Nothing came out of the Survey and the State and Central governments were mysteriously paralyzed about the whole Survey results.

The TISS survey findings included information about the number of people dead, orphaned children, widowed women, pregnant women, breathing complications and injuries and blindness. But the survey results never saw the light of day. Mr J.T. Ekka, Director, Gas Relief & Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 117

Rehabilitation refused to talk about the issue, the newspaper report says. ‘It was a cover-up bigger than most would imagine. The Survey would have determined the exact scope and extent of the damage and compensation. No wonder the state government buried it’, said Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan, according to the Hindu Report on 16 June 2010. Who is really at fault here, as far as the handling of the aftermath of the Disaster was concerned? The Madhya Pradesh government at the time? Or the Union Carbide? Of course, the Company was responsible for the Disaster, but the state government was responsible for the care, protection and the medical treatment of the victims and the handling of the legal issues involved, especially in the matter and magnitude of compensation for the victims and their descendants. A kind of closure seems to have descended on the Bhopal disaster, although many vital aspects are yet unsettled after 26 years. What will happen in the next 25 years is anybody’s guess. But what Peter Drucker had said about the Virginia Plant of the Union Carbide in the 20th century should not escape our attention especially because India is planning several nuclear energy collaborations with North American companies in the coming years. Lessons of Bhopal may be kept before planners and administrators who are always concerned about the aam aadmi. Let us move on to other aspects of Indian and world PR, not forgetting Drucker’s dicta and our own first-hand practical experience. Drucker says the managers of the modern world have a new responsibility—a new concern for society that is central to the conduct of business itself. ‘It is a demand that the quality of life becomes the business of business. This demand requires new thinking and new action on the part of the managers. It cannot be handled in the traditional manner. It cannot be handled by PR. PR has its limitations. It asks whether a business or an industry is “liked” or “understood” by the public. But it cannot handle the big problems—employment, education, housing’, although PR must be aware of these problems and devise strategies according to the needs of the time and the area. When Union Carbide, Vienna, West Virginia, went into rapid economic decline in the late 1920s, the company asked a team of engineers and economists to prepare a plan for generating major employment opportunities. Union Carbide built a plant in 1951 and received the 118â•…


admiration of many, particularly citizens of Vienna, for its social responsibility. But by the middle of the 1960s, the saviour became the public enemy as the nation became pollution-conscious. Vienna’s citizens began to curse the Carbide Company because the company failed in taking safety measures to eliminate the emission of sulphur dioxide and other harmful gases. Instead of admitting their mistake, the company claimed that their production methods were absolutely safe. Government agencies threatened closure of the plant. Public opinion forced Union Carbide to keep the plant open but without implementing safety standards. Public opinion is generally elite public opinion in India. Neither the government of India and its safety authorities nor the elite public gave any attention to what was going on in Bhopal. Despite warnings from the company’s own safety inspectors, UCIL proceeded in a business-as-usual fashion. Citizens of Vienna were lucky enough that their government agencies threatened to close down the operations, but citizens of Bhopal were not so lucky even after two and a half decades after the accident. This is evident from what Drucker has commented on the west Virginia experience: Union Carbide was not socially responsible when it put its plant into Vienna, to alleviate unemployment there. It was, in fact, irresponsible….The process was obsolescent…To do something out of social responsibility which is economically irrational and untenable is therefore never responsible. It is sentimental. The result is always greater damage (Drucker, 1994).

If only the government of India had a chance to listen to the above comments about the same company that led to the world’s biggest industrial tragedy in Bhopal. Nobody in India ever saw the lack of wisdom in locating a poisonous pesticide plant at the centre of a densely populated city such as Bhopal. The inevitable conclusion from the Bhopal incident is that industrialists out to make a fast buck even from the death and destruction of the poor, ignorant masses and the governments of the so-called Third World welcome such foreign companies with open arms in order to boost employment. They ignore the safety of their own people. Mexico and other countries in Central and South America have advertised in Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 119

North American newspapers inviting hazardous industries (for example, asbestos) banned in the north. With Bhopal’s Chief Judicial Magistrate taking a firm stand favouring the victims of the tragedy, an order was issued by the Government of India to extradite the CEO of Union Carbide, but the US government rejected India’s claim and the ‘Number 1 accused’ in the Bhopal case could not be extradited even as late as 22 July 2009, 25 years after the event. The Union Carbide PR department maintains that the tragedy was caused by a discontented employee who sabotaged the gas pipe line and let the gas poison the immediate and distant atmosphere. God alone knows the truth. But the victims’ relatives are still roaming around in the city seeking justice. Some of them are even now moving from pillar to post. At least half a dozen Indian governments have proved that they are unable to help the unfortunate people of Bhopal. Most or all of them have never bothered to dig into the past safety record of the company. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy is nowhere near a final settlement. The Government of India is now seeking `5,786 crore for Bhopal gas victims in a suit filed in the Supreme Court on 3 December 2010. When will this curative plea be settled? And how will it be settled? The Union Carbide and Warren Anderson have faded into oblivion. Dow Chemicals, New York and some others are the new owners. (See newspapers of 4 December 2010 for more details.)

Prevention of Crises Some crises can never be prevented, but they may be mitigated and the victims or their close relatives compensated, however inadequate the compensation might be. Through regular safety training and education for the employees, careful planning of operations and the installation of essential safety equipment, provision of personal protective gear for all operatives, many hazardous spots and actions can be avoided in the operation of any plant. But more than everything else, having an overall safety policy regarding chemicals, equipment, cleanliness of the shop floor and first-aid arrangements at every shop of the factory will help. 120â•…


Regular and periodic maintenance of machines and circulation of safety measures and procedures among the employees, periodic fire drills, etc., will heighten the safety consciousness of everyone— workers and supervisors. But there are certain industries involving nuclear energy, asbestos, organo-halogen pesticides and insecticides, teratogenic agricultural sprays such as endosulfan. These industries are highly hazardous and the accidents occurring in manufactories using or producing them could be beyond redemption. The best and the safest way is to avoid the establishment of such hazardous industries, particularly in highly populated areas. A fire may be sudden, but flammable materials can be detected and transferred to safe storage. Smoking has to be strictly prohibited on the shop floor among all—operatives, supervisors and managers. Visitors to the plant have to be given advance information that the factory and its premises are strictly non-smoking areas. If the policy is to allow someone to smoke, allow it only in designated places and at the canteen or eatery. Crises grow bit by bit; operatives, supervisors and managers know this from experience. In fact, anyone in the factory must be alert to unsafe or hazardous practices. Safety situations in every corner of the factory must be reviewed once a month or at regular safety meetings called by the safety officer/manager/director of the factory. Suggestion boxes should be kept inside the factory or office so that anyone who has a suggestion about safety of particular processes and procedures in the factory can put suggestions in them. ‘Most crises escalate over time and show warning signs that could lead to their prevention’. (Gregory and Whitman, 1999: 178). Crisis prevention is possible only when the corporate culture prevailing in a company or organization motivates every employee to behave responsibly and conduct himself or herself ethically. Leaving safety matters to others and disowning any responsibility on your part is irresponsible behaviour. Full compliance is the accepted norm in corporate behaviour. Those who follow safe procedures all the time must be given cash awards. According to Gregory, there are six key steps to crisis management. Companies can control their destiny when some disaster or other strikes. Twentieth Century Corporate PR and PR Writingâ•… lâ•… 121

But if managers behave unethically and are socially irresponsible, no amount of step-taking can achieve anything as it happened in the financial meltdown in the US and other areas during 2008. In any case, let us look at Gregory and Whitmann’s (1999: 183–187) six steps: 1. Be prepared. Have a plan of safety maintenance. Most companies have some action plan to tackle crises. Have close contacts with the media and opinion leaders who will be willing to talk to you in times of crises and offer some useful suggestions. Do not isolate yourself in crisis situations. If possible, develop a crisis management manual (CMM) so that the entire team of top managers can coordinate the work to solve problems. 2. Have a crisis management team and train its members, a team of key executives from different disciplines of management— production, technical, financial, safety, personnel and public relations. Some companies have a chief communications officer (CCO) instead of the PRO or Manager-PR. The CCO must be smart enough to explain different situations and take appropriate remedial measures whenever there is a crisis. She should be confident enough to give out answers to questions from the media and members of the public. If necessary, she should rehearse the answers to anticipated questions and consult the CEO and top management. 3. Respond quickly but not hastily. As said before, haste makes waste. There are situations where the PRO or CCO will take time to give replies. The more time taken, the more doubts in the questioner and you become less confident about your answers. â•… People attach credibility to quick answers, but not hasty answers; hasty answers are likely to be received as off-the-cuff remarks. Be true to yourself and stick to company’s policies. Your answers should be well thought out and matter-of-fact. 4. Maintain good media relations. Always get the media on your side, as far as possible; at least let the media be neutral. Do not leave any media question unanswered. 5. Do not panic. Union Carbide could not convince the media that they were following safety standards, either in the Vienna

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example or in the Bhopal example. The company did not have a crisis management team. Gerber and J&J could build on the goodwill already gained from the public and face the media with confidence. They did not have anything to hide. They accepted the existence of crises; they did not try to deny the existence of crisis situations, whereas Union Carbide went on trying to convince the media and the public that despite their best safety measures, the disaster took place. Another bad practice in many companies is to put the blame on the operators and low ranking officials. 6. Establish your image and win the goodwill of the media and the public. Anticipate crises and be prepared to face them. Build yourself up through ads when you are doing well. That will protect you in times of crises despite your best efforts to avoid them.

Notes 1. See the following for a complete reference: http://.bhopal.com/faq.htm; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/world/08bhopal. htm/; http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/01/national/main5204-98.shtml; Worried US hopes Bhopal verdict doesn’t affect ties with India; http://www.greenpeace. org/international/en/news/features/justice-for-warren-anderson/; http://www.bhopal. com/faq/htm#faq5; http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/justicefor-warren-anderson/; ‘Court issues arrest warrant for former CEO of Union Carbide in gas leak case’, Guardian UK. 31 July 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2009; Lack of Evidence Held Up Anderson Extradition: MEA, Times of India, 10 June 2010; How Anderson Came and Left: The Bhopal Post, 9 June 2010. Also see The Hindu retrieval of GK Reddy’s account published 26 June 2009; Anderson Knew of Looming Leak Threat in Bhopal: Former Police Chief, Times of India, 10 June 2010; http:/www.bloomberg. com./apps/news?) 2. Visit http://ibnlive.in.com/excarbide-chairman-k.mahindra-grantaed-bail/12577130.html.


4 Essential Qualities of A PR Person Leadership Garry Wills (1994: 63–80), prolific author, journalist, historian and Pulitzer Prize winner wrote about leadership and good leaders and made the observation that it is no longer true to assume that leaders are superior beings and followers are inferior to them. Perhaps in olden days, it was so, but it is not true anymore. In modern days, patriarchal societies are not absent, but there is no radical inequality between leaders and followers at least in self-respect and human dignity, if not in wealth and comforts. Pericles, in ancient Greece, led the people only with their consent but at times telling them even truths that hurt them. But he always earned their respect. Listing of a leader’s requisite qualities is possible—determination, focus, a clear goal, a sense of priorities, etc. But the first need is to have followers who respect you. How often do we lament that we do not have leaders like Gandhi, Nehru or Azad these days; but leaders are not born but made in each era by the socio-economic and political circumstances. In ancient times, leaders and prophets used to declare that they were carrying out the wills and wishes of gods and goddesses. In a democratic set up, the leaders ‘do not pronounce God’s will but carry out what is

decided by the people’. The leader, then, becomes a follower, but to be willing to carry out the wishes of the majority who have elected the leader is a primary quality of leadership. That is, to listen to the needs of the majority and to take decisions that are helpful in their fulfilment. The leader who dictates to the people on the basis of some God-given right to do so is unfit for a democracy. But a business organization in a democracy may not work democratically, at least at times. Therefore attempts to create a semblance democracy through a Dale Carnegie approach of ‘salesmanship to please the customers, employees and others and sell a sense of democratic functioning based on equality’ may be resorted to by the business organization, although the results of it may not be widely acclaimed by the business world. Leaders in business democracies, especially in developing societies such as India, have to identify the real needs, the basic needs, of the followers and devise the planning and execution of ideas that serve in the fulfilment of those needs. The PR executives do not have to ingratiate themselves in a democracy, either to their superiors or subordinates. Followers are essential for leaders. If everyone is a leader, then there will be none left to be led. Leaders are not superior beings; and followers are not inferior, either. But leaders can lead the followers by truthful examples, by frank opinions and sincere action. Leaders are voluntary servants to followers who are humble and fully appreciative of the leaders’ services. Should leaders be active and followers passive? Should not followers too be active and alert to changes proclaimed by the leader as essential, and should they not have the right to be active and alert to reforms that hurt. Is it not the followers’ right to raise intelligent questions to their leader? The followers should also be capable of responding to the leader and therefore they should be educated enough. But the leaders should recognize that followers are not automations or acting blindly in a helpless manner. A true leader cannot always be just an implementer of popular wish. He/she might serve as an expediter of what people want, but not as an instigator. He/she can and must inspire followers but never mesmerize them to destructive action. To both leader and follower, the human being’s betterment and safety must be of prime importance. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 125

Leaders should understand followers more than followers understand their leader. They should try to learn the followers’ minds and respond to them, if necessary on an individual, one-to-one basis. Sometimes, the leaders get partial cooperation from the followers. Then they should try to get full cooperation, instead of trying to persuade the non-cooperators through unfair means to join the rest at any cost. Leaders have to be flexible but not compromising on basic principles, because those principles were evolved to begin with for the good of society as a whole. When we read the history of great leaders, we realize that confidence, ambition and determination are qualities in most of them and that they have always shown readiness to follow public opinion on national issues. Leaders must be in touch with the pulse of the people, to understand the essence of public opinion. But as Garry Wills (1994: 79) says in his article already cited, ‘great leadership is not a zero-sum game. What is given to the leader is not taken from the follower. Both get by giving’. Carolyn Warner (1994: 51–156) in her speech to a group of school principals who were leaders in their own rights, points out that for the right functioning of the administrators, principals, faculty and staff, there are equally relevant groups such as advisers, employers, business leaders, various levels of government functionaries, students and parents who form the publics of those who are in charge of PR. The essential component for success is action. Warner continues that a leader should have vision, but a vision without understanding can easily become a nightmare. Similarly, a vision without corrective action can simply be a mirage or a hallucination. Leadership may be an inexact science since it is difficult to quantify, but even so, it is relevant to many fields—planning, organization and personal commitment. Leadership is not an inert science; nor is it a theoretical science. It is always an applied scientific concept. Moreover, leadership is not genetic. Nobody is born with it—a fact that Indian entrepreneurs have to recognize. Here leadership seems to be inherited. Perhaps this is true all over the world but not to the extent we see it in India. Leadership is also an art cultivated and cultivable by those who are assuming responsibility to get things done through the help of others. 126â•…


Leaders from outside the family do not have to moan about the problem but do all they can to overcome the prejudice against them wherever they can. So far, we have discussed leadership qualities essential in the management situation. If we generalize the issue and consider leadership qualities in several other areas, we can see that there are certain attributes to leadership that require our attention. All leaders have to be good at planning, controlling, communicating, coordinating and directing to achieve desired goals at the minimum cost and with full cooperation and understanding of all wings of the organization or at least the majority of the employees (including managerial, clerical and operating staff ) at the office and on the shop floor.

Formal and Informal Groups All modern managers, including PR managers must realize that along with formal organization in the business enterprise—manufacturing, sales or financial management—there grows an informal organization without perhaps, the notice of all concerned. Many cooperative groups develop without any pre-determined or pre-planned pattern or deliberate attempt on the part of any identifiable individual. Informality grows naturally and informal networks develop with substantial influence on the total organization. The concept of informal organization may be defined as any human group interaction that occurs spontaneously and naturally over long periods of time. Informal organizations develop from customs, mores and cultural habits or national or linguistic origins of the workers. For example, in a north India factory, the number of people from southern India may be small for geographic, historical, cultural and linguistic reasons. It is natural that the minorities get together, exchange common news about home turf in a common language other than the major languages of the north such as Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Oriya and Urdu. There is no linguistic chauvinism involved here, but linguistic affinity and even physiological/physical consanguinity. The same affinities can be detected even in educational institutions. This is not peculiar to Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 127

the Indian industrial or business situation, some US citizens working in US organizations may naturally gravitate to their own compatriots (the practice of compatriotism is old and abandoned in their new roles as Americans), which is natural at least among the first generation immigrants. That is nothing unusual or wrong. Though people from different backgrounds work together in an organization, they build informal organizations based on linguistic, regional and cultural affinities. But forming cultural organizations informally is one thing; creating cliques for narrow objectives is another and it has to be avoided. Consanguinity for legitimate reasons is justifiable but not for unjust demands. Traditional theories of management did not consider the existence of informal organizations because they did not recognize the existence of such informal groupings. PR and other managers have to consider the impact of the relationship between the formal and the informal. If informal organizations within the formal structure work in a way that will affect the progress of the total enterprise, managers have to dissuade the formation of formal informal groupings, although affinities between and among groups with the same cultural and linguistic background is not and totally preventable. Human organizations in the modern world are to be treated as systems of interdependent human relationships directed towards common goals. Behavioural sciences are given greater attention these days in management studies and the PR manager has to be familiar with the modern perspectives, especially in this era of globalization, where interdisciplinary studies have become extremely relevant. New studies of authority, influence, power, identification with the organization, loyalties and responsibility of each member of the organization are gaining ground. Leadership studies also include motivational assumptions; intra-organizational conflict of interests; constraints on human beings exercised by the leader’s own limitations of information processing including the latest modes of information gathering, retrieval and dissemination; time management pressures; task identification and communication within subgroups in the organization. We are dealing here only with the five major areas mentioned above, namely, planning, controlling, communicating internally as well as externally, directing and types of leadership (Figure 4.1). 128â•…


Bulletin Boards Announcement EmployeeCommunications

House Journal Newsletter Press Releases Special Bulletins


General Sales, Major Products Accessories

Technical Director and Q.C

Banking & Funds Management/ Legal Adviser Daily Managers’ Meetings

Vice President Sales/Marketing

Vice President Production

Vice President Finance

External Communications & Contacts

Manager Personnel Training & Development

Vice President HR/Personnel Administration

President/MD/ CEO

Figure 4.1 PR in Top Management

Annual Reports Special Publication Company Histories

Manager Recruitment

Vice President IT/ICT/ITES Services

Executive Assistant to CEO

Advertisement Press & RTF Public Meeting Promo Activities

Vice President Public Relations

PR and Management Planning Planning is the process by which a manager (including the PR manager) looks to the future and discovers alternative courses of action open to him. As organizations grow, PR managers have to give special attention to the precise nature, function and execution of public relations as a tool of internal and external communication management and as a way of life for the entire organization and the translation of the management function into a visible practice that comes naturally to the managers and men (includes women, of course) of the organization. The need for planning becomes quite evident when organizations expand and their objectives grow big enough to be defined. Every manager has to be aware of the ultimate objectives of his organization, but the PR Manager has to give expression to the objectives for internal and external understanding. Planning pervades the entire organization from the top echelons down to the lower supervisory levels. Planning at all levels is desirable, but planning at the top is essential and it should be conveyed to the lower levels. Much of the action in an organization depends on planning. Planning based on a bottom-up approach is desirable too, but not always practical. However, ideas from the lower levels must be invited for streamlining planning at the top. Good managers visualize a pattern for future action that will depend on current action. The pattern must also provide reference points for all managers for daily action. Each manager can determine how he can modulate the general or overall plan to suit his department’s individual needs. A plan is a predetermined course of action that can be tailored to a specific project or suitably amended for changing situations, but the overall objectives of the organization cannot be overlooked by any manager. The safety officer can suitably amend the safety planning carried out by the top management to suit safety requirements of different corners of the plant. For example, a fruit processing plant will have a raw fruit gathering section—usually at the front or near the front office,

130â•…


where it is most essential that the raw fruits obtained at the entrance are inspected for worms and insects in a thorough fashion and approved for the second stage: cutting and cleaning—and sent to the mild chemical treatment section. All extra biological elements are totally removed at the first stage itself. These are details for which the safety officer alone can evolve suitable instructions to the operatives and their supervisors. The plant management may not give detailed safety instructions. Planning for specific activities has to be organized by individual departments and sections. The element of time is important in planning. Certain steps have to be planned at certain times in a sequence based on priority. Certain activities require extra time. For example, in a rubber processing factory, extra care has to be given to the curing process. More time has to be given for certain grades of rubber sheets. Several activities of the factory depend on the extra time required for certain operations.

Seven Useful Guides to Planning 1. A plan should be directed towards well-defined objectives. Future performance will depend on this. 2. Plans made by different divisions and specialists should be coordinated through adequate communications; sales planners have to coordinate with production planners. Balancing of production with purchase, stock and sales inventory is a must. 3. The idea of controlling is meaningless without planning. 4. Adapting planning to performance demands revision of plans. 5. Lower level planning will be detailed but for shorter periods; planning at higher levels tends to be general and for longer periods of time. 6. Managers should relate the degree of commitment of resources to the need for definite plans. 7. Definite plans are necessary, but it is equally necessary to be flexible. Alternative courses of action are essential, because we can anticipate several unexpected factors to crop up.

Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 131

Controlling In order to measure current performance and guide it to the planned goal, controlling of actions should be done in such a way that they lead to the desired goals. 1. To reach a predetermined goal, norm or benchmark, controlling daily actions and performance is essential. 2. Develop a device for measuring current activity, if possible, in a quantitative manner. 3. Current activity can be compared with a criterion or a set of criteria. 4. Make mid-term course correction in current performance in order to reach pre-planned end result. But controlling action should not result in dejection or indifference in the supervisors and workers, particularly those working in production. Control measures must be tempered with the concept of development. Develop, not control, should be the motto. One should ask the following questions: What should be the results? However weak our predictions could be, start with some predictions of the results. Quantitative statements are better than wild guesses. The measurement of the actual performance requires the presentation of information in a form that will suit the control system. The degree of accuracy to the measurement will depend upon the needs of the specific application of the control system.

Communicating Managers, including PR managers, spend a substantial amount of their office/shop time to communicate with others, orally and in writing. Communication can occur either through their own or in other people’s language depending on the person they are communicating with. Sometimes they convey their ideas to fellow managers and subordinates not through words, but through drawings, symbols, mathematical equations or figures. 132â•…


They express their ideas through electronic impulses and through suitable media—suitable to them as well as the communicatees. Planning and controlling require communication through various devices.

Three Types and Processes of Communication There are three types of communication—intrapersonal, interpersonal and mass. All managers, especially PR managers, use all three types: the first two every day and the third occasionally. We shall go into the details later. But here it is also necessary to point out that there are four other types of communication in any organization—vertical, horizontal, formal and informal.

Vertical and Horizontal Communication in Organizations In directing the activities of people working with a manager—colleagues and subordinates—the manager issues orders/directives/suggestions for action. In the formal situation, this follows the formal channels of communication—written instructions, memos, notes, etc. Sometimes telephonic instructions are given to those immediately below so that in the manager’s absence, the person who receives the instructions is responsible to carry them out. More often than not, the subordinates/colleagues do not write back confirming the action proposed to be taken. Instead, they just take action based on the instructions and only when there are some unseen obstacles or impediments to reach desired results will they report back to the managers above them. Usually, they report back personally, not through written memos; sometimes they resort to telephonic feedback. But as a manager, you are also bound to set a time limit for their action when you give an oral or a written instruction. Maybe the task has to be completed within a couple of days or a couple of weeks—depending on the nature of the action to be taken, convenience of the people to be involved in the task fulfilment, etc. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 133

In any case, the upward flow of communication in response to an instruction or direction, whether telephonic, personal or otherwise, is part of the control mechanism exerted by the manager. It is also necessary that the manager who issues instructions sets a deadline for task fulfilment, as indicated above; she should also note in her own diary what instructions have been given, to whom, and the deadline set for task fulfilment, the names of people likely to be connected with the completion of the task and what further action is intended. This is important because sometimes instructions given to colleagues are forgotten by the manager and follow-up action is ignored. Based on the hierarchy or practice prevailing in an organization, the instructing manager has to get things done through follow-up actions wherever necessary. The success of vertical communication depends a great deal on the smooth flow of communication from top to bottom and the avoidance of bottlenecks in between. The special nature of vertical communication is that people who rank below the manager are aware of the superiority of the instructing manager and bound to fulfil the obligations and duties entrusted to them, either in written or in oral forms.

Horizontal Communication Horizontal channels of communication provide means by which managers on the same level of an organization receive the instructions at the same time and do things without much feedback of action taken but fulfilling their obligations and duties knowing fully well that the instructing manager will not be inclined to take any punitive measures, even when the receivers of instructions go wrong. They can report back on the telephone in a friendly manner and the instructing manager repeats his suggestions in a spirit of equality and expresses his willingness to wait for further action. The atmosphere is friendly in horizontal communication situations. Control is exercised in a pleasant, unobtrusive manner but the desired results are obtained. Feedbacks are not formal. Managers at the same level get things done by one another avoiding authority channels. Copies of instructions/suggestions to one colleague may be circulated among other colleagues for their INFORMATION and suitable action, without ruffling any feathers. 134â•…


Informal Communication and the Grapevine We have already discussed the intricacies of formal and informal communication situations in organizations. Formal channels are not exclusively used for communication in informal situations and informal channels are not excluded even in situations where formal channels are used. There are many formal channels in an organization. But we cannot ignore informal channels as pointed out before. Certain organizational goals are achieved through the grapevine, i.e., information passed through the informal channels among groups and action taken by the top management to fulfil specific goals. One can say that occasionally grapevines become trial balloons. They become seekers, confirmers and formers of opinion. In any case, they are an essential part of management’s and internal public’s informal research. Informal channels also serve the social needs of individuals in an organization. A manager may face rumours, gossip and other negative outlets of expressions and the sure way to gauge them is through the grapevine. All attempts by managers to assess the gravity, truth or depth of negative impressions through a formal questionnaire survey or even a meeting of all the members of the departments concerned may not elicit proper or honest responses from participants, most of whom will be unwilling to express any opinion. The grapevine is a sure way of assessing employees’ reactions. Sometimes, a gesture in an informal meeting on the part of the manager or an informal word in his written communication can make a world of difference in the attitude of the employees. A disciplinary problem will be solved thus informally. The speed at which information flows through a grapevine is often mind-boggling. Therefore, informal channels of communication are essential or inevitable in any management organization.

Networking in Organizations Communication may be viewed as a pattern of interconnecting lines or networks. An organization chart indicates the positions of various managers and the positions under their control or authority. Though this control and authority may not be indicated in the charts, they are a Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 135

reality in any management organization. Each centre of power has its own networks through which communication flows vertically, horizontally and in circles (informal channels).

Barriers to Communication Communication flows from origin to destination through a medium (in our case, language that is in written or spoken form (sometimes also in graphic form), that is, from manager to colleagues, or those working below him in the organization chart, from the supervisor to workers. In an ideal situation, the transmitted message is completely (100 per cent) understood by those who receive it. But only a feedback can confirm if the whole message has been understood. Sometimes, external factors impede the flow of messages, especially in a factory situation. For example, the factory atmosphere will be full of heavy noise —noise from operating heavy machinery, dumping of unwanted material in a corner of the factory building or shop-floor with the intention of removal later on by waste management (WM) trucks, dragging of certain materials on the shop-floor, the gurgling of liquid materials either flowing, dripping or boiling and shouting by operatives with the innocent intention of being heard by fellow operatives standing at a distance—all these are sources of noise that impede communication. A conference on the shop-floor is almost impossible unless there is a sound-proof cabin specially designed for the purpose. These are all examples of physical barriers to communication. Then there are the mental barriers. For example, the instructor and the instructed will have different levels of schooling. The instructor may not be understood because he/she may be using words and phrases that are not easily understood. Some kind of explanation on the part of the supervisor may be necessary but the supervisor may not be aware of this problem. He/she simply does the instruction and does not check with the operatives if the latter have understood the instructions. During World War II, the armed services in the UK and the US and many parts of Europe had developed a system of instructing operatives in three areas—giving job instruction; method improvement and personnel relations. (The system was also called job instruction; job methods and job relations—JI, JM and JR.) 136â•…


The Allied Forces had benefited greatly from this system and after the war, the scheme was adapted by the industrial and business world in the West, with considerable impact on building bridges of understanding between the managers and the workers, between the supervisory staff and the operatives. Various versions of the same ideas appeared later in different management development programmes in the US and elsewhere. In India the Central Labour Institute, Bombay, used to conduct short-term training programmes in JI, JM and JR for office and factory supervisors in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Communication Route The flow and content of communication, the effectiveness of methods and the betterment of relations between and among various levels in the organization have to be given the utmost attention by managers, especially PR Managers, who can do the organizing of the whole system of managerial communication. The routing of communications should be so organized as to provide sufficient information for managers to make proper decisions and convey those decisions to all levels in the organization through appropriate channels using the appropriately targeted and prepared messages. The route will determine the content of the message and the language used. Proper planning of the communication system and the recognition of its human elements will help managers, particularly the PR manager to find answers to unexpected problems. Determination of the route and recognition of the several barriers to good communication are fundamental to the whole system of communication in an organization. Periodic checking and revision of the networks for, channels of and barriers to communication must be under the constant concern of PR Managers.

Directing: Types of Leadership This is the last of the five major functions of management (including PR management)—planning, controlling, communicating (internally and externally) and directing to action through leadership. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 137

Directing involves initiating action. The other terms that can be used in place of directing are: leading, executing, supervising, ordering and guiding. Whatever be the terminology used, this is the most important function. It is the apotheosis of planning, controlling and communicating. Of course all these ought to lead to effective action, without which managing becomes meaningless. To put into effect the decisions, plans and programmes previously thought of in words and graphics, deeds are essential. The goals of a management group or leader are achieved through action. Directing, therefore, leads to action that is visible and tangible. 1. Directing involves the issuing of orders that are clear, complete and within the capabilities of subordinates to accomplish. There is no meaning in issuing tall orders that cannot be implemented. Before issuing the orders, the managers have to make sure that those working with them or under them as colleagues or subordinates have the educational, technical and attitudinal capabilities to accomplish the tasks assigned to them through the orders. If not, there is no use issuing orders. Delegation of authority is possible only when the delegatee (the person delegated) is capable to shoulder the responsibility and execute the assignment to the satisfaction of all. 2. It implies a continual training activity involving clear instructions, methods and human relations that enable colleagues and subordinates to reach pre-set management goals. 3. It implies the provision of all equipment reasonably required by them and supplementing the equipment already supplied. 4. It involves the motivation of workers to meet the expectations of the management. 5. It consists of maintaining discipline and order among those who are supposed to assist management in reaching its goals. 6. It involves management’s willingness to reward those who perform well and give special rewards to those who perform beyond all expectations. 7. It depends upon the personal traits of each manager and the situation in which he or she is placed. 138â•…


Each manager has to be himself or herself. He or she should never try to imitate others or follow textbook suggestions since situations vary according to individual circumstances, and decisions depend on each situation. There is no common path of decision-making although there are common principles that can be applied tentatively, never applied with rigidity. For example, in a research organization, the manager can never give the exact results expected by you because those who work with him are most probably equally well-qualified and experienced. There may not even be subordinates but only colleagues specialized in each branch of science relevant to the main research goals. The manager’s approach in such cases has to be totally democratic and friendly. The objective of all concerned is to reach the common goal of solving a research problem. But even here, there is likelihood of one-upmanship and ego cropping up in certain situations. The manager has to deal with these unexpected problems with tact and policy helpful in getting the maximum cooperation from all concerned. Then only there will be action useful and proper in dealing with research problems at hand. Finally, we shall deal with some thoughts on the types of leadership in organizations.

Types of Leadership What are the most effective types of leadership? There has been a great deal of research in business management circles on the topic of leadership. Usually the types of leadership are grouped under four headings—(a) dictatorship, (b) benevolent autocracy, (c) democracy, and (d) laissezfaire. You will remember what we pointed out earlier, as three types of PR—the autocratic, the semi-autocratic and the persuasive. We also said that ‘persuasion’ was found by Bernays to be the most effective means of reaching PR goals. The success of managerial leadership also depends on the application of persuasion in a democratic atmosphere in any organization. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 139

The Dictatorial Leadership: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal and Mass Here interpersonal integrity or quality workmanship, worker participation and such other attributes are not considered at a premium. Birth and a disdain for managers who depend on them for livelihood and meritorious performance and a sense of self-importance as scion of an industrial or business family are all that matters. Why behave as if the subordinates are human too when your own importance in the organization is all set and taken for granted. You cannot but lead—you are a born leader. There is no need for acquiring leadership. Leadership is thrust upon you—by force of circumstances or through inheritance. There are professional managers hired on the basis of their education and experience to manage the affairs of a family concern. But the real managerial powers rest on the shoulders of the born manager(s)— father–son duo, brothers and nephews. They have their justification for holding the reigns of management because they have nurtured the organization from its inception, from the time it was a small partnership to when it becomes an expanded organization with thousands of educated men and women with professional degrees and diplomas. How can they abandon their position and privileges? But the born managers are occasionally ill-equipped to manage an organization when it has expanded. Their management or general education is inadequate and so they hire competent people from outside. This is when professional managers come in conflict with born managers. I remember how a good friend of mine holding a responsible position in an organization with all the authority to sign cheques for amounts up to `100,000 once contemptuously asking when cheques had to wait for long for the boss’s (the ‘born managers’) signature. Every other formality had been completed by him and the cheque was kept on the boss’s desk for several weeks. The delay was unnecessary but the boss waited and waited till the professional manager got impatient. The delay thus impeded a very vital transaction. The impatient manager exclaimed to his assistant, ‘Do I have to hold the drink for him? I’ve filled the glass and handed it over to him in good shape. Now, do I have to drink it for him?!’ 140â•…


This is what happens sometimes when the born manager distrusts the professional manager and delays matters unpardonably. That was not a sign of leadership—that delaying of the signing of the cheques and raising meaningless objections. There are certain people, particularly in government circles, who delight in delaying matters; they are called sufferers of a rare psychological disease called PORCS—permanent objection-raising clerical syndrome. They find fault with everyone else in the department or even in the organization, but never detect the beam in their own eyes. Captains of private, government or quasi-government organizations— industry and business— talk about the benefits of their dictatorial style of management. The I’m-the-monarch-of-all-I-survey attitude is an integral part of this style, but unfortunately, this style does not work in the 21st century. It did not work even in the 20th. Perhaps it worked in the 19th, when professional managers were not available in plenty and workers were not educated and the very system of governance was dictatorial, colonially supercilious and global ignorance was nothing extraordinary. But now in place of ignorance, there is enlightenment; global knowledge has replaced universal ignorance and the Internet has opened up immense possibilities for the common man or woman to delve deep into systems and practices that were abused in the past. Politicians themselves are more democratic and ‘they oscillate between wanting to reduce the constraints of government regulation and wanting to regulate corporate practices that work against the protection of citizens’ (Cohen, 1995: 5). Cohen has included in his book eminent management experts who have discussed visionary leadership, building high-performance teams, managing individual behaviour, bringing out the best in people, managing human resources strategically, managing diversity, utilizing the talents and managing change. The experts include professors from various top management schools such as George Washington University, Stanford, University of New Hampshire, Babson College, Ohio State, Boston University, and Harvard Business School. The dictatorial leader accomplishes his duties through inflicting on his assistants the fear of penalties. He maintains a highly critical and negative attitude in his relations with others in the organization. He will not mind punishing his colleagues and subordinates when he finds that Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 141

they have not come up to his unrealistic expectations. He may replace them. Those led by him may perform better for a while because of fear, but their fear does not last long and his authority will be as evanescent as their improved performance. A crisis is inevitable in this mode of leadership. The benevolent autocratic leader assumes a fatherly role in which he forces his subordinates to rely on him for their job satisfaction. Only someone with a very strong leadership, a wise individual, can last long in his tactics because his benevolence will be mistaken for his weakness and those that are led by him are likely to rebel against him within a short time. The goodwill of the benevolent autocrat will not last long. Those that are led do not get a chance to develop their own leadership skills. The latter’s dependency on the former will ultimately lead to a deterioration of the work, especially whenever the leader is absent. In a democratic leadership, consultation is the key element. The leader is willing to consult his colleagues and others in his own department and in other related departments with a genuine interest in problemsolving. The leaders are aware of their own capabilities and plus points but they never ignore others or see others’ capabilities in a lighter manner. The leader learns from others and tries to accommodate fresh ideas in the interests of the company. He or she is not rigid or obstinate in his approach and never unyielding where yielding brings dividend to the department and the organization. In other words, democratic leadership does not take a one-sided view of anything. Suggestions are welcome from all quarters and suggestion boxes are kept at different points if it is a big department. Even in a small department, all members are encouraged to speak up giving new ideas. The democratic leader treats colleagues and subordinates in a democratic manner, based on the underlying principle that all human beings are essentially the same. Everyone in the departments concerned are encouraged to participate in planning, decision-making and organizing. Even the office-helpers can give their ideas. Initiatives are not only encouraged but rewarded by the democratic leader. A free atmosphere for communication is maintained in the department so that nobody is discouraged. All should get a feeling of group accomplishment and a sense of belonging to a common cause and common goals. 142â•…


The laissez-faire leadership depends fully on the members of the group—both fellow managers and subordinates. They can establish their own goals and make their own decisions. The leader always behaves as part of a circle. There is no single important point in the group which is invariably occupied by the leader. The members of the group are permitted to act individually and therefore the group will head in different directions. But concerted action is called for instead of encouraging the evolution of different leadership points, although every group member is free to make his or her own recommendations. Finally, on the shop-floor, the manager or supervisor is representative of the management to the worker or the non-manager. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the manager or supervisor behaves in a manner that fits proper managerial mettle, conduct and behaviour. Otherwise, there will be room for much misunderstanding between the top management and the non-managing majority, the workers. At the beginning of this chapter we indicated that there were three processes of communication—intrapersonal, interpersonal and mass, which are inter-related. We have to go into the details of these three processes common to all human beings and therefore applicable to all human societies anywhere on the globe at all times including this era of globalization. This is necessary for a clearer understanding of human relations and its connection with public relations. See Vilanilam, 2005 for a fuller discussion of the three processes.

Intrapersonal, Interpersonal and Mass Communication Communication can be looked upon as social interaction through messages that are statements on events, ideas (issues), personalities, groups and above all products of socio-economic benefits. These statements are exchanged between and among persons, groups and institutions, through interpersonal and mass media channels. But at the base of all is the intrapersonal process which is not social, but individualistic in the main, although it is influenced by society to some extent. Since individuals make up the society and social priorities are decided by more educated and informed individuals, social actions depend on the intrapersonal influences working on these people, the elite. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 143

Intrapersonal communication (IC) precedes all other forms of communication as it is at the base of the human element in all models of human communication. Messages are not dropped from heaven; nor are they created in a vacuum. They are constructed by people—persons or groups living in a given socio-economic, political and cultural environment. They are conceived in the minds of people who utilize their mental faculties in processing and absorbing the information contained in the messages. They influence the nature and content of the messages they organize to send out through the various channels; and they are, in turn, influenced by those who receive their messages. The mental faculties of the creators of messages (they are also known as senders, sources, communicators in different contexts) and the receivers of the messages (also known as destination, communicatees, audience) may not be on the same wavelength as their intrapersonal processes differ. The latter depend on cultural (socio-economic, religious, educational, occupational) and personality traits. If the cultural and personality traits of millions of people living in a given society are far below those of the creators of messages, the communication gap in such societies is of very serious consequence. Whatever be the sophistication of the method or the channel used, the gap will continue till the intrapersonal processing of information in the receivers’ minds is of a higher order. Putting the whole attention on the creation of messages, the message itself, the channels and the effects, without giving due attention to the intrapersonal processing of information/message in the brains of the receivers (and at every stage of production, transmission/distribution and reception) is a serious omission in all the existing models of communication in India and other developing countries. Whenever they propagate that India is a developed nation already or on the way to become a developed nation, the truth of the matter is that the channels of communication are giving wide publicity to facts that are not entirely trustworthy. They are hiding the fact that at least half the population of India is illiterate and incapable of understanding what is literally going on in their surroundings. Even in a state like Kerala where it is claimed that 90 per cent of the people can at least sign their name (a benchmark of literacy), a very poisonous environmental pollutant 144â•…


such as endosulfan has wrought genetic disorders in a large number of children and the highly educated Keralites became aware of this pesticide hazard only recently. The government of the state was constrained to ban the pesticide only quite recently. The government of the State was constrained to ban the aerial spraying of the pesticide, but its use is not entirely banned because of the Central government’s lenient attitude to hazardous organo-chlorine and other types of dangerous insecticides and pesticides. What were the literate people of Kerala doing all these years? What were the media doing? Or take the example of the hooch tragedies occurring in societies where education has registered great progress. There is no proper awareness that those who add methylated spirit (i.e., spirit containing methyl alcohol) and sell drinking alcohol through legal channels) are, in fact, murderers and not business persons. What is the use of education if citizens (consumers, excise officials, government functionaries and citizens in general), cannot distinguish between poison and alcohol? Although mass communication is society-wide, different sections of society are not influenced equally by the instruments of mass communication. Figure 4.2 explains that the very base of communication in society is IC, which, in turn, depends on the position of the individual in the society—education, personal up-bringing by parents, parents’ education, acquired and inherited wealth, membership of organizations, occupations, and other sociological factors. According to Denis McQuail (2005), world-renowned communication scientist, society-wide mass communication is ‘at the apex of a pyramidal distribution’ and IC is at the base of that pyramid. In between the apex and the base, there are several layers of interpersonal communication (IPC)—institutional, organizational, political, business, inter-group or associational (such as local community, intra-group (family), small group; couples (married, unmarried, heterosexual, homosexual and group), and intra-group (within family, nuclear, extended or joint family), and finally intrapersonal (one’s own brain, one’s central nervous system). From a base of IC involving a large number of cases, the model moves up to mass communication with very few or absolutely zero cases of interaction. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 145

Figure 4.2 Intrapersonal base of All Communication Activities


McQuail’s model given in Figure 4.2 indicates that mass communication is, technically speaking, society-wide, but cases of mass communication in the social organization are very few. Cases of inter-group, institutional-organizational, inter-group and interpersonal communication are many in number. IPC is highly prevalent in business and industrial organizations, internally and externally. PR depends a great deal on IPC. But even there, IC is of the utmost importance as explained earlier. The degree of understanding between the managers and the managed will depend a great deal on the IC of both. If the mangers cannot empathize with the workers and office staff working under them, if the PR manager, particularly, cannot understand why his efforts at communicating internally are not succeeding, one reason could be the inadequacy of the intrapersonal process of communication taking place in the brains of both the PR person and his subordinates or colleagues. McQuail’s model also indicates that of all the layers of communication in society, the most prevalent layer is the IC layer that lies at the 146â•…


base of the model and it influences all the other layers. Intrapersonal cases are the most basic as they influence the inter-personal and the mass communication layers, although the communication between the mass communicators and users of mass media are very rare and the intrapersonal influences working on the mass communicators and the mass receivers are not visible at all. What is visible is the exchange between the communicator and the communicatee in an interpersonal situation. But if we ignore the influences working on the two sides, our understanding of the process of communication will be inadequate. This is of special significance in countries such as India with a very high number of illiterates and uneducated, poor and ignorant people. The low levels of not only this factor but also of nutrition, health, employment and other factors will affect the process of social communication.

Human Relations and the Hawthorne Experiment PR in a way are symbolic of human relations because PR involves relations with the internal as well as external public, both comprising human beings at various levels and in various situations. In the industrial and business management world, the origin of human relations in modern times can be traced to the Hawthorne experiment. The Hawthorne experiment was a study undertaken by a group of psychologists and sociologists at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago between 1927 and 1932. It was conducted at the request of the company to find an adequate solution to the complaints among its 30,000 employees. The company had been advised by a set of consultants to reduce tensions by introducing certain measures—adjust working hours, rest periods, light intensity and other environmental conditions. These measures resulted from a management efficiency expert whose advice at the time was held in high esteem, namely, Frederick W. Taylor (vide Chapter 1). Taylor and other important scientific management experts were of the view that each worker had to be studied individually. The worker, according to them, resembled a machine in important respects. The efficiency of the worker resulted from eliminating unwanted movements. It could be improved by improving the working environment— light, temperature, humidity, etc. All these physical conditions were Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 147

important factors that affected the worker’s productivity, said the scientific management experts. As the Hawthorne experiment proceeded according to the plan, the researchers found to their surprise that not only in the experimental groups but also in the control groups productivity increased. This led to the assumption that besides working conditions, there were some motivational forces wholly unrelated to lighting and other physical factors that were exerting their influence on output. The next stage of the study, now known as the bank-wiring study, confirmed that the management’s assumption that workers were motivated by pay based on an individual and the group incentive scheme was wrong but that production increased because of a change in the workers’ attitudes towards their job and their team spirit. The very attention that the researchers paid to the workers inflated their sense of importance and this led to the increase in productivity. Feelings and attitudes were more important than working hours and even wages. The worker was motivated by a sense of belonging to the place of work. He felt that the work he was doing was important to his organization. His high level of performance gave him a feeling of importance. The experiment established in those early years of development in management thought that the worker was frustrated by fatigue, monotony, boredom, absenteeism, etc. It also challenged the motivational concepts of the scientific management school since it showed undoubtedly that the worker was no mere extension of his machine but a complex human being whose social, psychological and personal needs required the serious attention of the management. The human factors in any management organization deserved very close attention.

A Definition for Human Relations Human relations can be defined as the process of effective motivation of individuals in a given situation, in order to achieve a balance of objectives that will yield greater human satisfaction and help accomplish the legitimate goals of a business, financial or industrial organization. It follows that the management’s basic objectives in developing good human relations must centre around the creation of an environment 148â•…


that makes the satisfaction of human needs compatible with the accomplishment of organizational goals. The knowledge worker of today’s world is not getting adequate consideration as far as his or her eyesight is considered. But more than that, women knowledge workers doing the graveyard shift are not given enough protection during travel to and fro in deserted workplaces. To treat men and women IT workers on an equal footing in the name of gender equality is not a wise or safe practice since men are different from women. Men are men and women are women—the twain shall meet only in safe environment, especially at night. We have come across several tragic incidents during the past and therefore, this matter deserves special attention while we consider human relations. There should also be a correlation between machine design and human design. The human being does not always work like a machine, although many people have found similarities between men and machines. Machines work best when they do one simple task repetitively. Complex tasks are done best, says Drucker, in a step-by-step series of simple tasks. The human being is differently designed. Repetitive work tires him out. He will do better when the tasks are different and his whole being is involved—muscles, senses and mind. He works best when there are a variety of operations at different speeds and rhythms. The release of stress hormones and changes in electrical tension throughout the central nervous system (CNS) and the bloodstream are physiologically offensive. ‘While work is best laid as uniform, working is best organized with a considerable degree of diversity…and what is good industrial engineering for work is exceedingly poor human engineering for the worker’, says Drucker (1974: 184). There are some management experts who have theorized that workers are immature, lazy and hateful of working. Indian managers are sometimes highly critical of workers’ laziness; they refuse to concede that Indian workers also work with great enthusiasm when they are given the right circumstances. For example, they are highly productive in the Gulf countries and in the western democracies where proper work environment and basic and proper tools are supplied by the management. It is not merely salary and wages that motivate workers. Psychological satisfactions are equally important. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 149

Abraham H. Maslow, known as the father of humanist psychology, is well-known for his concept of the hierarchy of needs. When basic needs are fulfilled, human beings go in search of fulfilling higher needs, secondary needs and then the tertiary needs. Higher needs include the need for self-fulfilment or self-realization. As a psychologist, Maslow established that human beings’ hierarchy of needs move from the bottom or basic physiological needs to the top, namely, self-realization (see Figure 4.3). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Basic physiological needs; Safety needs; Love and belongingness needs; Esteem and self-respect needs; and Needs for self-realization and accomplishment. Figure 4.3 Priority of Human Needs

Self-realization

Esteem and Self-respect Recognition and Social Activity Safety Basic Physiological Needs

Source: Maslow, 1954: 80–92.

But Maslow, if he were alive today, would have perceived that a large majority of human beings in the world are still wandering at the lower levels, eking out a bare existence, for the fulfilment of primary physiological needs such as food, shelter and clothing. They are not getting any opportunity to go for secondary needs; nor have they the time to do it. Neither they nor their children get a chance to acquire literacy and education, not even a job skill that ought to sustain them. 150â•…


Maslow would have noticed that the lower 40 per cent of the world’s population of 6.3 billion, i.e., 630 crores, are illiterate, uneducated, ill-housed, unemployed or partially employed, unhealthy, malnourished and constantly under the threat of death or displacement caused by either terrorists or developers. In his discussion of managerial communications, Drucker said in the 1970s that human beings had more devices to be in touch with others; but today in the new millennium, we are used to the commercial, ‘Talk, India, Talk.’ We have several dozen new cell phone companies and their commercial sponsors in their hundreds to propagate the habit of talking to others constantly. We have a surfeit of communications media, unimaginable to the men who lived around the time of World War II. But despite all this, and the thousands of practitioners in all institutions, business, military establishments, public administration, hospital, university and research organizations, ‘communications has proven as elusive as the Unicorn’, says Drucker (1974: 481–493). Without honesty and sincerity, it is impossible to attain proper understanding between the managers and the managed, between top executives and the workers, between the administrators and the people. Human relations become meaningless and totally ineffective without management’s extra efforts to treat the workers and the subordinates with a sense of human dignity and basic equality as fellow humans.

Communication and Information In these days of extra importance given to IT, there is a chance of mistakenly according more importance to information. Information and communication are entirely different. Though they are interdependent, they are opposite to each other. Information is mere data; communication is an understanding between two persons or among different groups. Information is not emotionally surcharged; it is neutral and dry. Communication is affected by the emotions of the communicating individuals or groups. It is coloured by expectations. Information is impersonal and the more it is devoid of values, the more valid and reliable it becomes. Information is dry as dust, communication is sensitive, soft and smooth. Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 151

Many business organizations attempt to communicate downward— from top executives to the lower levels. But downward communication cannot be meaningful to the people below just because they simply fail to notice the significance of the content of communication. Communication is the act of the recipient not of the sender of messages. Meaningless messages from the top become mere utterances. Mere emission of sounds. For many decades now, all our attention has been on the sender—the who of the communications model. Why not give more importance to the receivers of messages. What interests the recipients is actually more important than what flows downward. To motivate the recipient, upward communication is essential. Letters issued for the benefit of the employees, although well done, may not have the desired effect unless the writer knows what will interest the employees, to what extent they will understand, how well they receive it and how willingly they work towards the fulfilment of the goals of the organization. The manager’s jargon may not mean anything to the supervisor or worker. The willingness to listen to the lower level personnel in an organization is a desirable quality in the managerial communicator, but mere listening will not do. Understanding must follow the act of listening. This understanding can come only when managers are willing to treat others as worthy human beings. There is no doubt that a higher quantity of information is reaching all the members of an organization these days. But an overloading of human beings with information can only clutter their minds and hinder their communication. One has to think of filtering information so that unwanted information is kept out of our system of communication. Information revolution cannot be a really useful process unless what we get is useful and applicable to our particular situation. Business is people, no doubt; and people are our greatest asset not only in organizations but also in the whole country of India. Sometimes modern managers concede that people’s potential is not used fully. They, unlike their traditional counterparts, are willing to focus on people as a resource. This augurs well for our firms, but this changed view has to be followed up by appropriate actions that uphold the basic humanity of all members of the organization. This humanistic approach to management implies that there are no universal geniuses and that genius is not all inherited. Nobody in an 152â•…


organization is a non-performer. There are no non-performers, there are only potentially performing human beings who are sometimes placed in the wrong position—the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

PR Manager’s Basic Tasks Like other managers, the PR Manager also has certain basic tasks. Set objectives and make the objectives effective by communicating them to the people whose performance is needed to achieve them. l Organize through analyzing the activities, decision and relations required to reach the objectives of the division and the company. l Motivate and communicate so that a team is built out of the people responsible for various jobs. Make appropriate decisions about salaries and wages without discrimination based on principles that will adjudged equitable and fair by all the members of the group. l Establish benchmarks, yardsticks, measurement devices for the whole division based on fair practices applicable to the whole organization. Subordinates, colleagues and superiors must receive full data about the underlying principles and practices. l Develop people including the top ones. Almost eight decades ago, Elton Mayo of Harvard recognized the failure of the traditional approach to communications. Mayo said that the executives must find out what subordinates want to know. In order to ‘get across’ to them, they should be interested in and receptive to what the subordinates would like to say (Drucker, op. cit.). l

Listening is good, but listening assumes that the supervisor will understand what he is being told. It also assumes that subordinates can communicate. Listening may help to get the reason for misunderstanding, but it does not lay down a basis for understanding, as Drucker (1974: 491) says. There are management experts who wax eloquent on work as social bond and community bond but they are rather silent on the high rate of unemployment in many developing countries. Even 6 per cent unemployment in many Western countries is portrayed as intolerably Essential Qualities of a PR Personâ•… lâ•… 153

inhuman but nobody sheds tears about 16 per cent unemployment in the so-called developing countries. It is generally accepted among thinking men that work is the means to satisfy man’s need for belonging to a group and for a meaningful relationship to others. When Aristotle said that man was a zoon politikon (social animal), he was in fact referring to man’s need of work to satisfy his need for community. Even for the big shots in the senior citizens’ association or in the retired civil servants’ club, the man or woman who has nothing to do now will be happy to recollect past experiences and speak with great relish on the personal relations with those they worked with. They identify themselves with past work situations. No doubt, work is a living, economic and social exchange that ends only with death. In this chapter, we have discussed the theoretical aspects of management and public relations. We have examined the philosophical aspects of PR. The next chapter deals with practical PR writing and media relations.

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5 PRACTICAL PR, BUSINESS WRITING AND MEDIA RELATIONS The fundamental principles of writing apply to PR writing too. Rules of grammar and rhetoric do not change. But in addition to this, there are certain special points to be observed while doing PR as well as business writing. Both involve internal and external public. PR managers have to be in touch with the internal public consisting of personnel at different levels in the organization either directly or through departmental heads. The tone, content and style of communication differ depending on the target audience at whom the writing is aimed. Media relations are special to the PR personnel because their work is primarily based on their relations with the media of public communication and also with the internal publications of the company meant mainly for internal consumption by the various sections of the organization—managerial, supervisory and total employee population in different departments at the main office and at the branches. The relations with newspapers, magazines, radio, television and film, producers of CDs, DVDs, twitter, blogs and various other new social media flourishing, in both the internal and external fields, have to be maintained on an even keel by the PR division of the organization.

Their magnitude will depend on the magnitude of the business in which the organization is immersed.

Which Language to Use in Business? Let us deal with some practical aspects of PR writing in India. There are hundreds of books on this subject, mostly in developed countries, where business management is taught in English and business and industrial organizations conduct their day-to-day as well as long-term business in English. Almost all their publications are written in the same business language style. There is very little use for languages other than English in the majority of public and private organizations in India, although there are at least 23 major languages in the country. The Constitution of India recognizes 23 languages but for all practical purposes, business in India is carried out in English and occasionally in 12 major languages that have significant popularity in the various regions of the country mainly for oral communication. The four southern languages—Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu—are used in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, respectively, mostly for political and social purposes. Hindi, besides being the national language, is spoken and used for official purposes in 10 states—Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Hindi and Urdu are in great use in big cities such as Chennai, Delhi, Kochi, Kolkata and Mumbai irrespective of the region, mostly for colloquial purposes but not for business communication. Assam has Assamese; Gujarat has Gujarati; Kashmir has Hindi, Urdu, Kashmiri and Dogra; West Bengal and Tripura have Bengali; Orissa has Oriya; Maharashtra has Marathi; Punjab has Punjabi; Sikkim has Sikkimese. Meghalaya and Manipur have English; other states in the North East have English and important tribal languages. But India’s business and industrial world is mostly confined to two dozen metropolitan cities and industrial towns—Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Pune, Coimbatore, Cuttack, Gwalior, Jallandhar, Jamashedpur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Patna and Varanasi. 156

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English is still the official language of business and education. Most of the universities and colleges use English as the medium of higher education including technical and science education and research. The importance of English is growing as the days go by and the process of globalization is getting universal recognition. However, in India, where there are at least a dozen major languages with well-developed linguistic and literary foundations (and hundreds of dialects) and the media of communication—newspapers and magazines of various frequencies and radio/television/film programmes—are enveloping the population in each region in a steady and strong communication environment, the process of communication in business and industry will not be complete without the use of regional languages. Industrial and business firms are depending almost solely on English for external communication—for correspondence and publicity; communication in regional languages becomes essential for internal communication, especially among the workers and lower cadres of employees. State governments are also switching to regional languages for communication with the citizens, and this trend is likely to gain strength in the years to come. Barring the top echelons of the organization, the large majority of employees in any large organization will feel more comfortable speaking in the regional languages because most of them have had their primary, secondary and higher secondary education in schools where the medium of instruction is the regional language. Publications of repute such as the Economic and Political Weekly of India, Mumbai, have already decided to bring out editions in Hindi and other languages of the country. According to a newspaper report, the Hindi edition has already come out. Prestigious publishers such as SAGE India have brought out translations of their authors in regional languages. (Two of the author’s books have already been brought out by SAGE in Tamil and Marathi). The majority of high schools in all the Indian states are instructing children in the local languages, although the number of English medium schools is on the increase. However, managements of large corporations are publishing their house magazines in English and the number of trade publications in English is increasing. The importance of English all over the world Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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has been increasing steadily over the past two centuries, and it is estimated that there are 500 million English speakers in the world (Roy, 1999). Of the present 6.3 billion people on planet Earth, only about half are literate in many countries. Yet, the English speakers of the world form half a billion. Of the one billion people in India, the percentage of people claiming English as their mother tongue is very small, infinitesimally small. But as pointed out earlier, the language of communication among the elite business and industrial executives and of central and state administration is still mostly English, although administrative service examinations can now be taken in Hindi and other languages of India. The medium of instruction in technical institutions, IITs, IMMs, most colleges and universities is English, although there is a clamour for conducting entrance examinations in regional languages. The media in English are exceptionally strong. (See Appendix 4, Table 14). Among the 3,000 languages of the world, eight languages claim the loyalty of about half the world’s population. The approximate number of people using each of those eight languages is given below based on 1995 statistics revised by a 10 per cent increase for each language during the past 15 years. But as pointed out earlier, half the world’s population is still illiterate. The number of speakers of the top eight languages can be projected for 2020 as indicated in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Eight Major World Languages and the Number of their Users (in crores) Chinese English Hindi Spanish Russian Arabic Bengali Tamil

107.25 52.58 48.07 43.12 31.24 24.75 22.00 7.77

Total

336.78

1 billion = 100 crores; 1 crore = 10 million and 1 million = 10 lakhs. Source: Author’s own.

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Is the Image Up and the Word Down? It is mistakenly held by many people that in our audio-visual age, the word is down and the image up, because of the preponderance of RTF (Radio/Television/Film) and other electronic media in the world of mass communication to which the world is wired. But highly important communication is carried on mainly with the help of the word. As in the beginning, so even in our new millennium, the word is all important. All students of communication have to be aware of the distinction between communication and mass communication. Communication is two-way, whereas, mass communication is one-way most of the time. Images do not convey the full meaning. Without words, the images could become meaningless or misunderstood. In the package of communication, print is still the best means of communication, with pictures or even without it. Mass communication is evanescent, transient and transitory. Print is more permanent and ordinary people can afford to keep a record in readable form at least for a few months whereas it is cost-prohibitive to make tapes or digital records of what is communicated via the electronic media. A picture, according to a Chinese proverb, is worth a thousand words, but some pictures might convey very little meaning without words. Nobody is sure how many words we read every day—in newspapers, books, magazines, textbooks, wayside hoardings, streamers on the TV screen, pamphlets and brochures distributed in supermarkets, in tele-texts, SMS messages, in twitters, e-mails, blogs and the serious and trash publications. Even those who believe in the supremacy of pictures, the heavy television and movie watchers, and radio listeners depend a great deal on printed material for information supplied through the RTF fare. To them too, words are important because silent movies will not convey the full meaning of the action, or the movie-watchers will get the wrong meanings of images. Marshall McLuhan was only partially right when he exaggerated that modern civilization was reverting to the pre-literate stage. Images without the accompaniment of words will at best be intriguing and at worst totally confusing. We have, therefore, to give the utmost importance to the usage of the right word at the right time, in the Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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right context. We have also to make half the world’s population (and half of India’s too) literate. Reading habits differ. Some skip the advertisement matter in fine print; they are attracted by the pictures in ads, but effective headlines and catchy phrases are as attractive as sensuous pictures—sometimes more attractive. The television images have the advantage of drowning the message in a pool of moving picture(s) synchronized with bold actions and themes. But sooner or later, the commercial ad admirers become wiser as they simply search for the audio and printed matter, more credible than mere visual distractions. Reading interest and the volume of reading will diminish as one grows older. Conventional wisdom conjures up an opposite view, namely—as people grow older, they spend more time reading. But much depends on their health, eyesight and special interests. Reading is hot; books are hot media in McLuhanese. Television and film, on the other hand, are cool. Not much thinking is necessary to enjoy what is portrayed on TV whereas while reading, one has to strain one’s brain. But straining the eyes to read is harder and less comfortable to the older person than watching the big images without racking one’s brain or straining one’s eyes. Moreover, reading serious write-ups about health, daily economics, stock options, education and even entertainment may require reference to dictionaries. People who are in the process of ageing do not enjoy referring to the fine print in dictionaries, definitions of terms or glossaries. Home-oriented activities such as decorating, dusting, gardening, watering the lawn, scratching the surroundings of plants or television viewing may be more pleasant than reading, to the older citizen. But when you read, you have to write too. Reading will stick to memory if you care to jot down points, make marginal notes or highlight. Highlighting is a sign of understanding the importance of some points in the material you are reading. A PR manager’s job involves much writing and writing is not easy for people who do not spend a fair amount of time in reading. A PR person is a heavy reader and a smooth writer. She does not read only business books on planning, coordinating, organizing and executing; she reads popular science and popular psychology, human nature and human relations, case histories of big and small enterprises and entrepreneurs. 160

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She reads about why certain products appeal more to men than to women or vice versa. She contemplates on advertisements in print media and commercials on broadcast media. Sometimes, she directs her thought to the printing of classics in the language that appeals to the children of workers and supervisors in her particular industry. She can get the classics given away as prizes by the Chairman or Managing Director/CEO during special get-togethers and picnics. Or, cookbooks and books on gender equality can be given away as special prizes for women in the organization. There are umpteen ways of projecting your bosses as human beings with flesh and blood, endearing and admirable to others. Conferences and seminars are tools for the PR manager to generate publishable material in the form of news items, feature articles, photos with proper legends and special ads relating to products and services. Education and industry tie-ups can be organized by PR personnel. Successful companies can establish research professorships and chairs in particular faculties of science, computer science and applied sciences; arts and humanities; commerce and business management; and other social sciences including women’s studies, child welfare, etc. Generous endowments help bright young men and women to take up research and experimental studies that will bring home to the company and the business world, the genuine interest the company takes in the expansion of knowledge and in the welfare of the wider society. Several large companies finance research activities intended to throw new light on their own old technologies. New findings and new technologies will bring new lifeblood into old organizations and help society to improve upon existing methods of production that will increase output. Most future scientists absorb new ideas during their college or university years. Ideas including political and sociological insights gained in their formative years will motivate them to set apart their life and career for the benefit of society. Timely technical help, social guidance and financial encouragement from large companies will inspire the youth to work on socially productive pursuits. Many manufacturers in the West have established links with teachers/educators/researchers/professors/deans and presidents of colleges and universities. They also help in organizing seminars, conferences, symposia and special discussions widely televised for greater Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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participation by the academic and non-academic communities in subsequent meetings.

Pamphlets, etc. Pamphleteering is an art. English essayists who were journalists too in the 18th century—writers like Richard Steele, Joseph Addison and Dr Samuel Johnson—started their literary career as journalists who wrote delightful features for general reading, which later on bloomed into a new genre—essays—of literary merit. Their pamphlets are still famous. Modern-day newspapers also help industrial enterprises in writing leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, catalogues, etc., and push them as inserts in weekend editions. This will be useful to both the newspapers and other print media, and to the manufacturers/producers of articles of daily use. Some electronic media select prominent citizens and include them in their special mailing lists. These citizens, supposedly users of the media channels, will receive special mementoes, publications and articles of daily use such as time-pieces, statuettes, diaries, desk calendars, etc. Sometimes, costly perfumes, deodorants, soaps, talcum powders, make-up kits, etc., are sent to prominent men and women in each locality. The companies that engage themselves in such publicity efforts are getting many of these gifts specially made in bulk quantities from their manufacturers who also get indirect publicity. Sometimes co-sponsoring of individual/business product is done to share the cost involved. Publishers of some newspapers and magazines follow this practice.

Annual Reports Annual Reports of the Company, Chairman’s Speech and Special Lectures delivered by prominent speakers are sent to opinion-leaders and outstanding citizens to gain their support and goodwill. All these efforts have one primary objective—to influence the attitudes and change opinions about the company’s products and services. 162

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Although they are rather slow in achieving perceptible results quickly, they are sure to achieve the desired results in course of time if the company succeeds in contacting prominent citizens and influential customers. The impact, though slow, is sure to follow. Some makers of organic goods publish well-produced, illustrated booklets/pamphlets on various dishes prepared from organic vegetables, soups and desserts. These beautiful publications, profusely illustrated and printed on glossy art paper are sometimes prepared in collaboration with restaurant chains and eateries, specializing in organic vegetable food items. Similarly, medical and pharmaceutical companies collaborate with drug manufacturers, hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, sanatoriums, old-age homes, retirement villas, etc., and produce brochures and illustrated pamphlets on the commonly used (sometimes highly specialized) drugs especially effective in older citizens. The printed booklets on life and lifestyles prevalent among people in their golden years will be highly valued among inmates of old age homes and retirement coves. Sometimes, publishers of very special magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest and medical journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA), Lancet or the British Medical Journal collaborate with some companies in bringing out special editions on certain diseases and their treatment, without violating principles of medical ethics.

Company Histories When a company has functioned fairly successfully for 10, 25, 50, 60, 75 or 100 years, PR people usually consult the Chairman or CEO regarding a special event—decennial, silver, golden, diamond, platinum jubilees or centennial celebrations, respectively. When the top executive suggests a celebration, she may require the PR manager to prepare facts, figures, pictures, etc., that are useful for tracing a flawless, adequately documented and dependable history of the organization. The company publication will not just be a laudatory history of the organization. It will be a useful record of the teething troubles gone through by the company and a record of miserable follies as well as Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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outstanding achievements. The document will be a pointer to the social, political and economic conditions prevailing at the time of the founding of the company and during its growth and development. It will be an authentic record of the socio-economic, political and cultural history, and environment of the period of its evolution. Some big corporations of the world have completed their 100th anniversaries—Unilever, Exxon, Shell, ICI, GM, GE, Tata, etc. Past company chairmen have written dependable and interesting narrations of the history of their corporations, the illustrious founder and his successors and their achievements, with anecdotes that are of general reader interest. Some academic professors of history at famous universities have written fascinating social histories of outstanding corporations of the world. Cambridge professor, Charles Wilson, has written a very fascinating history of Unilever. It was a social document used in several universities during the 1970s and 1980s of the last century. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., wrote the history, My Years with General Motors. It is required reading in many business schools even today. William Rodger’s Think (1969) is the story of IBM; with the unconventional subtitle: The Active Non-Cooperation of the Company. Though unflattering in a way to the protagonists, such challenging and unconventional histories render their accounts credible; they are not hero-worshipping paeans of their subjects but honest accounts of the heroic struggles and actions of important individuals in history. Of course, there are also records of human vanity adorning the shelves of company libraries, not so often frequented by the average reader or company employee.

Technical Aspects of Print PR managers have to be careful about the choice of typefaces because much depends on the readability of types used in publicity and promotional material. Between Bodoni and Times New Roman will lie the readability or otherwise of the material used for promotion. If the material is meant for senior citizens, its appeal will not only depend on the matter but on the typeface. Older citizens will not bother to read the best matter if it appears in 10-point letters. Almost eight 164

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decades ago, Stanley Morrison wrote that ‘the reading habits of people were based on physical, ocular laws and within those laws, upon the printed matter that they experienced’ (1932). Many technical and production changes have occurred during the past eight decades, but certain reading habits and readers’ preferences remain immutable. Content and typography enter into a kind of marriage which is almost beyond divorce under any circumstance. The proverbial statement of Marshall McLuhan, namely, ‘The medium is the message’ applies to this inevitable link between the face (typeface) and the body (content).

Preparation of News Releases We have already discussed some basic principles of news release writing in a previous section. We shall present more details here. First, some preliminary questions. How many news stories are lying unused and even unnoticed in the past and present company records? How can you make them available to newspapers and other media? What trade publications and technical journals can become useful? Are there other special publications that can be used for the company’s publicity? Should we give more attention to regional publications than to national ones? On which occasions will press conferences be more apt? What questions can you anticipate from the media? Are your press releases covering those questions? Which top officers of the company must necessarily be present at the press meet? Answers to these questions will help to set the background for the press conference and influence the contents of the press release. Escaping the ‘spike’ must be the goal of a news story and press release. Spikes used to find a place on sub-editors’ or editors’ desks in the past. The unused stories were spiked in olden days—that is before the computer processing of stories and press releases was started in the 1980s. The assumption was that the unused spiked stories were unlikely to be used in the future. Actually, spiking was equivalent to killing the story. In modern days, the unused stories do not get the spike but go to the computer trash file. They are not likely to be used at all Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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unless some special circumstances develop or pressure comes from the higher-ups to exhume the dead stories. Newspaper reading habits have changed over the years all over the world. In India too there has been a great change. Most people who were avid readers of printed matter have become voracious viewers of the visual media, no doubt, but can we say for sure that people’s reading habits have declined so disastrously as to drop readers from the users of the media? With every drop in percentage of old print media users, there has been a parallel rise in new users of the print media as proved by recent statistics. There is no other explanation for the phenomenal rise in the circulation of newspapers such as Dainik Jagran (55.74 million), Dainik Bhaskar (circulation: 33.83 million), Amar Ujaala (29.3 million) and Hindustan (26.3 million), etc., (Pandey, 2009: 8). Visual media, particularly television, have stolen some glamour from print media, no doubt, but print media still enjoy more reputation and permanence than the transient media among the influential segments of the population. Publishers of technical and trade journals and those of educational, technical and entertainment (fiction for all age groups, magazines for target audiences) books have found a new respect and popularity in the new century. It is possible that the neo-literates in developing countries have become a substantial market for the publishers of print media. Print and the word will never lose their importance in the world of knowledge. None can achieve any real progress in the universe of knowledge with total dependence on images. No educational institution can grade students or evaluate them without books. The three Rs [Reading, (W) Riting and (A) Rithmetic] can create a complete human, but not the three Vs [Vigyan (Information), Vidya (Education) aur Vinod (Entertainment)]. Our major problem in India today is that we do not have good PR writers with sound knowledge of the English language although as pointed out earlier, most prominent companies conduct their business in English. Also, we cannot ignore that our print and electronic media make many mistakes in the usage of English. The mistakes are disseminated in a massive manner by the mass media. The higher the rate of dissemination, the faster and more deep-rooted becomes the spread of mistakes. By the time the mistakes are detected and amends made,

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many thousands of readers, listeners and viewers are misled. Errors in grammar, usage, pronunciation, spelling, etc., become widely distributed. Faulty grammar, wrong spellings and usage and mispronunciations get firmly entrenched in the media users’ mental horizon.

Why Faulty English English has been in use in India for many many decades but it is still a foreign language for millions who get their education in our colleges and universities. The main reason for this decline is that there is no effort to teach English at the school level in the proper manner. We assume that we can teach English literature without teaching the rudiments of the English language in a systematic manner. It used to be properly done in olden days. Many new generation journalists either use a kind of sophisticated (and artificial) language which is beyond the ken of the average media users or they indulge in faulty expressions without knowing their meaning and succeed in gaining wide currency for their mistaken expressions. Television reporters and film actors give reports and dialogues without any attention on the pronunciation of English words. All these are bad for the future of English, business management and business communication, because the latter-day business communicators are heavy users of the media, particularly film and television. There is a great need for a group of researchers in different B-schools and management schools and schools of communication and media studies, to work together on a project aimed at improving the teaching of the English language at the school level in all states of India. Let us leave this matter to educational experts and return to our main theme.

Newspaper Reports and Press Releases Both are reports but newspaper reports are prepared by news reporters— cub reporters as well as junior and senior reporters who attend press Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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conferences and report events or issues connected with life outside the newspaper office. Press releases are basic facts and figures that a company or organization wishes to highlight for those who are interested in the working of companies or organizations, especially for those who have shares or special interests in them. News reports are meant for the whole public, the general public. Press releases from companies are not always meant for the general public, but the special public of business and industry. Newspapers are not always newspapers. They are sometimes viewspapers and carriers of special feature articles embellished by pictures from various fields—sports, film, television, etc. They are also carriers of advertisements that occupy between 40 and 60 per cent of the total space. Some newspapers set apart even up to 65 per cent of their space for advertisements; some TV channels devote more than 50 per cent of their telecasting time, especially during tele-movies to advertising. Several ads use faulty English—expressions, malapropisms and misspellings and it is a sad fact that newspaper editors ignore them as they do not want to offend the advertisers!

Other Contents Of the non-news area in newspapers, some 40 to 50 per cent goes for interesting tidbits, advertisements camouflaged as news; classifieds; display ads and personal news (such as births, weddings, baptisms, deaths, etc.). What we generally observe is that news based on the newspaper’s own reporters, correspondents, representatives, photographers and others will not be more than 20 or 25 per cent on an average day. What will surprise most of us is that out of this 25 per cent space devoted to news and features, special articles and write-ups, a substantial percentage of space goes for re-written press releases issued by large-scale private businesses, government and private PR departments and public sector undertakings. As mentioned earlier, no newspaper publishes a press release verbatim. Modifications are made at the senior reporters’ and editors’ desks, but PR managers of all business and industrial firms would like to see their press releases published in toto. As already indicated, newspapers publish 168

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reports that have news value. They look at press releases from the angle of the reader who is the user. Some newspaper publishers consider the newspaper as a product whose user has to be a satisfied customer. Therefore, press releases that stress the achievements of a company do not necessarily appeal to the news editor, if those achievements are not of great public use. In other words, what the company achieves should have relevance to society, to the reading public and special subscribers of the newspaper. Therefore, press releases need to be written with the news angle in mind, with skill and economy. Economy of words is important because the pages of modern publications are weighed in gold these days—space is everything now for the publisher. Much of it goes for ads that bring in the revenue. On television too, and to a much lesser extent on radio, time is very important since it is sold in seconds. Some channels fit in commercials in a corner of the TV screen even while news or entertainment is presented. During certain popular programmes, a commercial can cost a million dollars per second. So, be brief when you prepare a press release for the media. Space and time are the essence of the media—they are curiously enough the very essence of life too. Certainly so, confirm the media producers, for the very existence and survival of the media. Yet, news reports and features are not all original. Almost half of the reports and features on business pages may be PR handouts (touched or re-written). A survey done by communications or media researchers will confirm the truth in this educated guess. Editors have confirmed the usefulness of PR sources to business page editors. Whether the editors or reporters doctor the news story is a moot question. But the advantages of press-release-based (PRB) news are many as far as the newspaper establishment is concerned. First of all, sending a reporter to the field (political, accident or crime scene, court, educational institution, police, etc.) is always expensive: reporter’s time, transportation, food and other expenses are not always met by outside individuals or organizations, but by the media companies. If the organization that needs publicity can prepare a press release, all these expenses for the newspaper organization can be saved. The goodwill of the firm will not be lost on account of the non-visit of Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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a reporter or representative. The space devoted to news and features (could profitably be sold for ads). The firm will send a reasonably wellprepared press note which can be leisurely re-written, edited and sent for publication depending on the space available for the next day’s issue of the newspaper. Television has certainly carved into the ad revenues of the print media, but of late we find that the large-circulation newspapers and magazines have excelled in ad revenues. An ad revenue estimate made by a leading ad agency, Lintas, is that the newspapers in India could earn about `13,000 crores, as against TV’s `11,000 crores and Internet’s `980 crores in 2010. Although there are several unseen factors that could affect the revenues in the years to come, the apprehensions expressed by big print media barons during the initial years of globalization were misplaced—a fact corroborated by the 2,200 crore increase the print media have been projected to make over TV in 2010 (Mint, 2009). Along with the change in ad revenues, the circulation of newspapers has increased almost ten-fold during the past ten years. But the contents have changed too—for the better, in a few cases, but for the worse, generally. This is a serious issue better left to the directors and managers of media ethics in media organizations and media education experts in universities, colleges and government departments (Appendix D). Constructing huge empires of print, broadcast and Internet business is a hobby for some international as well as national media barons. One big trend in the media world started in the 1980s. While the typical 19th and 20th century national newspapers of India had a national agenda, namely, the independence of the country from British colonialism, the newspapers of the post-Independence period (the latter part of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st century) do not seem to have any inspiring goal. Of course, they report the speeches and statements, counterstatements and attention-grabbing political stunts, faithfully and sometimes editorialize on some issues of political, economic or cultural importance, but one is dismayed at the lack of an all-absorbing agenda. Having any agenda is looked down upon by the new generation of editors who are mostly trained in foreign countries where balanced, objective newspaper business is considered the ideal. Newspapers have to be 170

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totally dispassionate and present balanced reports carrying the views of both sides in a controversy and even gather a hundred opinions and leave the matter at that. The newspaper does not, should not, and have its own views except in editorials which occupy only two columns at the most.

The Power of the Media: A Case Study PR managers can learn a few valuable truths from the true story narrated below: 1. Media can twist the truth whenever they choose from/between legitimate or illegitimate goals. 2. Media never offend anyone in fellow media circles. As far as possible, they try to be with other media, especially when the affected party is not of any special value to media barons. 3. If necessary, media bend the truth even if it is against all ethics. 4. Media follows their leader and make hay while the sun shines. Media have no qualms about beating an innocent man if needed, especially when others do it. According to many, the best policy is to never offend anyone. As far as possible, please the majority. PR managers will do well to remember the story of a grand old woman who went to church on a weekday and knelt before the image of God in all veneration, closed her eyes and prayed. Before leaving the church she knelt before the picture of the Serpent–Devil offering the apple to Eve, rather slyly looking this side and that checking if anyone was watching. Unfortunately for her, the sexton, a close friend of the woman, who was busy closing windows and doors to ward off an impending storm noticed her and asked her why she knelt before the Devil. Pat came grandma’s hesitant, toothless reply with a chuckle: ‘Suppose…His Kingdom…does not come!’ Several big media organizations—sometimes, luckily not always— bend the truth for private reasons and political, personal or monetary advantages. But the media has to be on the side of truth—always in the Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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public interest. Sticking to the truth is the best policy. Instead of trying to please all sides, be on the side of the truth and give facts and figures that corroborate the truth. Never report something without being convinced of the truth or otherwise of an event. Never report on the basis of hearsay or guesswork. If you are proved wrong, admit it gracefully instead of justifying the lie. Despite all these valuable principles repeatedly instilled into them, some bad apples among reporters and editors indulge in absolute lies. PR people must be aware that the media can, if they want, indulge in lies. One such lie was spread a decade and a half ago. This is no apocryphal story. This really happened and the records are available in any public library that has an archive. The story was reported on the front page of many newspapers. There was an agitation by some student organizations against the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of a university, who was physically barred by the agitators from entering the premises of the university. In order to avoid violence on campus, the VC took leave of absence for some time. There were death threats posted on the front door of his residence. But he had to attend to some very important pending files dealing with the impending payment of salaries to the teachers of a private college affiliated to the University. The VC went to the campus, during lunch break, in a private vehicle, entered his office and finished the business in thirty minutes. Then came the agitators (including some members of the syndicate and senate) who did everything to tear open the VC’s office. Some young guerillas even climbed the wall to break the glass window. They could not break the window. Then they tried to open the bolted door to the VC’s office. The VC went on signing some pending files and degree certificates. His private secretaries (two of them) held the handle of the door firmly up and another assistant called the city police control room which contacted the precinct where the University was situated. The ordeal lasted almost an hour, and during all that time the two assistants held their own (door handle). The police vehicle came with a force of 50 or more policemen in full gear (helmets, rattan shields, lathis etc). The agitators dispersed. The VC went home after disposing of some more files. The next morning’s newspapers had all the gory details of 172

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the stoning and injuring of Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus passengers and the burning of a couple of jeeps and cars belonging to government departments (parked on a remote by-lane). The reports did not end with the pictures and news stories. The front page had a boxed news item saying in bold letters, ‘VC enters office in disguise’. The actual words were, ‘VC enters office with a cloth on his head’ (Talayil mundit’t’ukont’u VC offisil). The phrase ‘talayil mundit’uka’ colloquially means ‘performing a disgraceful act, or hiding one’s identity when one goes either to a wayside toddy-shop or a brothel’. Was it a fitting tribute to the VC or the university he headed and entered for attending to an important official business? Probably, the colloquial meaning did not strike the headline writers. They did not have a clue about how the VC managed to get into his office when the agitation against him was at its height. The newspapers probably concluded after deliberations over the phone that the only way he could manage this stunt was through disguise. Clever and resourceful reporters invented a nice story. The record of the newspapers’ foolish audacity in reporting a VC based on hearsay, unsound logic or unexplained personal grudge can be accessed in any good library. It is a rare truth about journalism that PR people can remember—the media can twist facts and malign; and the media will go to any extent to reach their goal. This could also be connected to the journalists’ PNS (paid news syndrome); anachronistically (PNS, as all of us know, became a serious issue during the 2009 general elections, and hence the term ‘anachronistically’). (Incidentally, this writer was the VC in the true story narrated above). This does not mean that newspaper reporters in the whole country are followers of the newsmen that went to the extreme end of mendacity. Most newspaper reporters and editors are honest people, working conscientiously, writing beautifully and truthfully. In very special circumstances an infinitesimally small number among media personnel twist facts either on their own volition or under compulsion from their employers. Principled journalists with a high sense of truth and social responsibility may continue in their jobs for economic reasons, suffering the pangs and pricks of conscience rather than resign their jobs. When we study the life and career of many a journalist, we may come across such instances, not only in India but in other parts of the world. Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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Business Magnates as News-feeders Business magnates are very busy people but they are never too busy for newsmen, and news women, especially those whom they recognize at press conferences and those who have already written favourable reports and features on their companies. But ‘once bitten, twice shy’ is a lesson they never forget. They will try their best not to give appointments, even when the PR manager or the private secretary tries his or her best to arrange a meeting. Sometimes, the Chief Editor may try on his reporter’s behalf, with dubious results. Business persons know how to ward off unfriendly reporters. The PR manager may have a tough time to ease the situation. The easiest thing for the PR person to do would be talking personally to the Editor or Chief Reporter and give them a piece of hot news about the quarter’s earnings or CEO’s impending visit to London or New York, Hong Kong or Singapore for a possible technical collaboration with a major industry there. The persistent editor or reporter may still want an interview to discuss the details of the collaboration, etc. The PR manager’s explanation that the CEO is busy with an in-house data collection that will prepare the background for the collaboration trip will convince the media person who will contact the PR manager for future meetings. This will certainly be a sound way to handle the media at least temporarily. But PR personnel working in business corporations have to have some background education in communication and journalism courses taught in universities and institutes of higher learning. They should not have a contemptuous attitude to young men and women who get their degrees from formal institutions that coach them in the fundamentals of public relations, media management, interviewing techniques, feature writing, reporting, theories of communication, economic, social and cultural development, national development in the context of international development, language use and peculiarities of individual languages. In fact, many journalism schools in India are offering courses in these areas, but of late, there is a great deal of negative attitude to many of these courses. Neglecting language studies as part of communication and journalism, a lot of importance is given to audio-visual courses claiming that the entire future of communication lies in visual images. But as pointed 174

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out earlier, no communicator can rise to the top in any field—print, electronic, Internet, advertising, or PR—without the sound knowledge of the language in which communication is conducted. Great artists, cinematographers, actors (whether on stage or on celluloid) and singers, can achieve excellence in their respective fields only with a sound knowledge of the use of the language concerned. Look at the communication scenario in various linguistic areas of India. You find that the leading personalities in any field are excellent users of words—whether in writing or in speech, or imaging; whether oral, verbal or graphic. It is not necessary to point out that on the world scene too, this is true. But how do people become good communicators? For that, they have to read quite a lot. As someone said, to become a good writer, be a good reader. No PR executive or journalist can excel in her field without being a keen and sincere observer of human behaviour and without the ability to put down her thoughts in readable prose, simple but to the point and making sense to her target audience. She does not have to be a poet and it is wise and practical to stay away from poetry when she communicates with her colleagues, superiors and subordinates. She could be a poet and coin new expressions and usages for herself and her circle of private friends, but poetry in business writing would be a misfit since her target audience may not comprehend her fully, sometimes with unexpected consequences in the organization where she works. Poetry can sometimes be twice removed from reality and as someone said long ago, where there is too much poetry, there is too little sincerity. The business world expects the PR man or PR woman to be a practical person with the ease and grace of a facile writer who is fully understood by everyone in the organization.

An Intense Struggle for Establishing Brand Preference: A Case Study Imagine the CEO of a newly formed company competing with a giant in the field for getting at least a thin slice of the market for his product. What tactics should his PR manager adopt for achieving Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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his objectives? The product’s name is not familiar, even to the conventional customers, not to mention new customers. The product is not of daily use to most people; it was used mostly by men in India at the time, in the early 1960s. Women users were rare and they were guided by the men in their lives. The product was the automobile and truck tire. There was no competition for the only big tire factory in those days, the Dunlop Tyre & Rubber Company, a British manufacturer of worldwide repute operating its manufacturing plant in Madras (now Chennai). There was another manufacturer, the Firestone Tyre Company operating from a suburb of Bombay (now Mumbai), but it was not Dunlop’s competitor. Firestone mostly imported tires from its parent company in Akron, Ohio in the US. The MRF Ltd. (Madras Rubber Factory, at Tiruvottiyoor, a suburb of Chennai) started as a balloon and tread-rubber manufacturer in 1946 and by the early 1960s, it had grown into the largest tread-rubber manufacturer in India. Therefore, it had no great problem in early 1961 to get its collaboration with the Mansfield Tyre & Rubber Company of Mansfield, near Cleveland, Ohio, approved by the then government of India led by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India (August 1947–May 1964). The MRF-Mansfield collaboration was approved in 1961 and technical experts from Mansfield trained the MRF technical staff and MRF-Mansfield tyres began to appear on tyre-dealers’ shelves. The Company’s Sales Division was strengthened. New dealerships were added to the market that was dominated by Dunlop. MRF tyres were known in those days as MRF-Mansfield tyres. The brand was unknown in Indian markets. K. M. Mammen Mappillai who started MRF as a modest rubber toys and balloon manufacturer and his partners decided to embark on a novel venture of marketing Mansfield tyres in the national and international markets. But in the 1960s, the Mansfield name and emblem were not familiar to the Indian market. Mr Mappillai then decided to do something novel at the time—to promote the brand name through a city exhibition to begin with and later on repeat the exercise in other metropolises and prominent state capitals—the MRF exhibition with stalls on the different products of the Company; process and flow charts of tyre

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manufacturing; history of MRF from its inception in 1946 in pictures, including pictures of the then chairman and directors; a large display board at the entrance that did not miss the attention of visitors to the exhibition; a real rubber tree (which was not familiar to the city’s residents at that time) and other interesting items. The exhibition was conducted on half of the entire 1st floor of Dhun Buildings on Mount Road (now called Anna S’aalai), where the MRF registered office was situated in those days.

There Was Another Attraction at the Exhibition: An Octopus Mansfield tyres were depicted as not only ‘tyres with muscle’ but tyres with the octopus grip on the road. The octopus, as everyone knows, is a sea animal—a marine mollusk with a rounded sack-like body and eight tentacles, each bearing two rows of suckers. Its grip is legendary. A biology graduate, Mr Mammen Mappillai decided to project the image of strength and the special grip of the octopus for his industrial products, the automobile and truck tyres—a rare combination of biological insight and manufacturing technology. Pictures and drawings of the ‘legendary’ octopus and its tentacles with suckers were exhibited along with large blowups of MRF-Mansfield tyres—tyres with twin-tread on wet roads. Some were automobile tyres and some others were truck tyres—all had muscles and the octopus grip. What an idea sir-ji! There were also catchy headlines displayed in different parts of the exhibition—tyres with twin tread, truck tyres with muscles, tyres with the octopus grip, muscles and grips ensure your safety, etc. By today’s standards, the exhibition was modest, but the number of city and suburban residents who visited it during and after office hours (between 5.30 pm and 8.30 pm) was really quite big—1,000–3,000 on week days and 3,000–5,000 on Saturdays and Sundays. One reason for the huge crowd was the location of the Dhun Building, the ground

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floor of which had popular shopping centres, restaurants, etc. The neighbourhood had a couple of cinema houses, the Cosmopolitan Club frequented by prominent citizens, the Indian Airlines office and the spaciously built Mount Road post office. There were exhibition boards kept at important spots on both sides of Mount Road—rubber exhibition, certainly a novel name board that also aroused the curiosity of city residents, through a muscleman emblem with a small write-up below the figure—the tyre with muscles (incidentally, this write-up and logo were used by the company for at least three subsequent decades). To the people of the city of Madras, rubber and rubber tree were novelties. Most of them had not seen the rubber plant or rubber tree up to the time of their visit to the exhibition. Children who visited the exhibition got MRF balloons and other rubber toys, candies and chocolates. Adults had several informative display boards and leaflets on the various exhibits. Cars and trucks were not very popular items in the city; they were not items of daily use for most people in those days. But photographs of various sizes of car tyres and truck tyres were blown up to mammoth-size pictures under the supervision of a popular photographer at that time—R. Krishnan— who took pictures of the visiting crowds during the exhibition. Press photographers were also present almost everyday during the exhibition fortnight. All the important newspapers of Madras were located on or near Mount Road—The Hindu, Indian Express, Swades’Amitran, Din’athanti, Din’amani, etc. News of at least 6 to 10 column inches or pictures occupying 10 to 20 column inches of newspaper space appeared in all or some of the city newspapers. (Measuring newspaper space in column centimetres came only after the government of India introduced the metric system in the early 1970s or so). On every day of the exhibition fortnight, there would be a dignitary among the visitors—either a popular film star in those days, Gemini Ganes’an or his wife and co-actor Savitri, or a government minister in charge of industry. Almost all the government secretaries visited the exhibition with their families. Of course, fellow industrialists in Madras, some of whom were personal friends of the Managing Director (MD) also saw the exhibition. The point of this whole narration is that at a time when tyre or rubber products were not considered worthy of 178

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exhibition, they were given that status by the MD who was a visionary in many respects. But how did he let all of the thousands in the city know about the exhibition? How did the young MD get almost 50,000 to 100,000 visitors to an exhibition with a not-so-popular theme as rubber? Through press ads? (In those days there was no television in India). Radio was there but the commercial possibility of the radio was not explored in the early 1960s. Readers will remember that radio turned meagrely commercial in 1967. Television became a fairly frequented medium among the well-to-do in the 1970s; it turned commercial in 1976. The only medium available to the Company was the newspaper. But K. M. Mammen Mappillai had a novel idea. He spent money on newspaper advertising, but simultaneously sent personalized form letters on a recently (then) acquired rotaprint machine on which he got a personal letter typed. His signature was printed on a special plastic sheet with a special blue ink that resembled the parker blue. Instead of individually signing all the 50,000 copies printed on the machine, one signature plate could get the form letter signed at the exact spot reserved for signature. Fifty thousand addresses were culled from the telephone directory. In those days, the number of houses with telephone connections was not very big. Those who had a telephone at home were really influential and substantial people. (Today, the cell phone is as common as the human ear). The telephone directory of Chennai even at that time was a big tome, but the company hired 50 casual clerks, mostly young unemployed people from far and near the office premises to work late, if needed, for a couple of months before the start of the exhibition. In addition to the telephone directory addresses, the company got the addresses of city school/college principals and the heads of the university and college departments, all the newspaper editors and some prominent reporters who were already in the PR department files, bishops, priests and elders of the church, leaders of the various communities—Hindu, Muslim, Gujarati and Parsi citizens’ groups, various industries, wellknown artists, painters and outstanding ad agency personnel in J. Walter Thomson, Bomas, etc. In short, the rubber exhibition helped the nascent tyre company to make all the outstanding people in the city including Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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officials of the Government of Madras (later named government of Tamil Nadu) and the Government of India and prominent citizens of Madras become familiar with the names Mansfield tyres and MRF. This was just one of the PR efforts of the company in the early years of its establishment. Today, it is the largest tyre and rubber company in India and it is also exporting tyres and rubber products to different parts of the world. The MRF is now a byword for big and small rubber products. It is sponsoring international car races too.

New Media Though common, press conferences are highly valuable tools of PR every now and then; but instead of press releases, CDs and DVDs are distributed in today’s press-kits. During the period between media modernization of the 1980s and globalization now, audio and video tapes and audio-cassettes and video-cassettes proved popular. Today, we have digitalized forms of communication—CDs and DVDs, prepared much ahead of the press conference and distributed at the press conference. On certain occasions, even video-conferencing replaces personal conferences. But whether old or new, journalists are not enthusiasts about press releases. Handouts are handy, but offer no scope for a scoop, according to many journalists who have a nose for hot and instant news. Instead of heading a write-up as press release, one should send enclosures to personal letters to the editor or senior reporter possibly known to the PR manager. The enclosure must highlight the matter that the company desires publicity for. The newsmen may consider publication if the enclosure has any news attraction for the public of the particular product or business house. Special reporters may come for the press conferences, not for press-kits or the speeches of the chairman or CEO, but for trying to meet the CEO and other senior officials personally and check if they can highlight some aspect of the financial performance or other. PR managers will not earn the respect of the media fraternity if they repeat just the facts and news contained in the handouts. The media 180

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expect to hear or see some things that are not in the press kit already distributed before the conference. If the CEO or any senior officer of the company/organization has nothing more to add, let them not attend the conference but entrust the whole show to the PR manager. If, on the other hand, the CEO or MD has something to announce on top of what has been distributed, let them be present and gladly take queries from the media. The PR manager must make adequate preparation for every activity that is expected in the conference hall. She should even arrange a generator to take care of sudden failures of electricity supply. All the a/c units in the hall must work well and if there is load-shedding in the area, a pre-arranged inverter should take care of the fans in place of the air-conditioner. The PR department must be very careful about the guest list so that no media person is left out. Including one newspaper, or excluding one channel will create problems in the future. Arranging drinks and dinner for special invitees from the media world can also create problems for the company. One should consult the local press club and get changes of addresses and telephone numbers incorporated in the company’s list. Changes in the media list are so frequent that the PR department must equally frequently make the necessary changes in the invitation list. Not recording the changes in postal and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of media and other invitees’ lists is a grave sin committed by the PR department and the entire responsibility for it falls naturally on the manager. Upon arrival at the conference hall, the guests should be received properly and led to their assigned seats. Do not treat this tritely. Someone from the PR department must check if all the bathrooms are freshly cleaned, deodorized and kept open, have adequate supply of water and the toilets flushed (otherwise the guests will blush). It is possible that busy media persons would like to go straight to the comfort station before entering the conference hall, for they would be coming to your office after a hectic assignment 10 miles away and returning through heavy traffic frequently interrupted by broken down trucks, trekkers, phut-phuts and red signals. Let someone in the department distribute the press kit as soon as the journalists are seated at the right place in the conference hall. Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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If there are some mementoes (annual reports, etc.) for the general, non-journalist guests, let them be labelled, packed and tagged properly. Alternatively, all the guests may pick up their kits and mementoes right at the entrance after signing a register. A person with a pleasant smile may be assigned this pleasant task. The same person can compare the arrival list with the invitees’ list and determine who are absent. This checking is necessary, especially in the case of the media, so that the PR department can send the press kit to the media office of the absentees. Lastly, make sure that the CEO or whoever is the chief company officer at the conference comes into the hall at the right time already announced. If he or she is going to be delayed, the PR manager has to make an announcement after arranging some other senior officer of the company to take his place at the conference—someone who can conduct the business until the CEO’s arrival or if the latter is delayed inordinately, let his/her substitute conduct the business of the conference until the end. (Make sure that all senior officers are briefed about the purpose of the conference, their part in the proceedings, etc).

How Do You Determine if the PR Department Has Succeeded in the Press Conference? The proof of the pudding is in the volume of its consumption by the guests. Did the media consume the fare you served? How many units of the media published what you wanted them to publish or telecast? In the case of newspapers, how many column centimetres of news did they publish? Did the media spell the names of the top executives correctly and identified them properly with accurate designations in the company? Were the company’s products mentioned in the press report accurately identified? A common stylebook for transliteration in all newspapers based on scientific handling of the problem will be an effective solution to the problem of wrong and inconsistent transliteration style in different Indian languages. Companies have to take up the responsibility of persuading all the media to follow spellings correctly, in all languages. Audio-visual media

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face problems, particularly in pronunciation. Recently one could hear the word receipt pronounced with prominent stress on the ‘p’ in the word. A few people working in radio and TV regional channels do not devote any attention to pronunciation. They even pronounce the word ‘pronunciation’ as ‘pronounciation’ (Harcourt et al., 1991: 450). Users of the Indian languages invariably use English words in and out of context so often that wrong pronunciation leads to the bestowing of a permanent, inalterable and incorrigible use of English words on a massive scale; a side-effect of the spread of wrong English in Indian languages. PR’s primary objective of course is spreading the right information about the company/organization through the right medium or media unit on the right occasion (at the right spots in the newspapers and at the right time on the broadcast/telecast media). It is again necessary to see that the company’s right message spreads among the largest number of people. Correct usage of language may be said to be the concern of scholars, linguists and lovers of languages. But PR should not even unwittingly help promote the use of the wrong language in the media. This is in the interests of society as a whole. Getting long write-ups in the wrong publications may not be of any practical benefit for the company. Similarly, getting wide coverage in less important electronic media may not be of much use. News and feature articles in newspapers such as the Economic Times, Business Line, Financial Express and Business Standard and magazines such as the Economic & Political Weekly or Business Week may turn out to be much more effective in the world of business and industry than getting exposure in mainline newspapers and magazines of very high circulations. Channels devoted to business may bring in more benefit to the business world than popular channels devoted to filmy entertainment, dancing, singing and comedy. Again, the theme of the news is an important factor. If the business and industry units need exposure to the film world for business purposes, or if the mobile phone is to be promoted on a massive scale, entertainment channels are good. Always stick to the principle—right media for the right theme.


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Publicity Pictures All PR managers must be aware of the perils and pitfalls of press photography. Usually, newspaper reporters and editors attending a press conference will have their own staff photographer with them to cover the function. Press photographers cover most events and only when they are unavailable for business reasons will the company photographer step in. But PR people must be careful in selecting and sending photographs to the press. For television, camera crew will usually accompany the reporter. Again, the TV unit for some reason may fail in sending the camera crew to cover an event (usually camera crew may not cover those events that the news editors consider unimportant). Event managers (a new breed of PR—may their tribe increase) may try every trick in their trade to get TV coverage; but still some editors do not change their stance. Magazines which work on less hectic schedules and take time to assess the newsworthiness of pictures in relation to the write-ups that they leisurely handle may find the pictures sent to them worthy of publication in a future issue. But in the newspaper world, morgues are morgues, where unused write-ups and pictures give each other company in a dead world; and they are dug up only when there is some special reason. But big companies can afford special photographers of national and international repute to cover special events held at the headquarters or factory. The newspapers may encourage them and carry such special photographs even a day or two after the event. But be sure that these photographs have very important news value to the newspaper readers. Pictures of a beaming, smiling, waving CEO or a production executive stepping in or out of his private jet may not always qualify for newsworthiness, unless he or she is a Howard Hughes or a Sarah Palin. Cheesecake pictures are used more by tabloids such as News of the World. Even Times of India on its back page or third page uses cheesecakes, but they do not find a place in serious newspapers such as the New York Times or The Hindu.

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Mailing of Photographs You may have the best professional photographer who has taken the best photograph befitting the theme and the occasion. But while mailing the photograph, the dispatcher at the PR department or the man in charge of the dispatch section of the company may make a faux pas—he may not enclose the photo in a thick envelope lined with cardboard or bubble paper and with the legends attached to the photographs in an easily detachable manner. He may not have got any special instructions from the PR department about handling and mailing the photos with care, with the result that the photo reaches the editor in a bent or crumbled condition. Or it might have the caption attached so well to the back of the photo that it cannot be removed. Do not write the caption in ink or pencil; it will make marks on the photo and spoil the image. In past decades, photographs used to be sent to the block-making section and over-writing on the photographs affected reproduction. Now, computer scanning and reproduction process is in use, but still a spoiled original will not be helpful to raise quality. In modern times, digital cameras are used and digital imaging and reproduction have become sure modes of quality printing of photographs. The PR department should have a library of its own where the most essential reference books are available—dictionaries, pronunciation guides, short-hand dictionaries, reference directories, directories issued by government and research organizations, containing vital information on all the media, atlases, advertisers’ annuals, annual reports of own companies and, if possible of other companies in the same line of business, directories published by trade associations, and professional organizations such as FICCI, ASSOCHAM, Institution of Engineers, Indian Medical Association, UGC, etc.

One Last Point Instead of doing all the jobs connected with printing, publishing, preparing press releases, preparation of mailing lists, dispatch of press


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releases, special promotional letters, house journals, etc., on its own, the PR department can outsource some of the tasks, if necessary, and devote its attention to in-house PR and the building of the rapport essential for excellent human relations between the management and the different wings of employees—managerial, supervisory, production personnel and operatives. But PR managers must remember the following directives for the good of all concerned: 1. Do not ever play games with the press/media assuming that you are the feeders of the press/media through ads and commercials. Never deal with the media under the wrong impression that if you withdraw ad support, you can control them. No medium worth its name will ever succumb to such economic pressures. Many newspapers were prepared to forgo ads from government, quasi-government, and public service undertakings during the emergency in the mid-1970s during Indira Gandhi’s time. These days under globalization too, if anyone tries to influence the media through threats or blandishments, the result will be disastrous. The big problem today is that many media proprietors are also big industrialists and businessmen. Media acquisition is the game played by big business today, which in the long run will affect press freedom. Political interferences are also proliferating. Paid news is only a mild expression. It is lying in a fashionable and profitable way. To put it straight, it is bold lying. It is high time businessmen, industrialists, media magnates, straight-backed journalists and political leaders put an end to this practice. 2. Make use of the data collected by the sales and marketing divisions throughout the year for releasing good stories that are economically useful to the company. 3. Never overlook the value of specialized publications and magazines when you prepare your communications strategy. 4. A sizeable part of any medium’s programmes emanates from PR departments. Cultivate the media and derive maximum benefit for your organization.

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5. Never encourage any Director or division head to call a press conference if they do not have anything new, or if they do not have anything of use and importance to the internal and external publics of the company. If you can telephone or e-mail to the editor or senior reporter, do that instead of calling a press conference.

Public Speaking and Appearing on TV and Radio Public speaking is another good tool for PR. The CEO of a company or its PR manager can promote the cause of a company by participating in public functions and speaking to the public, not necessarily about the company, but by representing the company. The fact that an important official of the company is on the dais, his name and organization getting announced by the master of ceremonies contribute to free publicity of his or her organization and if the speech is especially good, it will create a great deal of goodwill for the speaker and her organization. Public speaking is an art and senior officials of the company should never lose an opportunity to participate in a public function. But the speaker must be a good one, fully aware of the fact that if a bad speech is made (both in content and style), it will affect not only the speaker, but the organization he/she represents. Assuming that we have good speakers and causes, let us go over some essential steps that will heighten their attraction. What is the speaker’s goal? Why does the speaker speak? What are the essential qualities the speaker should possess? The goal of the speaker is to convey his/her ideas on a particular topic to a listener or group of listeners. Oral communication is the goal of public speaking. In a public meeting, there is no exchange of ideas between the speaker and the listener but in private conversations, this exchange takes place. Normally such an exchange does not take place in a public meeting, although very rarely, the speaker may give the listeners a chance to raise their doubts or questions and clarifications. It goes without saying that the speaker intends to make ideas clear to


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the listeners. The goal of the speaker is to make himself or herself fully clear to the listener or listeners. Why does the speaker have to speak? Why can he not convey his thoughts through drawing, diagrams, pictures or photographs? The answer is simple—diagrammatic representation of ideas is not complete unless supplemented by words or text, legend or caption. Even then the ideas need not be completely clear to the listeners. The latter’s comprehension becomes almost complete only when the speaker talks, uses words and sentences. The normal way of conveying ideas is through words, phrases and sentences—written or spoken.

Oral Communication Most business communication is oral. A manager’s success depends primarily on the effectiveness of oral communication, which in turn depends on the understanding of the principles, processes and goals of business communication. We usually give more importance to grammar, direct and indirect speech, graphic aids, spelling, etc., in written communication, but there are equally important characteristics of oral communication—clarity in speech, enunciation, pronunciation, order of thought, graphic aids that supplement speech, etc. One has to speak clearly, sensibly and persuasively, in a confident, convincing and logical manner. A good leader who speaks effectively has a good voice. The audience is impressed, first of all, by the speaker’s confidence, attitude and the strength of his voice and the overall presence of his personality. Natural voice is natural—given by nature, an attribute of genetics; one cannot change it much but one can improve upon it by practice to some extent. An unimpressive voice does not help but none can help it. It can be compensated by the speaker’s demeanour, humility and facial expressions that exude sincerity and genuine interest in the listeners. A good communicator is a good listener. One can talk to the point and address the listener’s concerns only when one develops the habit of patient listening. Never try to outstrip your listener by ignoring what she says and by drowning her voice by projecting your own 188

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viewpoints. Most executives have to ‘instruct, inform, persuade, inspire, convince and even correct others’, as pointed out by Harcourt, Krizen and Merrier (1991). Let them do it with a courteous and gentle voice, in a pleasant manner.

Barriers to Oral Communication A speaker must be clear to the listener; otherwise, the listener will not understand the speaker. If the speaker is inaudible, that becomes the first barrier. If she is a quickie, speaking at a tremendous speed, that becomes the second barrier. If she uses very heavy words–polysyllabic words without much relevance to the occasion, the listener encounters the third barrier. Mispronounced words may become a fourth barrier; for example, the speaker may mispronounce the word, ‘d a i s’ as ‘dias’ (the last name of a person), ‘marine’ as ‘mar-aine’ instead of ‘mareen’ or pronounce ‘target’ as ‘tar-jet’, instead of ‘target’, and the listener will be confused. These barriers are hard to overcome in a conversation because it is rude to correct someone talking to you, but you can correct it in an informal chat or informal written communication in special situations. Jargons and regional speech variations, wrong accents, difficult speech patterns—these will also vitiate oral communication. Managers must know these pitfalls when they communicate orally to a person or persons belonging to a different region or cultural group. As far as possible, use standard language, received pronunciation, etc.

Non-verbal Communication (NVC) Neither written nor spoken, this variety of communication is not imaginary; it is real and it conveys meanings, sometimes right meanings (sometimes wrong ones), depending on the pattern of interpretation of a non-verbal signal adopted and practised in the region a person belongs to. Certain signals are universal. For example, a smile means the same in Trivandrum or Timbuctoo; it means to the smilee that the Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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smiler is friendly and not harmful. But sometimes gender differences can influence the interpretation of a smile. A person with a natural grim look can mean many things to those who meet his eyes. It can mean hatred, meanness or an unexplained unfriendliness. While one speaks, one may detect someone in the audience looking at her wrist watch—an obvious expression of annoyance or boredom. This is the interpretation given to this behaviour, the watching-thewrist-watch-syndrome (w.w.w.s.) in all parts of the world. Some do this watching obliquely, some quite obviously. The speaker is visibly annoyed and fazed by the listener’s non-verbal communication; her train of thought is interrupted and she becomes nervous. But some NVC behaviour is area-specific. In certain areas of the country, shaking one’s head horizontally from left to right means no, and vertical movement of the head indicates yes. But in certain other areas, the meanings of the two movements are just the opposite. Similarly, one has to be very careful about the movement of one’s middle finger in different cultures. The valuable lesson we should all learn from these experiences is that communication—whether oral, written, graphic, verbal, or non-verbal— will be interpreted differently from different cultural perspectives. Even silence can communicate. Physical appearance can also communicate a person’s attitudes. Apparel can also proclaim the man. A carelesslydressed person is highly unsuitable for the position of a salesman or saleswoman entrusted with the responsibility of selling executive clothes. A toothless dentist should not practise orthodontics; nor should a mama with a dozen children engage herself in propagating family planning. The brand ambassador for Reid and Taylor should not appear in wrinkled pyjamas and long kurta. Non-verbal messages are conveyed by the speaker’s body language. A person with arms akimbo may exude confidence, but the one with arms crossed over his torso may declare himself defensive. Eye contact may indicate confidence. A good speaker’s eyes rove around the audience; they do not perch on any one particular individual but move from the front row to the back and then to the middle, and then back again to the front. This unsettled roving will give the impression that the speaker maintains eye-contact with everyone in the audience. Postures, gestures, finger movements, closed fist, hands flying in the air—all these will 190

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mean something to the audience and so the speaker has to be careful about his body movements. Even a person’s entrance to a hall is marked with meaning. Look at Janardan. He comes and surveys the hall. His eyes fall on the front row but he does not settle in one of the vacant chairs because he wants to leave the front row to some VIP who may turn up later. He moves to one of the middle rows and settles down there but looks at the ceiling to make sure that he chose his seat right under the fan. Punctuality is another non-verbal message about a person’s character. A person who is always punctual for appointments indicates a wellorganized person—a serious person who considers his as well his interviewer’s time as invaluable. A most recent phenomenon in business and education is the careless manner adopted by many people in the matter of personal hygiene. There was a time in India when at least everyone belonging to the educated class was conscious of the need for cleanliness, personal hygiene and neatness of one’s surroundings. Unfortunately, personal hygiene no longer counts, it seems. It is not because of poverty or the economic inability to observe cleanliness that people have lost their sense of hygiene. There was a time when even with two or three pairs of clothes, many educated people lived in a decent and clean environment. Now one cannot enter a classroom or a business office without encountering the sweat-stink in the room. How can we lecture on personal hygiene to graduates and post-graduates? This phenomenon is the result of callousness towards fellow-beings. It may also be the result of the scarcity of water in many cities. Personal hygiene seems to be the casualty of industrial and business progress. Many speakers desist deliberately from making adverse comments on sweat-stench out of courtesy and decency, but will not someone bell the cat in the near future? Professional managers have to present oral reports or read a research or general report, a scientific report or proposal before different types of audiences. If the report is poorly presented even after preparing it well, it will not be received properly. A professional may be asked to speak at a convention or before a civic body at short notice. With some effort, most managers can achieve reasonable success in oral communication; they may not be great orators but they can be Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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effective communicators, able to present their viewpoints in a convincing manner. Reading books on public speaking can help, but the most important thing is to have something to say, something in which you believe and something you really wish to convey to others for their own good and for their company’s good. One sure way of appealing to others through speech is to show willingness to listen to others’ viewpoints with a sincere wish to accept them for the good of all concerned. Taping one’s own speech and inviting comments from people whose opinions you respect will certainly help. If you yourself observe some defects, or others point out some drawbacks, be prepared to make corrections. Always have conviction in what you say and gather evidence beforehand to support your arguments, if you want to defend your views and reiterate your opinions. Integrity, technical competence, voice, volume, pitch and speed of delivery, quality, accent, enunciation and pronunciation, eye contact with the audience, avoidance of drawing attention of the audience to your own drawbacks, and above all, self-confidence and sincerity of purpose are some of the essential qualities of a good speaker (Dilenschneider and Forrestal, 1984: 433). There are three types of oral communication: one-to-one; one-toa-small group; and one-to-a-large group. In all these types, the tips discussed above will help but in all types, non-verbal communication (NVC) is of significance. NVC may help or hinder communication. It can be unintentional, but sometimes more honest than verbal communication. What is pitch? Pitch is the highness or lowness of voice. In order to be effective, one has to maintain one’s natural pitch. If it is too shrill or too deep, it is bound to irritate the listener. Find out your natural pitch, but vary it to avoid monotony. A delivery in monotone is bound to become tiring to the listener. By varying the pitch, the speaker can capture listeners’ attention and maintain it. You may deliver the best speech content-wise, but if the pitch is not varied, the richness of your speech will be drowned in monotony. There is another important variable—speed. There are some people who speak at a fast pace. Variation in speed is a must for good speakers. But be not too slow or two speedy. By being the former, the audience will be bored and impatient; by being the latter, the audience will miss many 192

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things you say and simply curse you for your speed. Vary your speed from 75 to 150 words a minute. If you want to stress certain sections of your speech, speak slowly but vary your speed after the section for emphasis is over.

The New Problems Faced by Today’s PR Managers We agree that prestige and goodwill are invaluable assets of any company or institution with a clear responsibility to provide information and interpretation that are truthful and realistic, because public distrust may be due to lack of information. Management today realizes that even while making routine decisions, the impact on public opinion and the consequences of the decisions on the publics (external public in the outside society and the internal public of employees and others within the organization) are to be given the utmost care and consideration. In olden days, increasing the price of a product was a simple exercise: cost of production, competitors’ prices, possible reactions within the trade and legal considerations. But today, there are other factors—the general public’s reactions, consumer attitudes, and the ethics of frequent price raises increases impacting on various sections of the community. PR has to get into action so that all the publics affected by policy and price change are properly informed through expert and honest writing, careful planning and scheduling, watching unethical practices in the market such as hoarding and forward trading, and the special needs of those sections of the population that need special attention so that their economic weakness is not aggravated. Above all, the correct background of the price increase has to be given to the media so that the media would not spread false information. The frequent complaints in the business world of the last century, particularly up to the 1990s were: 1. Government was over-regulating business and industry. 2. Government was interfering in areas secured conventionally by the private sector. 3. Labour unions have grown into mammoth organizations and the government was too weak to tackle them. Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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The eighties saw deregulation under President Ronald Reagan in the United States, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and several other important political leaders in various parts of Europe; but we know now that the global financial meltdown in the past three years in our new millennium was partially due to the steps taken in the 1980s and the 1990s. President Barack Obama has taken some steps to reverse the downward trend in the economic world, but there are heavy criticisms against some of his measures. Although India has not suffered a great deal on account of globalization, according to some economists, one has to admit that with or without globalization, almost half the population of the country has always been ignored for many decades or even centuries. The present concern for PR in India is about how the new measures introduced by the UPA government can raise the status of this neglected half—in economic betterment, education and literacy, employment and health. These are no doubt noble socio-economic and political goals. PR has to give greater emphasis to the acquisition of highly trained professional talent, on the development of better methods and the use of modern research in the practice of corporate life. However, devoting greater attention to win support and acclaim from the present intellectually superior leaders alone will be disastrous for the future, if equal attention is not devoted to the raising of the standard of living and the creature comforts of the large majority living in the rural areas.

PR and Social Change There are other big changes in the offing—human rights movement; women’s liberation and the movement towards ending gender disparity;1 movements against occupational and environmental free-for-all by certain countries leading to new diseases; disastrous climate changes, energy concerns (shortages of fossil fuels, source depletion, alternative sources), the emphasis on major universal efforts at mass education, the role of the mass media in fostering human rights, the advent of the 24-hour cable TV channels, the abuse of the Internet, e-mail, SMS and other modern devices for exploiting the poorer and weaker segments of the population world-wide, particularly women and children, etc. 194

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Both the developed and underdeveloped (or developing) sectors of the world have seen big technological changes during the past three decades, particularly in the field of communication. Some of these developments have generated new movements, with people forming new organizations to remove the undesirable consequences of high technology. However, the meek and the weak are at a great disadvantage in the modern world, just as they were in the past centuries. In this context, it is necessary for PR managers to remember that until recently in India, PR has been an activity carried on by generalists but a time has come now with the explosion of knowledge to have a generalist well-informed in various developments in the modern world to head the division, supported by specialists who deal with specific issues such as environmental and occupational health and safety, chemical dumping and pollution, crisis management, waste management, industrial health, financial and community relations, media relations including ghostwriting for the CEO, feature writing for the company or organization, skill in arranging of press conferences, training for the internal public and handling of human relations. The top PR executive may not be adept in handling all these various sections, but he/she can originate new ideas and execute them through able assistants. Frequent medical checkups of the employees, industrial safety, energy and water conservation, genetic engineering, cloning, AIDS and STDs, evictions of illegal occupation of land and forests, check dams, displacement of people for developmental activities and several other new areas have come up under the purview of the PR manager and her assistants in most recent years. Similarly, in health and medicine, high-technology developments have put new responsibilities on the PR executives—hi-tech surgical procedures, MRI, CT-Scanning, nuclear diagnostics, bio-technology (e.g., Bt Brinjol), endosulfan-related genetic disorders affecting not only employees of the factory but people in the locality; asbestos-and alcohol-related diseases such as liver cirrhosis, lung diseases such as byssinosis, and diseases related to pesticides may also heighten the need of the PR people to become familiar with the incidence and long-term treatment of these diseases and their remedies. PR people must be familiar with the sports-world, particularly football, soccer, baseball and cricket, chess and volleyball. Their interest Practical PR, Business Writing and Media Relations

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in these games and sports activities will make them quite popular among the internal and external publics. Activities connected with these sports and games will enhance the health of all concerned —both physical and mental health. In addition to fostering a favourable image, the PR director is concerned with arranging health camps and also for correcting wrong ideas that the internal and external publics may nurse about the company for lack of information about, and contact with, the company personnel. Another important matter for the company to remember is that the media and the public should be provided the basic or special information by the CEO’s office or in many cases by the PR manager’s office. The CEO may not always be available for the outsiders or the media as he may be busy with vital internal or external conferences, foreign tours or director board meetings. The public and the media may feel frustrated when they find that they cannot reach the CEO, but they can readily condone that provided they can reach someone senior enough to speak for the company authoritatively. Usually that person is the PR manager/director who must be authorized by the CEO or the board of directors to handle queries from the outside or inside public. The PR manager can delegate the responsibility to the PRO or some senior officer of his division. The PR director or his delegate should be a person who can (a) put across ideas in an effective manner, in as clear and simple a language as possible; (b) put ideas logically and in sequence; (c) put down ideas on paper in a clear and organized manner and (d) anticipate questions in advance and be ready with appropriate answers. This will make the two-way interaction more meaningful and less confusing without losing the personal touch, disarming unexpected critics. This will also give the assurance to the one who raises questions that the company has nothing to hide; it can honestly give straightforward answers, acknowledging problems, and even agreeing to disagree. Most companies and government departments tend to suppress information or withhold part of the information deliberately. But openness pays in the long run. The new Right to Information Act (RTI Act) of the Government of India and the appointment of a

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chief information commissioner for the centre and chief information officers for each state has served in heightening the transparency of governance. Side-stepping questions, prevaricating and asking for inordinate time to answer, etc. will naturally lead to a breakdown of people’s trust in government and private organizations. Mistrust leads to alienation between the rulers and the ruled. Trying to avoid questions about a change in policy will make people/employees to think that their government or company is insensitive and evasive.

PR and Its Variations Public relations, public affairs, media relations, publicity, etc., are sometimes used interchangeably; at other times, distinctions are made among them. Public affairs are indicative of political and governmental relations but the term is used by some people as equivalent to public relations. There is certainly some degree of similarity among the four terms. In practical action, they are all related to advertising. There is no doubt that all these terms are conceptually related to one another, especially when they are implemented through various but fairly similar activities. Some companies and organizations avoid the term PR because of its frequent misuse. Other terms are used—corporate communications (cc); corporate relations/affairs, internal and external community relations, shareholder relations, etc., signifying specific activities under corporate communications, which are becoming more popular these days with the current era of globalization. The fact remains that the personnel working in a division of PR, whether you call it the PR Division or Corporate Communication Division, gain experience in press/media relations, internal and external communications, advising top management as PR called by any other name is part of top management itself. As pointed out earlier, lobbying for special interests (financial, political or social and cultural) has become an integral part of public relations/ corporate communications, especially in advanced countries such as the US and also in developing countries. This trend became strong in


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the 1980s and it is still strong in both rich and poor countries. The government of the day is influenced through frequent contacts with key personnel. Some media organizations station their Capital City Correspondents/Media Personnel purely for carrying out their special interests by influencing key political and administrative power-wielders. Government officials, MPs, MLAs and others are influenced to introduce key legislative measures that will protect the interests of business and industry. Even local elections are influenced by lobbyists. This has brought a bad name to PR and many people equate PR activities with bribing, bending the rules, resorting to sting operations, etc. Those media representatives stationed in the capital city throw big parties for powerful politicians and others. They monitor and follow up developments in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of their managements in weekly dispatches (urgent matters are conveyed through telephone calls) and if necessary personal visits by air. In almost every flight, there will be at least two or three Delhi representatives of important media visiting their headquarters or chief editors/owners. A companies’ Delhi representatives (Call them Special Corporate Communicators) also do the same—monitoring important developments in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. They alert top management of corporations on important changes in administrative matters that will affect business and industry—finances, taxation, import/export policies. It is the right of every business organization to station their representatives in New Delhi and other cities depending on their own business plans and needs. However, when PR activities turn into political lobbying with unethical practices and unjust advantages to the business world at the cost of natural justice, particularly for the poor millions of the country, business magnates have to think twice about what their lobbying is actually turning into. It interferes into the working of democracy. It leads to the defeat of democracy and the ascent of oligarchy and autocracy. Members of Parliament (MPs) getting elected by the people on the promise of questioning evil and unjust practices expect money for raising questions in Parliament. It is definitely creditable to parliament that the MPs who indulged in this nefarious practice were expelled from Parliament but are there not criminals, communalists and caucus builders still in Parliament with a free hand to act as representatives of industrialists 198

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and even media barons? Eternal vigilance is the price of democracy. People of the land have to be vigilant all the time. Let us now turn to the nitty-gritty of Internal PR.

Note 1. The United Nations has set up a new entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women. The present acronym, UNEGEWE, sounds a bit hard to pronounce. We can slightly alter the name to UN Agency for Women’s Equality and Empowerment (UNAWEE).


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6 TOOLS FOR INTERNAL PR As mentioned in the early part of this book, PR has two major divisions—internal and external. In this chapter, we shall deal with internal communications, that is, what the PR division in a company/ organization is doing on a daily basis to boost the understanding between the company and its internal public—the employees of the organization, who form its backbone and contribute in a crucial manner to the health and welfare of the company. They are the most dominant group for the corporation, the very life blood and live wire of the organization. All CEOs are concerned about their reputation, which is mainly, the reputation of their companies. To a CEO, who happens more often than not to be the founder, promoter or mentor of the company, the organization is the most important ingredient in their life, barring perhaps his or her own family. CEOs want to treat all their employees as family; at least the Indian way is the ‘family way’. But before embarking on this dubious nomenclature to satisfy the innocent employees, CEOs have to recognize that they are primarily in business to make profit and whatever is legal and human is acceptable to the employees, even without the family way. The 19th century attitude towards the employees is no longer acceptable to the employees in the 21st century. The family way is liable to be misinterpreted by a sizeable section of the employees as a mere eye wash unless they belong to the family of the CEO.

Since the employees at the office and the factory are to be recruited on the basis of merit and not for family or charity, they have to be treated as human beings willing to work for the benefit of the company and through it for the good of society. They are to be valued by the employer as the most important wing of the organization, much more important than financial efficiency, administrative rigidity and image of the industry. Perceive them as the crucial core of the company’s life. They are unofficial ambassadors of the company. In fact, they are more important than the official image-makers, the big PR managers and officers. Well-treated employees are the willing promoters of the company and they do not need any official or unofficial persuasion or coercion. Their productivity and morale are interconnected and their performance has everything to do with the overall performance and profit of the company. As pointed out elsewhere in this book, effective internal communication based on the principle of protecting employees’ human dignity and self-esteem is considered by the employees as more important than annual increment or awards and other incentives. When will Indian employers realize this basic truth? Perhaps this is more relevant to the manufacturing industries in India than to the IT and software field that has become the kingpin of globalization. Internal communication is not to be viewed as a mere tool to enhance the understanding between the managers and the workers; it has to be viewed as the basis of humane and humanitarian treatment of all the subordinates by the management. The work environment is not to be mistaken for a digitalized world because human relations are human and not digital. The affairs of the corporation are closely connected, mainly to the interests of the employees and of course to those of the shareholders, customers, government departments, outside agencies, other organizations and well-wishers of the company. All the various publics of a company are to be given a proper atmosphere and treatment in a fair and proper manner, but the employees are its most important public. Every employee must feel satisfied that he or she has a stake in the company’s business because they expect their top management staff and executives to do their utmost to assure the best treatment—the best salary in the trade, the best working conditions, the most humane treatment, the safest work environment, working conditions and welfare measures Tools for Internal PRâ•… lâ•… 201

for themselves and their families. In return, in the ideal conditions, the employees must give an honest day’s work and absolute loyalty. In a way, PR is an attitude of management. If the president of the company wants to keep her employees informed, she can do it through the PR manager successfully. But if she does not like to inform her people as she wants to keep all bits of information to herself, she has a bad attitude towards employees. She may have a slave-owner’s attitude. If they want better salaries, let them search elsewhere. To us, they are not worth any more. This is the callous attitude that the dictatorial type of CEO may evince towards her employees. Can PR people change this mindset in their CEO? The PR person can certainly act as a conduit between top management and employees at various levels. Internal PR can bring about changes in top management’s attitudes. Whenever the PR manager finds that his CEO is showing an air of superciliousness towards the lower levels, he can convince the top boss that he is out of step, alienating the employees and creating unwanted resentment and ill-will towards the management staff, failing to achieve enough esprit de corps to maintain or excel the normal rates of production, cooperation and good will. Employees lose their morale; in fact they feel demoralized. Management’s attitudinal difference can make a big change. Some top managers take a casual attitude towards the PR department itself. For example, some of them consider that employee communications efforts through leaflets, pamphlets, newsletters, journals or magazines are a mere waste of time, money and energy. They express their views at weekly or monthly managers’ meetings called by the CEO or his deputy. Probably their adverse stance towards PR may be based on their sincere conviction. Or it may be the result of their ignorance or resentment against the PR manager. Such off-hand impressions should not be encouraged by the CEO without a study of the feedback from the internal and external publics. There may be some lapses on the part of PR. Not all their printed or audio-visual publicity materials may reach all the employees for want of a proper distribution system evolved by the PR staff. But most business corporations use their media products—magazines, news letters, brochures, documentaries, motion pictures or bulletin board (BB) announcements—to convey important messages to the employees in 202â•…


different divisions of the company. These media vehicles, though meant for all, may not reach cent per cent of the employees for various reasons. Instead of criticizing the PR department, the divisional managers may suggest methods to distribute the messages most efficiently to all. Moreover, all media vehicles are not equally efficient. There is no vehicle that can be called the vehicle. Perhaps the PR manager can devise ways with the help of the divisional manager for evolving the right vehicle and reaching it to all the employees. For example, the PR manager can call particular employees who complain about non-receipt of the newsletter, etc., and arrange personal delivery one or two times, through a casual visit by himself or his assistant. Or, an inter-office memorandum (IOM), or e-mail can be sent to those who have not received the material sent from the PR department. Feelings can be assuaged this way through timely action.

The Medium Is the Message Certain types of media vehicles are not suitable for certain employee groups; certain media are more suitable to some groups, reminding us of the famous McLuhanese ‘The Medium is the Message’. When the nation’s president comes on TV, people conclude that there is some very important national or international event or issue. Otherwise, the first citizen would not come on TV. When an employee gets a letter at home from the top man in his division, he concludes even before opening the letter that there is something very important in the envelope—a letter of congratulations or appreciation, probably with a cheque or a gift coupon. You do not send a love letter in mimeographed form. There is a medium for every occasion—a fact to be specially considered by all who work in PR. There should be the right medium for the right message. The letter writer should ask three questions before sitting down to write it: Who is going to be affected by this letter? Who else is likely to be affected? How soon has the letter to be sent? Remember all media vehicles will not reach all employees or carry all the messages. There will still be a section of the internal public not Tools for Internal PRâ•… lâ•… 203

receiving some messages that ought to reach them. The conventional media should be supplemented by the new media—the e-mail and the internet wherever required. But this is effective only for reaching messages to the higher echelons. The lower levels may not be reachable with e-mail but they can be reached through the Bulletin Board (BB).

Bulletin Boards (BB) Bulletin Boards are especially effective for brief announcements, quick dissemination of information to employees in specific areas of a big factory floor or office section. They can include eye-catching graphics along with short messages. In a way, they are the erstwhile SMS with limited reach and they are the medium for quick and simultaneous transmission of pithy messages. They are sometimes used as the vehicle for carrying personal announcements too, acting as effective conduits for conveying personal messages from those employees who have something to sell, something to buy, or announcing the need for some charitable, philanthropic aid for sudden and unexpected medical, monetary or other emergency help or service essential for some employee or employee-relative. There are four major categories of bulletin boards: 1. For the company’s official business announcements, news releases, etc. This should be used only by the CEO’s office and by the Division Heads with the CEO’s approval. Official Announcements—Promotions, transfers, personnel changes, etc. 2. For the union or unions: Elections, office-bearers’ list; meetings of sections of the union; safety suggestions; employees’ welfare measures; private provident fund; non-work-related personal items that are permitted by the CEO. 3. For employees: Supervisory staff, office employees and factory operatives. Announcements, invitations to join vacation trips, trips to retreats, cultural programmes, competitions; soccer matches; games and sports, can be made through BBs. Lost and found may also find a place on the BBs. Similarly, personal activities and for sale, goods wanted, philanthropic/charity drives, etc. 204â•…


4. For social events: Non-company affairs, private parties, government’s public service announcements and for community events.

Whose Authority Is Required to Post the Notices on the BB? No company permits the display of bulletins by all and sundry. There should be an official seal of the head of the PR division on every bulletin that is posted on any BB. The PR manager or head gives his seal only when a particular bulletin emanates from a division with the approval of the divisional manager. Thus, every bulletin that is posted will have at least two signatures and seals: the divisional manager’s and the PR director’s. Bulletins on the unions’ activities or unions’ BB should have three signatures and seals—the signature and seal of the union secretary concerned; the personnel director’s signature and seal; and finally, the PR director’s. In certain cases, the PR director consults the CEO or his office before giving her imprimatur. This procedure is very essential, as otherwise the BBs become a free-for-all creating a lot of confusion and at times danger to the whole organization. In certain companies, there will be a fifth BB to paste newspaper clippings on national and international events of general significance to the whole company or all its employees—the assassinations of national and international political personalities such as John F. Kennedy, Indira Gandhi; and Martin Luther King Jr.; the landing of Neil Armstrong on the Moon on July 20/21, 1969; the Bhopal industrial tragedy of 1984; the release of Nelson Mandela from his prison cell in 1990 after 27 years of imprisonment; the Tsunami of December 24/25, 2004, etc.—are news of global significance.

Location of the BBs? The BBs should be located at points where employees usually gather in large numbers. A few spots that are preferred for this reason are: the Tools for Internal PRâ•… lâ•… 205

canteen or canteens; the open space in front of the directors of PR and personnel management; the sales and marketing division (for bulletins pertaining particularly to sales and marketing personnel and activities); the CEO’s office premises or the president’s secretariat, etc.

Unposting the Bulletins It is common practice for political workers in India to post big and small notices in and out of place, even on road signs and road names and directions. But they simply fail to remove these notices, thus creating immeasurable difficulties to the general public. This is rude and impolite, if not uncivilized and savage to practise this habit. Luckily, company walls and BBs are not defaced by employees. Most companies remove the notices on BBs within seven days. A week is the maximum permissible period for keeping a notice. A janitor will make sure that no BB carries any notice or announcement for more than a week. For this, the PR division makes the necessary announcement by e-mail or at departmental/divisional meetings that there is a time-limit for any bulletin. No company or organization worth its name will permit its premises (inside and outside) to be cluttered with unseemly drawings and writings. Graffiti is also not permitted; and the estate manager will report violators to the personnel department and appropriate action will be taken, without fear or favour. Policy regarding BBs is announced through various internal channels of communication—newspapers circulating within the company; news releases; announcements posted on the BBs; speeches by division heads and the PR manager in special meetings of the staff, etc. All items are dated and coded. Priority is always given to the president’s, CEO’s, divisional heads’ and PR director’s announcements. The PR director should announce the company policy regarding BBs, in consultation with the CEO, on matters relating to the rationale, location, contents and duration of the bulletins. Personal news such as promotions, transfers, vacations, births, deaths, weddings, etc., may be included in the BB separately maintained for that purpose.

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Company activities such as training programmes, interactions with the local community, introduction of new practices, priorities, company’s promotional activities through the media of public communication, tour itinerary of important persons in the organization, sports and games within the premises of the company and outside involving outstanding sports persons working in the company, photographs of sports and non-sports activities involving company personnel—all these are to be posted on appropriate BBs. Policy regarding the size and colour, type-size, font, display, etc., will also be decided by the personnel and PR departments. There will be a posting time and an unposting time; every department must follow these timings without fail. If any department fails in unposting at the right time of the day allotted to it, the personnel or PR department will take the initiative after informing the culprit. A bulletin board is a very effective tool of internal communication; it is fast, easy and inexpensive, especially these days when printing through the DTP and making copies through xerography have become efficient, quite inexpensive, quick and accessible to all employees.

Audio-visual Media Film Moving images are more effective than still photographs and printed materials, slides, etc., when a demonstration is involved. If the company calls a sales conference where dozens of its sales staff assemble, the general sales manager’s inaugural speech on the introduction of a new product and its qualities is given. The participants will certainly feel more satisfied when there is a demonstration of the new product verbally described by the executive. The usefulness of the new product will become clearer to the sales people when they see it in action. Slides were, and still are, used but moving images are more effective. They are now in disuse in sophisticated conference halls where films can be shown without much effort. The slides are easily edited.

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Motion pictures are not easy for editing. Slides are less costly and more economical to produce. They are also useful even in places where there is no electricity supply. All you need is the slide and its projector; or a slide-carousal and a white clean space on the wall. Battery connections are enough. Slides are popular at all times, places and climes. Equipment for slide-show is easily found, portable and economical. The effectiveness of live presentations using slides depends not only the quality of the slides but also on the presenter—her skills in communicating ideas, her personality, experience and even her mood (which will depend in turn on the mood of the audience). Both slides and movies have one advantage; both have captive audiences. Videotapes are also in disuse now. To have a television set is a must to show tapes. As we know, the film is a combo medium—a combination of action, speech, drama, graphics, diagrams, colour, sound effects and music. The multi-sensory nature of this medium is its greatest attraction and the best reason for its effectiveness. Sight, sound, and sometimes the feeling of touch and smell can be induced in the theatre, though the sense of taste is difficult to achieve through the film medium. The film has a high impact as it informs, educates and entertains; it can also motivate the viewers and train them to grasp the methods of operation and functioning of new equipment. The disadvantages of carrying the projector, screen, etc., can be avoided if the latest versions of computerized audio-visual devices such as the CD, DVDs are used. However, the most common media vehicles for internal communications are the printed messages conveyed through magazines, brochures, newspapers and newsletters. Their major defect is low sensory impact. But this negative point is more than amply compensated for by the retention values of printed material, the ease with which corrections can be made at the production stage and repeated use by different sections of the factory personnel, any time, any place, as the materials are quickly portable. Printed materials can be kept, filed, read and re-read at will by any group of literate people. They have a permanence that cannot be attributed to other media and they can be reproduced whenever needed. 208â•…


Credibility of PR Material Almost three decades ago, Dilenschneider and Forrestal said, ‘Credibility is difficult to achieve if employees feel they are subjected only to sweetness and light.’ (Dilenschneider and Forrestal, 1984) A company’s PR materials, its printed publications may be produced in the most attractive style on glossy paper, with stunning pictures and charming get-up, but if they do not reflect the soul of sincerity, honesty, frankness, the less credible they become. Their effectiveness and acceptance among employees will depend on the dependability of the statistics they carry, the proof or evidence of their evaluation of the workers’ performance and the depth of the ideas expressed in them. Credibility will be lost if there is any evidence of one-sidedness or advocacy of the management’s prejudiced views. Where there is need for admission of guilt, the publications should not mince words. (As Lee Iacocca, the CEO of Chrysler, admitted in a crisis situation, already cited in an early part of this book.) Too many pious platitudes or too many self-promotional statements by the CEO or the division heads will not enhance credibility either. What should be the themes of employee publications? Safety of the machines, safety measures introduced by the company for various mechanical operations, health of the employees, hygiene of the working environment, provision of safe drinking water, training and education of the employees, production processes and what the operatives can do to improve them, the usefulness of suggestion boxes, the measures the company is introducing for the improvement of the general environment of the factory and factory premises, what and how the company contributes to the maintenance of the roads, rivers, bridges and the waste disposal system, family welfare, sports facilities for the employees, annual or biannual picnics for all sections of the organization, either in part or as a whole, celebrations of important national holidays—these can be topics for some of the articles in the internal publication. There could be a general BB to carry news clippings on important news of global significance such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963; the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968; the landing of Neil Armstrong on Tools for Internal PRâ•… lâ•… 209

the Moon on 20/21 July 1969; assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984, etc. The world’s biggest industrial accident in the Union Carbide Plant, Bhopal on 2/3 December 1984; the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 after 27 years of solitary, single-cell imprisonment in South Africa— these are examples of general news that can be posted on the special BB for all sections of employees. This should be kept at the reception so that employees and visitors to the Plant receive the news at the very entrance.

Ten Organs and Activities of Internal Communications â•‡ 1. A monthly newspaper for distribution for all—workers, supervisors, management staff, top management executives, the board of directors and frequent or occasional visitors to the company and its various components at the headquarters, branches and special employees such as the company doctors and health workers, regular suppliers of food and drinks to the employees. â•‡ 2. Three monthly newsletters—(a) Executives and supervisory staff at the company headquarters; (b) for all executive and supervisory personnel in the company’s units in the northern and eastern regions of the country; and (c) for all similar personnel in the company’s units in the southern and western regions of the country. 3. An occasional management bulletin at any time the CEO chooses fit to convey to the management staff and top supervisors. â•‡ 4. BBs in strategic locations in the factory and head office of the company for posting day-to-day announcements and bits of information. â•‡ 5. Some special BBs to post information on safety precautions, new safety instructions on recently-installed machines. These BBs may be called safety BBs and they may be displayed at attentiongetting locations for machine operators and others connected with the safety of new machines. Employees in plants and warehouses may derive benefits of these special BBs. 210â•…


â•‡ 6. A special publication for sales and marketing people and employees of the PR division and the advertising department, that will carry items of special interest to PR, sales and advertising people in the company. â•‡ 7. An activity of special significance for the new employees is a slide show/video show/film show to give them a historical narrative detailing the growth and development of the company, its evolution, its early and present CEOs and the company’s business goals and achievements till date. â•‡ 8. Another significant annual activity is the holding of a sales and marketing conference where the full contingent of sales and marketing executives and field staff will be invited for a week’s discussion of sales and marketing strategies, suggestions from the participants followed by CDs and DVDs and dinner. This conference will be attended by the CEO and all the top executives of the company who will make presentations of their ideas on the first two days which will be discussed by participants on subsequent days. A weekend visit to important historical sites at the headquarters or in the city where the conference is held will be an additional activity of considerable use, especially in building goodwill among the participants and camaraderie among various wings of the company. â•‡ 9. The installation of suggestion boxes at strategic locations in the factory and head office will encourage many to drop their written suggestions in those boxes, either anonymously or with their names and addresses. 10. Distribution of printed forms with questions and blank space for employees to write their answers will give ample scope for getting employee feedback on various measures taken by management to enhance internal communication. This exercise can be conducted by the personnel or PR director. Planning, programming and staffing are management functions but they should be specifically designed for internal communications. This should get top attention from all good business corporations who have three basic objectives—to keep its employees informed about the state of Tools for Internal PRâ•… lâ•… 211

their company’s goals; to reinforce their understanding of how the business system is functioning nationally and internationally; and to establish an atmosphere of cooperation for implementing the goals of the company through appropriate actions and tools in a competitive society. There is no doubt that the PR director/manager will advise the CEO to give adequate importance to internal PR communications. All employees have the right to be informed, correctly and at the right time. Employees want to know what their enterprise is all about. They want a sense of involvement and they want to be a part of their organization. As proud partners in the progress of the firm, they will not only enjoy the fruits of its development but willingly share their company’s good and bad fortunes, and they will always volunteer to suffer and solve the problems which their organization is facing, provided their company takes them into confidence. If an open policy is followed by the company, the employees will gladly work towards the solution of big problems—even environmental and chemical pollution problems, schooling and training problems faced by their children and all social and financial problems faced by their company.

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7 TOOLS FOR EXTERNAL PR The PR department must not only help in maintaining and strengthening internal communications but also do everything to streamline the company’s relations with the external public—its customers and clients; its special external publics such as the central and state governments, national and international well-wishers, important shareholders, the media and VIPs in various countries who have already visited or who intend to visit the company; and of course, the general public, especially in times of crises. PR managers are not only good communicators but monitors of communication in various media that happen to publish or broadcast material with some relevance to the company’s activities, performance, profits, etc. Normally, no media unit may publish anything about the company without the company’s knowledge, but in special circumstances, a newspaper, a television or radio channel may unwittingly make a comment on some action of the company that is not very flattering to it or its directors and officers. Therefore, it is necessary that the PR Division (PRD) monitors the media in general. For this, PR has to subscribe to a great many media units. In fact, the PR manager may have an ante-room adjacent to his main office. His visitors may wait there and apparently it is a visitors’ room, but really speaking it is a repository of reading material,

particularly business magazines and a couple of general weeklies or monthlies for all visitors to while away their time. The same ante-room may have a TV set so that visitors can watch some programmes during their wait. But these arrangements are for the PR director and his staff to read or watch TV during their free time. They give the PR staff the opportunity to scan the media world to ascertain if there is any good or bad commentary on the company aired through the media without their request. External PR is achieved mainly through six channels: correspondence, newspapers and magazines (print media), radio, television, film and the Internet. Films have two major divisions—documentary and feature. However, correspondence, print media and television are the major carriers of information and publicity material relating to the company. Let us therefore deal first with correspondence and then with the print media and finally television. Let us be aware that correspondence emanates from all divisions of a company including the PRD. But the PRD has to attend only to its own correspondence. The purchase and sales divisions of a company have the maximum correspondence to handle—both as senders and recipients of letters and form letters. The form letters are letters designed in such a manner that they will look like individually written letters. Since they are sent to thousands of customers or would-be contacts, they are called form letters. Many thousands receive them. When they look like individually written letters, the receivers are led to believe that they were written personally. The salutation is usually ‘Dear Sir’ or ‘Dear Madam’. The company gets a bad name if a woman recipient is addressed ‘Dear Sir’. So what the letter writers do is to leave the salutation blank when the letter is produced in bulk on special machines such as rota-print and the salutation is added after the address part is added. The effective form letter sent by the MD of MRF regarding the company’s exhibition in Madras has been referred to in an earlier chapter. The signature can also be reproduced in blue ink on the rota-print. The same ink will be used for writing the salutation part and the address part so that the receiver of the letter will consider the letter as a personally written letter. 214

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Why Is the Written Message Preferred? The written message is more authentic, desirable and dependable in business communication. It is a record. Whatever is conveyed orally or by e-mail is quicker, no doubt, but letters dealing with important topics, put in black and white and signed by the sender, become valuable records in future. All the recipients of the letter get the same words and read the same message. Moreover, whatever is orally conveyed is subject to different interpretations by the listener, either by careless listening or deliberate misinterpretation. A short pencil is more dependable than a long memory. Put it down on paper and everyone reads the same; nobody can fault you for mishearing. The written word also permits retention of information and later retrieval and reference. People hear selectively, partially and poorly especially when numbers are conveyed and technical data are transmitted over the phone.

Correspondence Correspondence sounds orthodox and conventional. It may be mistakenly considered old-fashioned in this era of cell-phones, SMS, e-mail, Twitter and other modern devices of quick interpersonal communication. Post offices in developed countries are becoming museum pieces; they have certainly fallen several steps down from the pedestals they were being held on a decade ago. But in developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka (the SAARC countries), they are still in great use, perhaps because the mobile phone and the Internet are in their early phases of development. The post office is still the refuge for millions of people in the rural areas for economical and dependable correspondence. Of course, in the cities, many companies do not depend solely on the regular post offices; bulk mailing is undertaken by courier services—new private companies promising much but delivering much less. This is mainly because there are practical problems for the courier outfits to reach their destinations, the addressees, within reasonable time. Customers lose confidence when courier services do not deliver quick and efficient service. Tools for External PR

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But big companies can use alternative methods to check if the courier services have delivered the letters. Companies resort to courier service when they have to post thousands of letters and share certificates, form letters, etc., with shareholders and customers. The government post offices have raised their postage rates so high that bulk mailing becomes cost-prohibitive, even at reduced bulk-rate. Private carriers have lower rates, but many companies do not know for sure if their letters reach their destinations owing to faulty delivery mechanisms.

Rules to Follow while Writing Business Letters Letters are a projection of the writer’s personality. Business letters are a reflection of the personality of the writer as well as that of the business. Think well before you write. A slip can cost a business deal. Improper words are likely to offend a future customer. The letterhead itself can create a bad impression. All letters must be direct, simple, sincere and straightforward. They should not try to hide anything. Business letters can be formal but simple; they do not have to be so formal that they turn unfriendly or sour; they should not lose the touch of humanness; they can be firm where firmness is needed but normally, they should be polite and reflecting the writer’s interest in maintaining close business relations with the recipient. They should not be unconnected with the writer’s and receiver’s mutual business interests.

Points to Ponder while Designing a Letter head and Letter 1. Very often we neglect the fact that the letter has several distinct parts. For example, it has a letterhead part where the name of the company and its address are given in bold, big letters. These days, e-mail addresses and website addresses are given along with the telephone number(s). Remember to give the full address including the door number. There should not be any gap or ambiguity in the address. The pin code (zip code) should be given in complete form, not New Delhi-1 or Tiruvanantapuram-34 instead of 216

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3. 4.

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6.

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New Delhi-110001 or Tiruvanantapuram-695 034. The changed names of the city should be given correctly. In India, several new names have come into use. Bengaluru for Bangalore, Kochi for Cochin, Mumbai for Bombay, Kolkata for Calcutta, Chennai for Madras, Pune for Poona, etc. Business firms have to be precise and up-to-date in all transactions including the designing and printing of their letterheads. Good bond paper should be used. In the business world, you do not assume anything. The post office need not recognize an old name or an incomplete pin code. The size of the letterhead is usually 8.5′′ × 11′′—a standard size used in almost all companies. This will suffice for most letters. But sometimes one may need a larger size letterhead for longer letters. On such rare occasions, companies use 10′′ × 14′′ letterheads. If necessary, continuation sheets of the same size may be used. For short memos used mainly for internal communications, use specially designed letterheads with the name of the office or the person (and her designation) issuing the memo on the left side, and the name of the receiving office or person and designation on the right side. The person issuing the memo signs and dates the memo. In certain special cases, the time of issuing the memo is also noted. The date of the external letter is given in full on the left side above the addressee’s details in block style letters. But the date is given on the right side in freestyle letters below the letterhead part. The address of the would-be recipient of the letter has to be given in full—not just the name and the city or town. The address will have the full name, name of the company or organization, door number, street name and name of the town or city with pin code. The last item may be underlined if that is part of the style of all letters issued by the company. I have seen incomplete addresses on letters, with doubtful pin codes. For example, look at this address: Mrs Lakshmi Care Santosh Vallookkaaran Stylish Printers Ltd. Tris’ur-5: Kerala

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The post office may or may not deliver a letter addressed in this fashion. Most probably, the post office will take extra care in delivering the letter. But the sender has to be aware of his mistakes. z

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First, nobody should address a woman in formal letters or on formal occasions—while speaking or writing—as Mrs or Miss or Ms added to her first name. Many educated letter writers and speakers make this mistake. When you use Mrs before a name, give the full name. In this example, it should be Mrs Lakshmi Vallookkaaran instead of Mrs Lakshmi. Only close friends address each other by first names and that too in personal chats. Second, Care, or care of, need not be given at all, especially when the full name is given as Mrs Lakshmi Vallookkaaran. Third, Give the door number of the building where the firm, Stylish Printers Ltd, is situated. Write No. 15, Rama Varma Road. Fourth, Tris’ur-5 is not enough; give the full Pin Code as Tris’ur-689 005.

8. Use well-constructed envelopes with the company’s address in full, printed at the bottom left side on the front. There should be enough space for typing or writing the full address of the addressee. 9. In big companies, the franking machine or addressograph is used instead of the dispatch clerk writing the address and stamping the letter. The dispatch department must stock stamps of various denominations. Sometimes the machines may fail to work properly or give only unclear addresses. The department should also have a sensitive balance to weigh all the envelopes and their contents so that enough stamps are affixed. Post offices may sometimes refuse to accept letters and packets that have less than the required stamps affixed or franked on them. The dispatch department must be alert about the periodic revision of rates. Insufficient stamps will force the post office to charge dues on heavy letters and packets. The receiving company may refuse to accept the article; even if they accept it, they form a very low opinion of the company that sent something with insufficient postal charges. 218

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10. All the efforts and expenses of your company become a big waste when your letters fail to reach their destination or do not create the desired effect.

Cost of Correspondence Written communication is essential in companies; but it is a costly activity. Often this fact is ignored, but one has to be aware that office correspondence is expensive. Annual production costs could be huge. Let us look at the various steps: 1. Thinking and creating in the mind of the dictator and dictating the message. 2. Producing the message on a typewriter or word processor. 3. Reproducing the message (letter) on the copying machine. 4. Filing, storage and retrieval. 5. Distributing the letter (stamping/despatching/mailing).

The Cost Can Be Calculated as Follows 1. Dictator’s time. The manager takes at least 10 minutes to dictate a letter to her secretary and the secretary takes at least 15 minutes to word-process, print and reproduce the letter on the printer. Cost can be calculated on the basis of the salaries of the manager and his secretary, the wear and tear on the machines used by the latter (depreciation), the cost of copying, etc. 2. Overhead, taxes, fringe benefits, etc. 3. Cost of materials such as stationery, envelopes, ink, etc. 4. Mailing costs such as sealing, stamping/franking, sorting etc., incurred by persons other than the secretary. 5. Filing costs based on the time taken by clerical staff salary. The major activities incurring costs of correspondence can be listed as dictation, transcription, reproduction, and storage and distribution (DTRSD). Tools for External PR

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Electronic mail (e-mail) is used very often these days instead of regular correspondence by post. One can say that e-mail is increasingly replacing letters, memos and telephone calls in most offices of business firms. New systems and equipment in modern offices include voicemail systems which are automated message systems that combine a computer and a telephone. Messages may be left at the convenience of the caller and retrieved at the convenience of the receiver. Other equipment include the tele–typewriter (teleprinter), DTP, facsimile (fax) machine, teleconferencing and video conferencing facilities. The last-mentioned facilities serve in reducing the cost of national and international travel usually incurred by the executives and others. In spite of such equipment, letter writing is absolutely essential in organizations. After taking care of the letterhead and stationery, the most important attention in correspondence has to be given to the following parts of a letter—salutation, the body of the letter, the close and the signature.

Salutation The salutation in correspondence is equivalent to ‘Hello’ in telephonic conversation or personal greeting. The person receiving the letter, personally known or unknown to the writer of the letter, will feel comfortable when he/she is addressed properly. Addressing properly means using formal or informal greeting, depending on the degree of the writer’s intimacy with the receiver. A good friend will be saluted ‘Dear Arvind’. If Arvind is a stranger, the writer will salute him as ‘Dear Mr Arvind Desai’ or ‘Dear Mr Desai’. If Arvind happens to be a close friend, salute him as ‘My dear Arvind’.

Saluting Women Letter writers raise several doubts. Remember what we said about the address part—Miss for unmarried women; Mrs for married women and Ms (without full stop after ‘s’) for married or unmarried women. There is no style variation in the case of men; all men are addressed and saluted in the same fashion: as Mr Samuel Chempakaraaman or Mr Madhukar Rao. Nobody is bothered about whether the salutee 220

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is married or unmarried. Why should we try to indicate whether a woman addressee is married or unmarried. So the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s invented Ms in place of Miss and Mrs. This is quite logical and Gloria Steinem and others of the US deserve our congratulations for inventing Ms. If the writer knows for sure that the woman addressee is married and that she would prefer to be addressed as Mrs, then address her Mrs (last name of her husband). If the husband’s last name is not known, do not salute or address the married woman as Mrs Ira, if her last name, Mukherji is not known, simply salute her as Madam or Dear Madam, but never as Ms Ira or Mrs Ira. When a woman’s last name is not known, it is better to salute her formally. Informal usages are reserved for close friends in business.

Body of the Letter This is the most important part of a letter. It is the very purpose of your letter. It is what you write in the letter; it is your message. You cannot afford to be careless or indifferent about what you write because the receiver is going to be affected by your message, favourably or unfavourably. You cannot go wrong with what you convey to the clients, customers, government officials, fellow businessmen or just an outside well-wisher. Utmost care is to be exercised when you frame the message of your letter. For this, you have to go through the letter from the would-be receiver right in front of you when you reply. If it is not a reply but a letter from your own initiative, think well, discuss it at a managers’ meeting and formulate your thoughts. Put your thoughts in draft form and ask your secretary to wordprocess or type a draft. Ponder over the draft before you finalize your letter. If necessary, discuss it with your departmental colleagues or fellow executives, depending on the nature of the contents of the letter. Some reply or initiative will affect company policy and in such cases, discuss the draft with the higher-ups in the organization. You should never make grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and use wrong punctuation in a letter that you sign and send outside. Tools for External PR

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Some executives tend to blame their assistants or personal secretaries for the mistakes in their letter. They better remember that once they sign and send a letter, they are primarily responsible for the mistakes in the letter. Ultimately it is their responsibility to catch the errors in the letter, although others may have drafted or prepared it and placed it on their desk for signature. Once the letter is signed, the assistants do not go through it a second time; it simply goes to the dispatch section. The letter writer is also responsible for more serious errors in policy matters. Executives cannot afford to be careless about company policy. Usually, serious matters are discussed at the morning meetings of company executives before an executive writes a letter. Simple rules of composition apply here too. Start a new paragraph when the topic changes. Write short paragraphs. In block style letters, the paragraph starts at the margin. Indenting is used (five spaces from the margin) in free style letters. Important sentences or words that you want your reader to note specially, may be italicized, made bold or underlined, but do not crowd your letter with such devices. Use highlighting in your letter quite sparingly. Otherwise, you will turn off the reader and make the highlighting meaningless. It is similar to what some TV channels do these days; they present every bit of news as flash news. There is no stipulation of the length of your letter; it may be short or long, but do not try to compress your thoughts for shortness and do not ramble on and on for being too friendly and chatty. See that you convey the most important thoughts precisely and to the point, without offending your reader or making her feel that you have written a rambling rigmarole, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. It is a great quality of a letter writer to know what he wants to say, say it well and stop it. Keep your letter concise, cheerful and correct. Adopt the conversational style even while discussing a serious topic. But make sure that what you say is relevant and that your letter answers all the questions you have been asked, if it is a reply that you are writing, and anticipate all questions a prospective customer or acquaintance may have.

The Complimentary Close The close of the letter is the good-bye part. You bid goodbye to the addressee, the letter receiver. Do not put a post-script (P.S.). If you 222

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have an afterthought to include in the letter, type a separate paragraph at the appropriate position in the body of the letter. P.S. and P.S. to P.S are quite awkward and you better avoid it. The usual closing is ‘Yours sincerely’, if the letter has the salutation, ‘Dear Chandra’ or ‘Dear Mr Chandra Sekhar’, or ‘My dear Chandra’. Please note that the latest British style is to put a comma after the salutation or no punctuation. The American style is to put a colon (:). You can adopt any style, but be consistent. Letters from all departments must follow the same style. Depending on the degree of intimacy, you can use different closing styles. If the salutation is ‘Dear Sir’, ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ is an awkward style; let the sex of the receiver be ascertained before writing the letter. Do not make him or her a hermaphrodite by adopting a hybrid salutation such as ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ as the case may be. Form letters make this unpardonable mistake. Avoid it at any cost. When you type a ‘Dear Sir’ letter, close it with either ‘Yours faithfully’ or ‘Yours truly’. But remember that only the first word starts with a capital letter. The second word invariably starts with a small letter, as in Yours sincerely, Yours very sincerely, Yours truly, Yours faithfully, Yours affectionately, etc. ‘Affectionately’ is used only when you write to a relative; but it is rarely used on company letterheads. Personal letters must be sent on personal/residential letterheads. Almost all letters from the company office are closed with ‘Yours truly’, although in India, they close with ‘Yours faithfully’. One more point. Use a comma after the second word in the complimentary close which appears three or four spaces above the name of the writer. The blank space is for the signature of the writer.

Signature The name should not take a ‘Dr…’, ‘Mr…’, ‘Mrs…’, ‘Ms…’ ‘Professor…’ or ‘Rev…’ before it. If the writer is a PhD, add that after the name; for example, ‘Panchanan Mishra, PhD’ or ‘Padma Chatterji, D.Litt.’ If any of these people is a medical doctor, add a line below the name: consulting physician, surgeon, medical officer, etc. Similarly add chief Tools for External PR

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mechanical engineer, chief engineer, etc., to other letters, depending on the particular situation. Designations such as professor, reader, lecturer, PR manager, chief auditor, secretary to the CEO, etc., may be given in a separate entry below the name. The point is that the name should stand on its own without appellations such as Dr/Professor/Ambassador, etc., which should be added in a separate line below the name which can be given in full form or with initial(s): S. Samuel, Sam Samuel, Rebecca Alexander, M. P. Parameswar, George J. Kottuuran, Prema Nandakumar, N. V. Ram, etc. There is no difference between ‘Yours sincerely’ and ‘Sincerely yours. Either can be used. You may omit ‘yours’ and simply say ‘Sincerely’, for closing. You can use ‘Truly’, ‘Cordially’, etc., depending on your intimacy with the person at the receiving end. But always be sure that the salutation and the complimentary close of your letter match. Do not close with highly emotional phrases such as ‘With loads of love’ when the body of the letter is not romantic, loving or enthusiastic. It is insincere and hypocritical to use emotional phrases to close when the body of the letter is dry as dust and purely businesslike. When you write a personal letter to a close friend, use ‘loads or lots of love’, ‘kindest regards’, etc.

Actual Signing Sign a business letter in black or blue ink, not in red, purple or fancygreen ink. The latter may be all right between friends while writing personal, intimate letters. Black or blue is the best for business letters. Write legibly. In India, many people sign their names in a mysterious manner, incomprehensible to others, almost like a riddle to the reader. Some signatures look like graphic puzzles. The signatures should be legible and clear. Anyone should be able to decipher them with ease.

Despatch Make sure that your office staff handling the despatch of letters fold your letters neatly and correctly and use envelopes that fit the folded letter. While pasting or applying the adhesive, they should not be careless. Sometimes the gum or paste is spread unwittingly on the folded letter 224

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and it sticks to the envelope. When it will reach the other end, the person who receives it will have plenty of difficulty in separating the letter from the envelope. Sometimes the letter is torn and important sentences or words are mutilated. This will create a great deal of trouble for both the sender and the receiver.

The New but Wrong Style of Mrs and Mr Unfortunately, some over-enthusiastic but superficial feminists invented this new style in India. Some scholars consider this style inaccurate because logically (and alphabetically), Mrs comes after Mr. Stylistically, Mrs follows Mr. Perhaps some women mistakenly believe that Mrs preceding Mr in letters, invitation cards, etc., will heighten their status, and some men too consider it a symbol of their chivalry. Both impressions are wrong since grammar and style demand the use of Mr and Mrs.

When You Invite a Reverend and his Wife, Use ‘Rev. and Mrs’ Some Christian churches, permit their priests to marry; in some others, priests can marry even after they become bishops, although such marriages are rare. Perhaps it is better to say that married priests are allowed to become bishops, according to religious practice and convention in certain protestant denominations. In the orthodox church, married deacons can become priests, not bishops. The Roman Catholic church does not permit married priests to serve the church although the Malankara Catholic church permits it because married priests from other denominations may become Catholics. There are different social practices being followed among different sects; but our concern here is about style matters and not religious ones and therefore let us move on to fly for family.

And Fly There are some letter writers or inviters who use this peculiar Indianism. To them and their ilk, ‘And Fly’ or ‘and fly’ stands for ‘and family’. Tools for External PR

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Fly is family for them. This is their own making, and they are unaware that ‘fly’ is a fluttering multiped capable of spreading diseases or spoiling the broth, coffee or tea. ‘Fly’ can also mean something else which is used in conversation, but not in serious writing. It means the fly of pants which the male of the species sometimes forgets to zip. In any case, the expression ‘and fly’ does not abbreviate a family but leaves something open. For heaven’s sake, do not use the expression. Never invite anyone in a hurry. Take time to write the names of the other members of the family on the envelope—usually, the sons and daughters of the main invitees, Mr and Mrs. It is not civil enough a practice to invite the children as an afterthought, using ‘and fly’. If the children are old enough to understand social norms, invite them by name, separately. Otherwise, just indicate to the parents that children are also welcome to join the celebration or just invite only the parents. They may or may not bring their children. But do not invite children through this unpardonable phrase, ‘and fly’. In a country where even people who cannot really afford to invite so many people to a wedding (some of them are not even personally known to them), invitees number on an average a thousand persons, ‘and fly’ does not make any difference or sense. In this context, pardon me for pointing out that in India (at least in Kerala), many people use the word family as a substitute for wife. Notice the fun in a friend’s question to a newly married person ‘Hello, Ram, you came alone! Why didn’t you bring your family?’ or in the more intriguing question, ‘Hi, man, is your family carrying?’

Some More Style-matters Be accurate in spelling the names of addressees, at least on the envelopes, if not in the letter inside. Write the names of their cities and their pin codes, clearly and correctly. The post office may deliver the letters to the wrong hands or the letters may go astray and finally end up in the Dead Letter Office (DLO). Companies use well-built envelopes with their names and postal addresses printed on the bottom left corner (in many foreign countries,

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the address of the sender appears on the top left corner). This will help in returning the undelivered letters. Remember what we have said before, the written word—handprinted as well as mechanically and electronically printed—is much more effective than the spoken word in business. It is something on record, something in black and white. Although the spoken word is quicker, the written word is more authentic and everyone receives the same message and people have a chance to re-read and clear doubts. Resort to the telephone—land or cell, but confirm the transmitted message by letter. The tools used both for internal and external PR are the house organ, newspaper, newsletters, audio-visual tapes and videotapes.

Company Publications A forerunner of company newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, slides and videotapes, the house organ appeared in the 1930s, prior to World War II. In the early days it was just a modest company publication, mostly for internal PR, but today, at least since the 1980s, the very name, house organ, has been replaced by company journal, newspaper, or simply newsletter. Some companies publish a modest four-page tabloid or a two-page broadsheet. Wealthier companies with export business publish a costlier and more elaborate and well-produced publication with general articles on business and financial matters, import and export news and notes, write-ups on outstanding firms in foreign countries that have business contacts with the company. Corporate overview and company policy appear in these publications, and readers with business interest keep them for future use. Besides business news, house journals, company journals, newspapers and newsletters will carry personal news relevant to the external public. When, for example, the sales and marketing executives change, company’s export policies are amended, or the Value Added Tax (VAT) is collected on company products, the external news organs carry the information for the benefit, both of the internal as well as the external public.


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The costs of paper, envelopes, printing, production, mailing, etc., are going up every now and then. Many companies are not enthusiastic about journals and newsletters/newspapers/magazines these days. Some executives consider external PR a mere waste or an activity whose cost is high but benefits are low. Some others consider audiovisuals—movies, CDs and DVDs—more beneficial to the company. But we cannot simply say that printed material is more beneficial than audio-visual and vice-versa. Everything depends on the context and business environment in which a company is functioning. If a demonstration of new devices or products is necessary, the company has to arrange external and in-house exhibitions for attracting a large number of dealers, well-wishers and the general public (potential customers). The exhibitions can be organized not only at the headquarters but also at the branches of the company situated in different cities. Films, CDs, DVDs, Closed Circuit TVs (CCTVs) and colour transparencies, photographs and slides can carry the company’s messages to the external public from time to time. Training films and video-discs, promotional materials such as pictures, graphs, advertisements, etc., can be very effective in promoting the business goals and public relations of the company.

Media Revolution and Public Relations The PR of a company must be closely connected to all the latest developments that have occurred in the media world. The implications of the media revolution for modern PR are highly significant. Let us discuss them from a historical point of view. Alexander Graham Bell was the inventor not only of the telephone but also of the photophone that helps transmit sounds by vibrations in a beam of light. Today, this invention known by a new name, photophonics, is also known as photonics and it is one of the four key technologies of the information revolution: 1. Glass fibres which carry information as pulses of light, generated by laser beams link cities carrying 80,000 or more telephone calls in strands of fibre glass in a cable which is about half the diameter of our finger. 228

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2. Microelectronics (which made transistorization and miniaturization possible). Hundreds of thousands of transistors work intelligently on one silicon chip of the size of a finger nail. 3. Digital systems (digital communication process including digital photography); the arithmetic logic of yes or no (or of 1 and 0) which is the language used by the computer in talking to each other. The above are the hardware of the new system. 4. The fourth component of information revolution is the software which tells the other three components what to do (Vilanilam, 2005). These wonders of telecommunication in the last decade of the last century and the first decade of the new millennium have helped the world of communication register progress in geometric proportion not only in mass media, but also in advertising, business management and the publishing industry. The new managers, especially, the managers, directors and officers of public relations, have to learn the basics of nano technology, nano seconds, kilobytes and transponders. (Barzun, 1976: 9–41).

The Information Age and the Basic Needs According to business management experts, almost half the American workforce is now in the business of collecting and disseminating information. It is predicted that only 33 per cent of the world’s workforce will be engaged in manufacturing industries by 2020 AD, that is, almost one-third of the world’s workforce. The rest will all be in Information Technology (IT) industries. Will this phenomenon happen in India, a country that has not succeeded in eliminating illiteracy during the past 60 years of Independence or of 260-odd years of colonial presence? We cannot forget that the Telecommunication (TC) industry has registered the highest growth rate since the 1990s—electronic newspapers, electronically produced web newspapers and data transmission, Tools for External PR

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computerized communication (compunication), all these are common phenomena these days. Computer and telephone systems are combined and people can work, shop, access libraries, bank, and get medical advice and even telemedicine including tele-surgery. One does not have to leave one’s home to get these services except in telemedicine. People can work any time they want, and not just simply from nine to five. Cars with telephones and television sets (radio sets were already there), SMS and Twitter and cell phone (mobile) system and combo systems providing all these facilities are enabling people in one corner of the globe to be in touch with their friends, business associates and members of their family in another part of the globe in minutes, if not in seconds. In short, communications services have been customized according to one’s specific needs. Man-machine-symbiosis (linking the mind with the computer for instant learning or the storage of knowledge, processing, exchanging and reproducing knowledge) has been exemplified in desktop publishing (DTP) used in the printing of most tools or organs of business communication.

The DTP Desktop Publishing (DTP) is the most important development in the world of printing and publishing which came into wide use during the last decades of the 20th century. It was an extension of word processing and it became the main source of production of business correspondence and internal as well as external PR publications. Newsletters, brochures, reports and daily correspondence with the outside world were produced with professionally typeset documents on inhouse printing made possible by inter-connecting word processors with a laser printer. Texts in various typefaces and type sizes, could be edited, highlighted, illustrated with pictures and graphics and produced with ease and facility. Graphics including charts, graphs, art works and photographs could be scanned and incorporated at the appropriate spots in a page, at a fraction of the cost usually incurred in regular printing presses. Newspapers and magazines could be produced very quickly and many 230

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newspaper houses save a lot of time which they could profitably utilize for starting new products. DTP has already become the dominant production and publishing technique in the world of communications. Even TV is using subscripts and superscripts using DTP-produced messages on the screen. The biggest change that came out is the enhancement of professional quality with DTP in the premises of the media, in-house. With many new video facilities, including desktop slide-makers, linear editing, with a special camera, film recorder and computer keyboard, slides and high-quality colour transparencies can be produced. The cost of routine and repetitive messages and products can be brought down.

English on the Internet and in Business Whatever be the novelty attained through new equipment, a company cannot afford to ignore the use of the English language. As already indicated, business correspondence is carried all over the world mainly in English. Despite the increase in the use of regional or local languages for family correspondence and for correspondence between and among friends, the use of English for business correspondence and for personal greetings among young friends and relatives is on the increase. But using the English script for communication and using many English words rightly or wrongly, in place or out of place, in Oxford style or with Malapropian proclivities is also on the increase in India among the members of the up-and-growing middle and lower classes. The upper class has all education in good English and its members use English correctly but the modern middle and lower classes are using English in their own way, throwing rules of grammar, usage and style (and even spelling) to the wind. Democracy does not have to support the use of incorrect language. To claim that language is for communication and therefore it can be used incorrectly if the majority approve, provided it helps in communicating, is not a wise policy. There will be a lot of confusion if grammar, spelling and usage are up for grabs by the majority. Language use is not to be determined by popular vote! The Internet age has for practical purposes adopted English as the language of preference, although transliteration of regional languages into English script is common among a minority of Internet users in Tools for External PR

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India. But the majority of Internet users seem to be oblivious or criminally negligent about the correct use of English on the Internet. Using unnecessary abbreviations to save time is a monstrosity that will hopefully wear away in course of time. People using the Internet have to update their skill in typing. They can easily save time if they learn typing in the blind system instead of using the touch system. Luckily, the new generation, the young schoolgoers learn this skill along with learning the computer. But to dismiss the learning of typing as degrading and unfit for executives, some young friends take pride in saying that they can type using two fingers as fast as the blind, systematic typists. They simply forget that the maximum speed they can reach is 35 or 40 words per minute (wpm), compared to the blind who can go up to 60–70 or more wpm. Normally, all you have to reach is a speed of 50 wpm to become fast typists. Typing fast is not only good for professional typists and clerical hands but regular users of the Internet and word-processing, especially for sending quick e-mail replies. But remember that typing right without mistakes, and without monstrous, idiosyncratic abbreviations such as ‘r’ for ‘are’, ‘u’ for ‘you’, etc., is always more important than typing fast, although sluggish typing is not expected of a good Internet user. Anyone who has learnt the rudiments of typing the baselines with the right fingers on the left hand and right hand (such as ‘asdfgf; lkjhj’, ‘awerqfa; oiupj’, ‘gftfrf; hjyjuj’ and ‘azxcvf; lkmnbj’, eight groups of letters and two groups of digits ‘12345 09876’) will have learnt the art of typing within a month or two. The two fingers, the little finger on the left hand and the little finger on the right hand should always rest on ‘a’ and ‘;’ so that you will not misplace other fingers. The right thumb is used for space between words or phrases. The left thumb is non-functional in the blind system! The users of the touch system resorting to certain abbreviations such as ‘u’ for ‘you’, ‘r’ for ‘are’, etc., make reading a hard task for the people who get their e-mail in this hybrid language. In the computer age, typing is not only the typist’s skill; it is a basic skill to be acquired by all students and professionals including doctors, engineers, MBAs, managers, administrators, IAS officers and all. After Dr Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) compiled the very first dictionary of the English language in the mid-18th century, the language 232

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has grown so much by adopting words from other languages of the world that the latest revised edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English includes hundreds of words from different Indian languages—almost 800 words such as panchayat, bench, kattamaran, fakir, babu, juggernaut (from jagannath), Hindutva, puri and even dosa. The best way for a language to grow is by adopting words from other languages, without any linguistic chauvinism but depending on the cultural needs of the people speaking a particular language. It is estimated that in India we have about 70 million who can understand English and use it occasionally when the need arises—that is more than the population of English people in England. But why should Indians use broken English for e-mail? With some effort we can certainly improve our use of the language for business communication. Capitalize on the historical advantage we as Indians have in being descendents of some of the earliest to handle English for educational, administrative and business purposes following Clive, Warren Hastings, Macaulay, outstanding foreign journalists such as B. G. Horniman, business magnates and others who for reasons advantageous to their country introduced it in their biggest colony? For political, administrative, social, literary and communication purposes, let the regional languages be strengthened so that they flourish for the benefit of all. At the same time, let English be strengthened for business management and research purposes. Indian language chauvinism is dangerous to business. English is what has helped big business in India—the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Mittals, Infosys, Wipro and other national companies—to become international business giants in the 21st century. We shall now devote some time to international communication.


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8 International communication Let us discuss some aspects of good business writing that has relevance locally, nationally and internationally.

Good Business Writing Is Universal You cannot be a good writer if you leave everything to your teacher. Good writing is always self-taught; the teacher can help you with the basic mechanics of language use. Further progress depends entirely on you, the writer. You feel the need only when you have the responsibility to write down your thoughts. The business executive’s thoughts are valuable since they affect hundreds or even thousands of people working in an organization. Business writing is not literary composition. It is practical composition dealing with people. To that extent, it is dependent on your views about human rights, including the rights of those who write to you or expect an answer to their queries. A good writer must be able to spot wrong use of language and expressions in his own as well as in other people’s writings. For this you need

plenty of experience in composing letters and reading other people’s letters. One must not only spot errors but also make corrections by inserting the right words and phrases. Sometimes, you need to compose a dozen drafts of the same letter before you arrive at a draft you mentally approve for finalization. There is no harm in repeatedly writing drafts for your reply. Compose your reply, check with the original letter from the outside writer and see if your draft has replied to all the points raised in the letter you are replying to. Redraft and see if your reply is conforming to accepted practices of policies of your company. Never reply to a letter in a hurry. Sometimes you can gain time by replying to the outside letter writer that you have received the letter but you intend to reply to him in detail, within the next seven days, and stick to your own deadline. If you fail to send the promised reply in seven days, contact the party and give him genuine excuses for not replying. Ask for his pardon for extending the date of reply and stick with the self-imposed deadline. There is no excuse for a request for further extension. That will certainly sour your relationship with him. If there are serious misgivings about the points raised by him, tell him that you would be able to give him a satisfactory reply only after a month or so since you have to discuss the matter with a number of senior executives, some of whom happen to be away at the moment of writing the reply. The first job on your part is to look at what the letter from outside demands; if you have to send an acknowledgement, do it, but promise him a reply within a certain deadline. Many executives keep the letter for a couple of days, look at it again and meanwhile mentally go over the critical points related to the subject matter; send copies of the outside letter to the most trusted lieutenants, fellow executives concerned with the subject matter, get their opinions, call a meeting of all concerned and draft a reply together. Meanwhile, ask your secretary to send an acknowledgement of the letter, asking for a couple of weeks for a firm reply from the boss. This communication practice meets essential conventions in business management. 1. A letter of acknowledgement within a reasonable time satisfies the external letter writer and promotes external PR. 2. Consulting colleagues for a proper response promotes internal PR and efficient management. International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 235

3. Internal criticism that the boss takes decisions without consulting colleagues can be avoided by this timely consultation with colleagues. This applies only to very important letters. Routine letters from the outside can be handled preferably by a senior assistant in the CEO’s office, if not the Private Secretary.

Words, Words, Words All communication, except the non-verbal variety, depends on words and combinations of words; arrangement of words in a certain order, called syntax; and words form sentences, according to a common understanding in the case of each language. The common understanding is called grammar, known supposedly, to all users of the language. Those who cannot understand a word turn to the dictionary. There must be a standard dictionary in every office. It could be an Oxford or Cambridge, Learner’s or American Heritage. (An American dictionary will have certain words spelled (spelt) differently, but essentially it is the same as any British dictionary). But choosing the most apt word in a particular context is the most important skill expected of a writer of letters (perhaps for all writers, not only of business letters). The writer must have a proper reason for her choice of words, sometimes called her diction (the word dictionary comes from diction). How do words come to mind? Without that process, one cannot be a good writer. Words come to mind only when the writer is a reader. Simple enough, indeed. Without reading, one cannot become a writer. There are many young and old friends and relatives who approach you with a difficult question—‘Will you please help me write a reply to this letter from so and so company?’ You are annoyed with this request, especially when you are very busy with something. Why do people make such a strange request? Our educational system has failed in making the young people confident enough to answer even a simple letter. The letter asks the young man to inform the company if he is interested in appearing for an interview with the general manager at 3.30 pm on 236â•…


13 March 2011, and if he is, he should write to (not call) the PRO of the company (by name) before 28 January 2011. From all angles, this is a very simple letter; in fact, it is a letter that should bring joy to the young person. Instead of drafting a suitable letter and then, if necessary, consulting me, he is asking me to draft a letter for him. What a strange request, indeed. A neighbour, a young woman, a student of M.A. (English Literature) course approaches me with a request to write a speech for her. ‘She will mug it up for an Elocution Competition taking place in her College in a fortnight’s time’, her father told me quite frankly. Why should she take part in a competition if she was not confident enough to participate in it, with her own ideas? There was no point in arguing with her about the matter, for she was absolutely confident that ‘uncle’ would certainly oblige, because her parents had told her so. In both cases, the protagonists were totally unprepared for applying their minds to making words their servants. One becomes master of words if one worships them at least once in a while. The vocabulary is a super-market—even a smorgasbord—from where you can choose what you like, and what agrees to your taste on the occasion. Most business writers are not writers; the predominant meaning of the word ‘writer’ is one who writes for a living, a person who devotes his professional time for writing novels, short or long stories, poems, literary essays, etc. She may write in all genres and turn out dozens of books in her life. But managers are not professional writers. They are writers of short and long letters, memos, letters of reprimand, of greetings and congratulations, speeches for business meetings, sales conferences, short or long reports for the company, etc. But there is something in common between business writers and literary writers—craftmanship. And that depends on the use of words for putting their thoughts in sentences in certain commonly acceptable and idiomatic forms. As in the case of the word writer, which has different meanings in different contexts, many words in all languages—perhaps, all words—will mean differently in different contexts. As Jacques Barzun, famous writer on the philosophy of writing has noted, most writers ought to revise and edit their own writings through applying their minds to them (pieces of their own writings). Constant revision is a characteristic of all types of writers, but the business writers do not have much time International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 237

at their disposal; they have to manage men and materials, actions and their consequences and that will take up most of their time. But still they ought to spend at least a couple of minutes to go over what they write before sending it out (Dilenschneider, 1984). Barzun in his famous book on rhetoric, wrote on diction, linking or what to put next, tone and tune, meaning, composition, revision (or what have i actually said) but in all these divisions he stressed one common element: time out for good reading. Writing depends on reading, reading with ‘intense’ attention on what is being read. In brief, to be a good writer, one has to be a good reader. Diction deals with ‘which words to use’. Incidentally, the word rhetoric comes from a Greek root that traces its meaning to ‘I say’. In the early centuries, the word was used by Greek speakers like Demosthenes, orator and political leader (4th century BC), who spoke to large crowds. In course of time, the word came to mean the writing and speaking style of ordinary mortals—the art of speaking or writing that makes the speaker and writer clearly understood by others. Words are to be chosen carefully so that they make the user clearly understood by the listener or reader, a fundamental principle in communication. Words are chosen with an eye on what suits the occasion. The purpose of speaking or writing is to make the other understand you, not to understand yourself, but to make yourself understood. But certain words suit better for reading than for writing. The syntax, rhythm, diction and other elements of your prose are for the benefit of your reader, not for yourself. Revise your writing at least twice before you finalize a letter or memo. The scope of this book does not permit an elaborate discussion of diction or rhetoric. Let us move on to other forms of communication in business.

Satellite and Global Communication From the time of the early pioneers of space travel such as Yuri Gagarin, John Scott and others, satellites caught the attention of the world, that is, from 1959–60. Since that time, space is crowded with satellites sent up by several countries, and most recently by Indian satellites, for space 238â•…


exploration, weather and climate study and other purposes. Space has a parking problem these days! But our concern is with satellites for communication purposes. Space satellites—orbiting or stationary (geosynchronous) some 36,000 km (22,300 miles) above the surface of the earth—help business corporations to communicate at great speed not only audio and video signals but data of great value, to distant points on the globe. Satellites sent up in space by ISRO can reflect back to important stations and companies in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Trivandrum and New Delhi valuable data based on which the business corporations can make important decisions or exchange information with other companies. Entertainment (film, TV programmes, music and pictures), and news can be sent nationally and internationally with the help of satellites. In fact, satellite communication of news was started by the founder of the Cable News Network (CNN) of Atlanta, Georgia in the US in the 1970s. Ted Turner, CNN’s founder, opened a new vista in communication of news and entertainment via satellites. Newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today and others are using the satellite system to receive and send signals via satellite, especially at major national and international spot news and special news items such as the Olympics, FIFA, international cricket, sports, etc. Laser beams, lightweight fibre optic cables and computer systems have revolutionized communication and transmission in modern times.

History British science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, visualized in 1945 the whole concept of communicating news, images and information via satellites. In his article in an obscure science magazine, Wireless World, Clarke raised a question, perhaps in a half-serious manner at that time, why a fixed instrument in space could not transmit signals back to earth. The instrument would be at a point in space just beyond the gravitational pull of the earth. It would be nearly 23,000 miles above the surface of the earth. Later on, this question assumed immense significance when satellites could escape Newton’s gravitational principle at an orbital International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 239

velocity first and then at the escape velocity, but remain geosynchronously before escaping the earth’s pull (that is, the instrument will orbit the earth at the speed of the earth and hence geosynchronously). Clarke himself referred to the instrument as a communications satellite in geostationary orbit, orbiting the earth once every 24 hours. His hypothesis was that such a satellite would allow scientists to develop a new branch of science. He was proved right by later events. He was not an ordinary dreamer since his dreams had scientific and technical validity and accuracy. In the 1960s Clarke collaborated with Stanley Kubrick, another visionary—a film director—to author the screenplay for the award-winning science-fiction film, 2001—A Space Odyssey. Clarke spoke to a National Press Club audience in Washington D.C., from his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka (where he had taken up permanent residence) about the ‘earth station in a suitcase’ that he could check in as luggage in an airline and later carry in the trunk of his car. The rest is history. The Communications Satellite Act was passed by the US Congress in 1962. COMSAT, a company for communications via satellite, was founded in 1963. In 1964 and 1965 respectively, there were two launchings.

Intelsat and Early Bird By early 1987, a network developed for sending and receiving microwaves carrying telephone, telex, teleprinter, facsimile, radio and television signals. Electronic data transfer (EDT) and teleconferencing and telemedicine data and audio-video signal transfer are made possible by satellite communication; so is worldwide maritime communications through International Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT). By the same year, there were more than 170 nations and territories that were interconnected by 16 Intelsat satellites. Uplinks and downlinks became a commonplace practice among communication and space technologists. Physical distance either on earth or in space is not an obstacle any more to international understanding. Big corporations are interlinked now by satellite communication. Merryll Lynch, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, New York Times and Hewlett Packard (HP) have microwave dishes atop 240â•…


the buildings of their headquarters. Many giant corporations in different countries, including India, have the facilities for satellite communication in their daily operations. These are mega giant companies. HP, for example, with its headquarters in Palo Alto, California, is a 5-billion dollar company whose 79,000 or more employees are dispersed in 70 countries. It is the first company to hold regular teleconferences/ videoconferences via satellites. HP once produced a three-hour live programme to introduce its new products to British employees gathered at receiving facilities in London. Similar conferences were held in Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva and Frankfurt (Pande, 2009: 8). Most big companies conduct satellite teleconferencing to train sales and marketing executives and staff in new products. What a quick method to train people electronically. No hassle of spending unnecessarily on printing, stationery, travel and postage (PSTP) and on preparing the hall, attending to the comforts of the participants and on wining, dining and other creature comforts. Satellites are the newest stars in the firmament of communications including PR in huge business corporations. All companies cannot afford them and much of PR can be carried out without satellites, some of whom are engaged in the business of gathering intelligence about successful companies in other countries. Satellites thus can be turned into devices for gathering not only commercial but political, economic, social and military information (Whetten and Cameron, 1998: 308). Let us now turn to an entirely different topic connected with management of not only PR but management of human affairs not only in corporations but at home.

Time Management Time management is the fourth dimension of good management, according to Drucker (1974). The other three dimensions are the specific purpose and mission of the institution; making work productive; and managing social impacts and social responsibilities. An institution exists for a specific purpose and mission, a special social function. In the business corporation, the specific mission is economic performance. Only successful economic performance can create surplus economic resources (profits and other savings) which alone can International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 241

take care of other social needs—education, health care, defence and the advancement of knowledge. Every business action has economic performance as its first dimension. The second task of management is to make work productive and the worker achievement-oriented. Organizing work logically and making work suitable to the workers enabling them to achieve the most imply consideration of the human resource as human beings and not as things. Workers have personality; they are citizens as well as householders with specific responsibilities. They must have control over the nature, quality and quantity of work. Management has to satisfy these requirements and activate the enterprise through motivating personnel. The third dimension is managing the social impacts and the social responsibilities of the enterprise. ‘Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society’, says Drucker (1974). Corporations must exist for producing and supplying goods and services to customers who are human beings first and then customers. Corporations do not exist for workers and managers—not even for making profits for the shareholders. They exist for the people (Drucker, op. cit). The university does not exist for the administrative staff. It exists for knowledge production, knowledge acquisition, knowledge distribution—all done primarily by teachers and students. It exists for encouraging society to dip into the wealth of knowledge resources, preserve the wealth and extend it to the different wings of society. The administrators’ promotions and salaries are important but not important enough to become the major goal of the university. The hospital does not exist primarily for the doctors, nurses and other personnel. It exists primarily for patients who go to the hospital for medical service. The school does not exist for teachers but students. Whatever is relevant and useful to the growing generation of students is the primary business of schools. There are primary schools without proper buildings and primary amenities essential for little children, the future citizens of India. Primary school buildings without proper walls separating classes are still found in 21st century India. The voice of the maths teacher mixes with that of

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the history teacher and the voice of mathematical history or historical mathematics mingles with the voice of the language teacher. This soundmixing that has been going on for the last hundred or more years in rural and some urban schools of India has not attracted the attention of Oscar award-givers, yet. Fundamental principles of teaching are being violated with impunity in this faulty educational management system. Human resources are certainly developed in this peculiar fashion, without catching anybody’s notice—certainly not of business managers and scholars of institutes of management. Sound school buildings, with proper classrooms equipped with blackboards (at least), not to mention computers or OHPs, are the answers to end this mismanagement of education, but we seem to be fertilizing the fruits and flowers, since we seem to be more concerned with higher education including medical, engineering, business management and computer science education. The foundation is neglected, if not forgotten. Managing time, the fourth dimension, is the essence of successful management in personal as well as corporate life. You may work very hard, even work overtime—spending time in the office from 9 am to 9 pm. Yet you may not succeed. Effective utilization of time is the most essential aspect of successful management—whether in office or at home. Both husband and wife are managers of the home organization, either alone or together. For all practical purposes, a home is an organization that has to be run efficiently, managing people and resources, cutting costs, recycling and managing waste. There are people who simply complain that they do not have time even to attend to personal matters such as writing a reply to a personal letter. Think of some very great and busy people such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Romain Rolland, John F. Kennedy, Jawaharlal Nehru and Winston Churchill who answered letters even from total strangers. Let me recall a personal experience. As a graduate student, I had to write for responses to a research questionnaire I had sent to very prominent people such as Professor John Galbraith, Senator Edward Kennedy, Senator Frank Church and others including some prominent journalists and heads of media organizations such as Frank Stanton of the CBS and others in the media world.

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Imagine my surprise on receiving replies with or without filled-up questionnaires from all of them. Imagine also my surprise when I did not get even a line in reply from a single Indian editor, professor, researcher or author. What did it indicate to me at that time? A very poor opinion about my compatriots. But later on, I became wiser and arrived at the conclusion that my compatriots probably wanted recommendations from someone known to them, or some prodding from some mutual friends. As a student in a foreign country, I had none whatsoever to recommend me. But I received replies from Professor Galbraith, Senators Edward Kennedy and Frank Church and others. A simple rule applies to all good people—reply to a letter within a reasonable time, at least when a letter comes from a student for a legitimate research purpose. This rule of public courtesy is nothing special; it is the sign of one’s good social practice and common decency. Courtesy demands that you respond to someone who writes to you, especially for legitimate research purposes; it is as simple as that. Reply to a query—even a negative reply—is all right. Apply, apply, but no reply, as some exasperated guy exclaimed seems to be applicable to many people who forget that there’s nothing to which one cannot respond, if one accepts the principle that it is common courtesy to respond to a fellow being. But never give a false excuse that you did not have time to reply. Perhaps you are not managing time properly. Great men find time to reply to letters from people totally unknown to them, even to handwritten scribbling. All of us get time in an equal measure—24 hours. Nobody is going to get more time by complaining about the inadequacy of 24 hours. Everything depends on your sagacious use of time allocation to individual tasks entrusted to you, out of the total 24 hours allotted to you by Providence. To be an effective time-manager, one has to note down the actual time spent on routine as well as unexpected work. This practice will enable you to control time spent on unimportant things and to judge whether certain activities could be avoided or done more quickly. Are the job methods used by you suitable for saving time, or do they waste time? Is there a better method of doing it? As many management experts would tell us, effective time management depends on (a) removing overloads, and (b) taking control using 244â•…


calendars and planners. Have a ‘To Do’ list on your desk. Learn to say ‘No’ to people who ask for sudden appointments. You encounter in life certain people who just barge into your office and announce—‘I was in the neighbourhood and felt like calling on you’. They like to assume that they are doing us a favour. They have an extra sense of their own importance. Such people are dangerous. They ignore your secretary. You may be in the midst of an important discussion or telephone call with some very important customer. How to avoid such people? You can simply tell them in a courteous manner that you will meet them afterwards. Period. The first condition for effective management is ‘removing overloads’, as indicated above. How do you achieve this? By casting away the attitude—‘Apres moi, le deluge!’ (After me, the deluge!) Start the practice of intelligent delegation. There is a tendency among most of us to think highly about our own importance. ‘Without my own involvement, the work will never be done; or, even if done, it will be done poorly!’ Remember, you were not born to do this until death! Others can do it as well as you can. They were not born to do this, either. Just as you have learned how to do it, they too have learned to do it; maybe they did not get a chance to do it. Give that chance to them and check once in a while on how they are doing it—do this checking unobtrusively. Train colleagues and subordinates to take up more responsibilities; they will be happy to grab the opportunity to help you. To do effective management spend more time on important matters; draw a line between important matters and urgent matters; time management demands your focussing on results rather than methods; learn to say ‘no’ with good reason, gently and courteously, if someone tries to steal your time.

Rules and Techniques that Help Efficient Utilization of Time 1. Speed read. Learn to read selectively. Highlight as you proceed. Make sure you highlight only what is really important. Read the highlighted areas or concepts again later. International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 245

2. Keep a list of things to perform everyday. This requires advance planning, even on your way to the office every morning. Have only one list. Mere mental noting is not dependable. As said before, a short pencil is more dependable than a long memory; please make a note in your office diary of things to do that day. 3. Develop the habit of keeping articles of daily use at one single place so that you will not waste time searching for it when you need it. Searching for the spectacles or even shoes and slippers, books or magazines will consume your valuable time. 4. Close the tap after use. Close it even after finding no water. Close the bottle and do not leave it open on your desk. You may inadvertently trip it and wet the whole table while searching for something. 5. Do not flip from project to project like a bee; finish one and then move on to the next. 6. Prioritize your tasks and delegate the ones to those who can do them without wasting your valuable time. 7. Do one important thing at a time but do routine things even while you are on the phone. (For example, routine letters, form letters and certificates can be signed even while talking to someone on the phone). 8. Read long reports while going on a journey by car, train or plane. On returning to office, do those important things you marked specially during your journey. 9. Divide big tasks into segments and attend to the work, segment by segment, delegating some segments to others. 10. Do routine work when your energy level is low. Never attempt to do more important things with a low energy. 11. Never devote your high energy time for trivial or routine matters. 12. Do not procrastinate. Procrastination is the thief of time. Never postpone things for tomorrow if you can do them today. Set deadlines and stick to them. These tips are nothing new. But we tend to ignore these valuable tips in modern days, thinking that they have a time limit or they have outlived their utility. Golden rules continue to remain golden at all times. 246â•…


Managers’ Meetings Many managers complain that three-fourths of their time is taken up by managers’ meetings, usually taking place in many organizations in the morning or at 4 pm. Managers’ meetings are essential and they are not to be resented. They are essential especially where important decisions are taken or follow-up action is reviewed. Action-taken reports (ATRs) on previous decisions are brought by different managers to the meeting for sharing the information with others. It is true that some such meetings end up as a mere waste of time if they are not properly conducted. Sometimes trivial matters are brought by individual managers and this could result in wastage of valuable time. Look at the tips given below but do not follow them if they are not found applicable to your particular situation. Start every meeting at the right time. 1. Hold the managers’ meeting at 4 pm if there are only unimportant matters to be discussed. The agenda circulated before the meeting will indicate what is routine, what is special, what is important and what is unimportant. Holding meetings at 4 pm assures all that only important matters consume time, since everyone will be anxious to leave for home by 5.00 or 5.30 pm. 2. Set a time limit for all meetings at the beginning itself. 3. There is no harm in cancelling a meeting when there is no important or special item on the agenda. 4. Stick to the agenda and postpone items that casually come up during the meeting. 5. Fix a time-limit, if necessary, for each item on the agenda. 6. The recording secretary of the meeting will read out relevant decisions taken at previous meetings and thus remind all managers that matters discussed and decided before need not be discussed again, unless there is special need for it. 7. Responsibility for follow-up action should be indicated against every decision (previous and current meetings) so that no manager can shirk his or her responsibility. 8. Subordinates and junior managers should be encouraged to talk and give suggestions and solutions to problems. Do not entertain the mistaken notion that you have the answers to all problems. International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 247

9. As chief executive, you may have to go and meet your subordinates once in a while and whenever you do this, you may hold a meeting standing up so that more time will not be spent than what is really required. Invite managers in the neighbourhood to such stand-up meets, if their presence is relevant. Or, meet visitors in the doorway to save time. 10. Make your secretary or some other confidant to answer calls during certain periods of the day so that you can have those periods to yourself for thinking and planning. 11. Keep your desk and office spick and span. This will reduce wastage of time. 12. Delegate work to able and willing people and indicate the time and day when they can report back to you.

Empowerment and Delegation—Two Sure Ways of Saving Time Empowerment is a word that came into use in the 1980s. Now a popular word, it is used more in relation to women’s liberation and the liberation of subaltern groups considered weak and voiceless. But it is used in management circles these days, especially in the context of liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG). As Whetten and Cameron of Brigham Young University, Utah, have indicated in their work, Developing Management Skills (Brown and Ralph, 1987), empowerment has its roots in the discipline of psychology, sociology and theology dating back for decades, even centuries. It is ‘the inclination of people to experience self-control, self-importance and self-liberation’ in the psychological context. Notions of empowerment have been fundamental to most rights raised in social movements (for example, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay and Lesbian Rights). Karl Marx wrote in the mid-19th century about sociological empowerment of people seeking social change for access to conditions of empowerment. Liberationists such as Paulo Freire have discussed individual empowerment versus all-controlling supernatural forces. All these ideas are variations on the theme of empowerment versus helplessness. 248â•…


But despite its long history in management literature (at least since 1950), empowerment remains still an unimplemented ideal not only in management but in sociology, history and politics. Many managers do not want their own or others’ empowerment as it involves additional responsibilities. What are the reasons for people in positions of power refusing to accept empowerment or offer it to others? Typical responses given below are worthy of scrutiny. 1. Attitudes toward subordinates: I am willing to empower my people, but they will just not accept the responsibility. 2. Personal insecurities: I am willing to improve people, but when I do, they either mess things up or try to grab all glory. 3. Need for control: We tried that and it did not work. I am willing to empower people, but they require clear directions and a clear set of guidelines; otherwise, the lack of instructions leads to confusion. In order to empower, the following conditions are essential: 1. 2. 3. 4.

delegatees’ self-confidence arising from his competency; delegators’ initiative and proactiveness; a sense of personal control over impact and consequences; a sense of values and meaning of actions on the part of the empowered which fills them with a sense of purpose—this will fill the empowered with a sense of humanity and servicemindedness; and 5. a sense of security and trust in the empowered having the faith that no harm will come to the empowered as a result of the trust. Trusting people will make them more honest, open and quite willing to maintain ethical standards in their behaviour since they do not have to waste energy on self-protection.

Delegation Empowerment and delegation are two sides of the same coin. Without empowerment, no delegation is meaningful because empowerment International Communicationâ•… lâ•… 249

means providing freedom for people to do successfully what they want to do, rather than getting them to do what you want them to do. Managers who expect to accumulate all glory, power and praise for themselves will not be willing to delegate authority. Empowerment does not come naturally to most managers; they have to practise it consciously. To conclude, empowerment and delegation help to develop in others a sense of self-efficacy, self-determination, personal control, meaning and trust. But most of all, they help save time. They help managers to devote their valuable time to planning, production, financial streamlining and overall efficiency of the organization. But partial empowerment and delegation will only succeed in making people less productive, psychologically dependent and less innovative and untrustworthy. This section of the chapter is concluded by some more observations on time management (TM). Time is an irreplaceable asset; it is a finite resource as everyone gets an equal measure of it—24 hours. The problems encountered in TM are mainly lack of commitment on the part of managers and the managed to change; difficulty in changing old habits; non-awareness of the misuse of time and the uselessness of blaming others. Deciding to use time more effectively and efficiently, and planning, organizing, monitoring, analyzing, and evaluating—what is to be done and what is being done—will be the steps to practise TM. Time logs, diaries and a self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) will help in TM.

Self-assessment Questionnaire If you answer ‘Yes’ to five or more of the statements given below, you need to look at your TM planning, say Brown and Ralph (Whyte, 1952: 46). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 250â•…

I tend to tackle paper work when I see it first. I face more crises than I need to because of poor planning. I sometimes have to be chased by others to get things done. I have a vague idea of what my priorities are. I spend more than 30 minutes a day looking for things. My meetings tend to last longer than necessary.


7. I allow others to influence, in a negative way, how I spend my time. 8. I start many more projects than I wish to. 9. I am always busy but not always productive. 10. I hang on to tasks that should really be delegated to others. As Peter Drucker once said, ‘Effective executives do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning. They start out by finding out where their time actually goes’ (Drucker, 1974).

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9 CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION In this era of globalization, managers of all corporations, especially PR managers, have to devote very serious attention to cross-cultural communication (C-3). Achieving normal communication without intentional or unintentional cultural prejudice is of great im-portance when Indian firms are establishing themselves in England, France, Germany, Netherlands and other countries. The India–US–UK– Europe–Africa–Australia–China–Japan–Korea connections are getting stronger. Those who are establishing their business corporations in unknown cultures (unknown hitherto), have to learn about those cultures. Of course, the language of international business and C-3 is English most of the time. In this section, we shall examine some guidelines for communicating cross-culturally. As said before, the bulk of global business is conducted in English and therefore there is already some good understanding among various nationalities where English is used for a considerable length of time for historical reasons. However, people’s understanding of other cultures is mostly acquired through books and what is bookish need not be full. All books are limited in their immediate scope. No book can be culturally comprehensive. Living in another clime or culture for short periods may not also be helpful in getting a clear

understanding of a foreign country or culture. This applies to all of us. We carry in our heads certain images about other countries right from our childhood and our adult life may or may not bring about changes in our early impressions for current or contemporary use. With bookish prejudice, we may not go far in gaining a better understanding of human beings in other countries. Many foreigners do not know, for example, that there are a substantial number of educated people in India who can understand and communicate in English. While it remains true that close to half the population in India is not literate in any language, 70 million people living in the metropolitan cities and large towns of India can handle English for business communication, including some casual workers in big cities handling foreign and local tourists. The Indian business world must capitalize on this historical advantage and build bridges of understanding between India and the rest of the world. But beware. We, in India, except for the tiny minority of native speakers of English, are not born speakers of the language. We are either native speakers of Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam or any other major language of India, but English is used for national and global communications. Therefore, we have to recognize that as nonnative users of English, we have to deal with native speakers of language, particularly in the UK, US and some tiny nations of Europe or small island nations of the world where English is the dominant language, with care and a full understanding of the non-native character or quality of our English which is influenced by our native Indian languages. There is no need for feeling inferior and adopting a supercilious attitude to foreigners whose mother tongue is not English. Some of our English newspapers, for example, try to impress non-Indian, non-native speakers of English in Europe, by using in their editorials, features and news reports several words that are not widely used and that compel the readers to make a reference to the dictionary essential. This artificial superiority can at times create friction with people from certain African nations, or nations such as Belgium, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea or Saudi Arabia, where the native language is not English. Our correspondence with these foreigners may be affected by our attitude. The success of democracy and free enterprise all over the world depends on genuine interest and trust in the other. As the old saying Cross-cultural Communicationâ•… lâ•… 253

goes, only with trust can there be any real communication, either in the local, national or international contexts. Until that trust is achieved, the techniques and gadgets of communication will end up merely as wasteful efforts. This applies not only to the national, but international scene. With all the advantages we have, do we always expect the other fellow to do all the listening? The great enemy of communication is the false impression about communication we carry in our heads. Communication is not one-way; by definition it is two-way. Only by listening and responding you can communicate. Do not carry the false impression that you are in the business of cross-cultural communication when you do all the talking—all that fast talking—and do not pause to listen. By our habit we create wide gaps between ourselves and those with whom we are supposed to be communicating, the cultural stranger sitting opposite us. Often, we fail to separate our bookish reality from the solid three-dimensional reality in front of us. Why did the other person look elsewhere or into vacant space when you used an unusual word? In a chapter in his book, Is Anybody Listening?, William H. Whyte, Jr., asked almost 60 years ago if the pomposity of management prose was the ‘root ill of our communication trouble’ (Whyte, 1952: 46). Whyte’s question is relevant even now, especially when there is much attempt in the world at cross-cultural communication in this era of globalization. But instead of self-flagellation, let the business management experts organize proper language training programmes, set up writing clinics for management trainees in all departments, especially for those young men and women who are potential managers in international business. We may write or speak English that may appear to be English but fail to communicate anything to our foreign business friends even if they know the language. A reading of hundreds of business letters from different regions of the world may indicate that the business terms are the same, but still there are problems for us and them. Prose engineers (may their tribe increase) have started with their pioneer, Rudolph Flesch whose Columbia PhD thesis on readability in 1946 and his bestseller, The Art of Plain Talk, which briefly gave the English speaking world, a set of scientific principles for succeeding in the art of writing plain, understandable prose (Flesch, 1946): 254â•…


1. 2. 3. 4.

Write as we talk. Eschew irony, rhythm, and rhetorical sentences. Substitute concrete for abstract words. Surcharge prose with as much human interest as possible and apply two formulas for measuring reading ease and human interest: a. based on syllable and sentence count per 100 words, measure the reading ease of our writing; and b. based on the percentage of personal words and sentences, measure the human interest (Harcourt, 1991).

The first application of the Flesch formula was to journalistic writing. The next application was to business writing. Other theoreticians who contributed to this field of prose engineering were Robert Gunning, John McElroy and others. But moderation is always advisable in business communication. Jumping from formalism to colloquialism is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. What we need is a judicious balance between the formal and the informal. A middle diction and moderate style are indeed preferred in business writing on all occasions, something above what can be called ‘businessese’ (like journalese) language and at the same time something sensible, simple and sensitive to both sides—the writer and the reader. Beware of highly Latinized, Sanskritized long words (not of everyday use)—words that make little sense at once to the reader; but all long words cannot be avoided. In fact, a small or short word in certain situations may be beyond the ken of the foreign reader who may easily understand a longer, familiar word, better. Rightness should be given preference over length. Avoid quotations and proverbs if you have the slightest doubt about their appropriateness; moreover, they are culture-specific; what is familiar to you may be totally strange to your foreign customer who is likely to get wrong ideas from your quotations and proverbs. Do not use 19th century style in the 21st century. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the style was sometimes long-winded and tortuous but people used it. Their readers in the same country might have followed that style and perhaps responded in the same style. People are less patient and faster in the present century, what with all the speedy gadgets and vehicles that make life in general too fast. But some of Abraham Cross-cultural Communicationâ•… lâ•… 255

Lincoln’s, Winston Churchill’s or Mohandas Gandhi’s simple, logical and profusely illustrated expressions are easily understood at all times. Biblical expressions and Shakespearean stories and allegories are part of the English language and whoever has studied them in any part of the world can easily follow them, although it will be better if a business writer using English while writing to a businessman in Saudi Arabia can use references to the Koran and the Arabian Nights, more familiar to the Saudi Arabians. But it must be pointed out that every business person ought to undergo college level courses in business communication, engineering writing, medical writing, writing for the media; publicity, PR and advertising writing or what is called copywriting. But it is equally important that everyone gets a chance to undergo basic English courses before they move on to such specialized courses as the ones mentioned here. Whatever we do, let us be honest, straightforward, and respectful of the other. Be ready and willing to accept that the person on the other side is as human and dignified as we are, whether the other is national or international, domestic or foreign. Before we start our communication effort, let us be absolutely sure of what we want to communicate and why. A businessman is in business, not to offer love or charity, but to sell a product, service or idea. Let us not be so woolly-headed as to assume that neither we nor they are in business to accept one another’s largess or charity. We are in business to buy or sell things to our advantage. The goal of C-3 is to establish normal business communication without cultural prejudice, as the authors of Business Communication tell us (Harcourt et al., 1991). Cultural differences can create barriers to communication. Historical factors too produce wrong images of other countries, especially in countries that were colonies of other countries for a long time. Britain, for historical reasons, had a clearer picture of the size of India but the ordinary citizens of the US had until quite recently a very limited concept about India. Perhaps the latter had constructed their idea of India from the time of Mahatma Gandhi and his unusual methods— non-violent resistance to British imperialism from the 1920s onwards, non-violent non-cooperation with Britain, fasting for days on end to bring about a change of heart in the British and Indian administrators, satyaagraha (truth force), making a bonfire of cloth made in Britain from 256â•…


Indian cotton carried to the Lancaster and Leicester textile mills, making of salt at Dandi or Dandakaaranya in defiance of British authorities and a number of other steps unheard of in the annals of any country in the world that fought for freedom from colonial yoke. Even as late as the early 1970s marked by the Indo-Pakistan war in which East Pakistan fought for its independence from Pakistan and founded Bangladesh under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, father of the present president of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, the US was on the side of Pakistan and President Nixon showed his moral and military support when he sent the American Seventh Fleet, knowing perhaps fully well that American involvement would escalate the war. The point is that many Americans, including high government officials, misunderstood India and considered India as a small country, equivalent to Pakistan in size. They never wanted to recognize that Pakistan including its eastern and western wings was just as big as two states of India’s 16 states at the time. To realize another country, one has to learn the basics of its size, history and culture. As James R. Scales, President of the Wake Forest University said in his Preface to B. G. Gokhale’s edited book, Images of India (Stales, 1971): Most Americans need to be reminded that civilization did not begin in 1776 or 1492, not even along the shores of that wine-red sea where the Greeks played their games and sang their songs. Well into the Christian era, the richest and most powerful kingdoms of earth were on the continent of Asia. In the upheavals of the twentieth century, the Asian people may well regain their former position.

Whether professor Scales’ prediction may come true or not, there was a great deal of ignorance about India in the US in the early 1970s. Now the situation has changed considerably, especially because of the service provided by Indian engineers, doctors, nurses, IT professionals and others settled in the US. There are four guidelines given by Harcourt and others for success in international communication: 1. The foundations and principles of business communication apply to international communication as well. Therefore, review of Cross-cultural Communicationâ•… lâ•… 257

your knowledge of basic communication techniques is relevant. The objective of business communication (whether national or international) is to promote the understanding of the receiver of communication. If there is failure in gaining an assurance that the receiver has understood your message, there is no use for your communication. A communication effort succeeds only when the sender makes his or her message clear to the receiver. â•… The four components in any communication environment or effort are: sender, receiver, message and channel or medium. The success of the communication effort is measured through the quality and quantity of the feedback received by the sender from the receiver. â•… The feedback will depend on the clarity of the message and the technical quality of the channel. Factors that impede the understanding of the receiver are noise (both technical and sociological) and the educational levels of the sender and the receiver. â•… Many messages sent by the government or private organizations to the aam aadmi (the common man) in India fail to motivate because the communicator and the receiver (the majority of rural folk, for example) are at different levels of literacy and education. As said earlier, almost half the nation’s citizens are illiterate. No wonder, the messages constructed by the educated do not succeed in making a dent in the minds of the majority of the receivers. â•… Take just one simple example. The government PR department has issued several messages in different media regarding the bad practice of smoking in public places because the consequences of second-hand smoking by non-smokers are extremely bad. But the message has not succeeded in stopping the habit of public smoking among the majority of smokers. â•… Similar is the effect of the messages issued by the PR departments in the different states of India against spitting on the public roads. Warnings about public health in such situations go totally unheeded because the majority of smokers and spitters are not willing to honour the warnings issued by their own government. The simple reason is that the majority of the violators of public health codes are not educated. All citizens need to have at least basic education. A nation that does not give any serious thought 258â•…


to this aspect of citizen-behaviour can never succeed. The very idea of citizenship and civil society becomes active only at the time of elections, generally speaking, once in five years. â•… Communication can succeed only when the communicatees have at least the basic education. â•… This is lesson number one for people in developing countries. This problem is not acute in developed countries because they have started from the basics of citizenship. Civic sense comes only through common codes of behaviour insisted on, right from kindergarten onwards. Along with drilling young children in multiplication tables or English alphabets and nursery rhymes, give them grounding in citizen-behaviour. This is a basic national principle in communication. But it can have its influence on national senders of messages to international receivers as well. National senders ought to have real consideration and useful knowledge about the culture, linguistic peculiarities, food and artistic preferences of receivers of messages in foreign countries. â•… That brings us to the next important point. 2. One must analyze one’s own culture in order to gain a better appreciation of the culture of the other. This will also necessitate one’s understanding of how the other views one’s culture. Crosscultural communication demands this mutual understanding of cultures. â•… Looking at many developments in India today, it is not easy to conclude that the Indian society has done away with caste and gender inequalities, although many of us would like to think that we have progressed on both fronts considerably during the past 60 years. While communicating with people in European or American societies, Indian business persons cannot boldly assume that their society has already reached the level of the Europeans and Americans, although the latter have not solved all their problems relating to gender and other inequalities. â•… The Indian Constitution has abolished caste and gender inequalities but democratic ideals have not percolated to the various levels in Indian society. The concept of civil society does not energize India, except in political elections. Family ties and loyalties operate strongly in every field of human endeavour, especially in Cross-cultural Communicationâ•… lâ•… 259

business. It is strong even in the realm of entertainment business, particularly the film and TV business. Heads of families are always eager to transmit their own social, cultural and educational advantages to their offspring first, and then to their kith and kin. There is no national view of the advantages that can come about through business; but there is a strong affiliation to the idea of passing on the social, political and economic advantages gained through nationhood to a narrow platform of family. In these matters there is a world of difference between the corporate world of the rich, developed countries and that of the largely poor, but partially affluent developing countries. â•… While communicating with foreigners, we should be aware of what they appreciate most in you—for example, frankness, direct eye contact and clear expressions, warmth of feelings and respect. This will certainly promote cultural communication and eventually cultural understanding. All this will lead to better business ties. 3. The third requirement in international communication is the ability to accept cultural peculiarities of the other. Accept the foreigner as a being with possibilities of human failures and foibles but never try to fault him for those. An important requirement in cross-cultural communication is the readiness on both sides to accept each other’s cultural peculiarities—in foods, religious beliefs and ways of doing things. But there are things we have to avoid if we happen to practise things that offend the other. Be patient and accommodating; but never give the other the feeling that you are condescending. Never put on an air of superiority— cultural or religious superiority. Never assume things. If you have a doubt, express it politely and get corrections. Humility and frankness will win friends; an air of superciliousness and cultural one-upmanship will win enemies. Apply in practical situations what you learn about other cultures and apologize profusely if you offend your foreign business associate or customer through faulty application of your knowledge about other cultures. 260â•…


As already pointed out, educated Indians have an advantage in the use of the English language, when compared to people of other lands; but always remember that your knowledge of English has been acquired as a student of English, as a second language. All attempts to outsmart an English-speaking customer in the use of his language must be abandoned. The KISS principle comes in handy most of the time—keep it simple, stupid. Show your technical competence wherever required but do not show it off to impress the other. Always try to enunciate your words as clearly as possible, syllable by syllable, whenever required. Speak slowly. Speed spoils everything, in driving as well as in inter-personal communication. The other’s understanding of the word will be better even if you pronounce it incorrectly. Never say, ‘In India we pronounce it that way.’ Mispronounce a word with national pride? Accept what the other tells you; after all, it is his language. His modesty and humility may not permit him to correct you, but that does not make you right. Employ translators and interpreters wherever needed, instead of struggling with a language you do not know—Arabic, Chinese or Mongolian. When you try to conduct a conversation with their help, make sure you do not crowd different ideas into one sentence. Have just one idea in one sentence. Keep the sentences short and simple. Highlight your most important point by speaking slowly and with the readiness to spell out certain words when necessary. The interpreter and translator may need this cooperation from you, for your own benefit and for the benefit of the other side. In all situations where translators and interpreters are engaged, ensure recruitment of the best persons in the field who can convey your ideas properly. If you detect any defect, or if you discover that the interpreter has not fully conveyed the thought, ask the interpreter gently if he or she has translated the word which you consider the most important in the situation. Repeat the idea in a different way so that you stress the important idea for the benefit of both sides. Observe cultural practices that the other party observes while meeting you. The Japanese, for example, bow when they shake hands with you. You may do well in bowing in return as many times as he bows. Do not

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give the impression that you are an adamant person; on the other hand, show your willingness to change your practice and adjust. Above all, be prepared to show supporting evidence for your claims instead of assuming that those who ask for evidence are mistrusting you. Asking for supporting evidence in a friendly manner may be part of the business culture of the person from abroad. Different national cultures have different practices. One gets a clear picture of it through a few meetings and from authoritative books. Remember the old saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ There are similar sayings in almost all cultures. Even in Malayalam there is a saying, if you are in a land of snake-eaters, eat the fleshy middle of the snake. More than cultural peculiarities, business persons from most countries are guided by common motivations—readiness to learn more about the business prospects; ordinary ideas that help in achieving progress towards profits rather than bright ideas that push you towards losses and simple ideas that work quickly instead of complicated ones that wear you out. Business has a universal language that smart business persons will easily understand even non-verbally. Therefore, our total dependence on management practices need not always succeed the way we want them to succeed. In summary, we can say that future managers’ success depends not only on management principles but also on global and inter-cultural understanding. As Rosabeth Moss Kanter has said, Globalization brings managers two almost contradictory challenges. It increases the need for cooperation and coordination among businesses and among countries in order to find common standards, methods, languages, transportation systems and communications links. ……… (A)s globalization increases cross-boundary contact it also increases peoples’ awareness of their differences. … Global managers, therefore, must manage through far-reaching cooperative networks of people and companies that are independent and diverse. (Cohen, op.cit)

But national priorities cannot be ignored by PR people. Will PR help or hinder globalization and cross cultural communication? Many industrialists and businessmen in the new millennium are 262â•…


optimistic that millions of people will move from earning subsistence livelihoods to being able to meet basic needs through a mass market. But as pointed out earlier, the business world of Europe and the United States revised the minimum wages of ordinary workers in the 19th century. The market potential of the new century is indeed great, but without giving the purchasing power to millions of people, the potential of the market will be confined to the same upper 10 per cent of the population. Satellite-based communication, Internet facilities and modern offices, factories and information kiosks, roads, water supply, drainage and above all the heavy salary packets being offered to the young men and women of the country will triple the purchasing power of the already affluent. The miserable payment scheme for the MGNREGS workers, particularly the rural women, has already shown how negligent the elite of the country are towards the real priorities of the millions: inadequate and delayed payments; non-payment and harassment of the already harassed by exploiting and negligent district and panchayat administrators who refuse social auditing—all these take away the meaning and purpose of well-intentioned programmes specially designed for the poor in the country. Much of the knowledge generated in our knowledge society resides in places where it is generated; it does not flow down; if at all it does, it does too slowly, too late and in trickles. When close to half the population is illiterate, uneducated and unenlightened, can we expect them to utilize the new sources of knowledge to bring about changes in their own lives and in the lives of others? We need new and useful products that can transform our lives every single day, but it appears that all our technology and education are geared to the betterment of the creature comforts of the already affluent, and of course, to the essential defence of the country. The time is now ripe for us to learn from other countries that have solved their basic existential problems. Globalization should give us the opportunities to strengthen the networks of growth and development that help us solve basic problems. Without strengthening our own population, at least fulfilling the basic needs of the large majority, no amount of imported knowledge and technology will benefit the country. We need better brains from our own soil to serve our essential needs.

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Are we able to utilize globalization for bringing about basic changes in our system? Can we utilize new knowledge to change the face of our rural areas, technically, technologically and sociologically? With all our great achievements in science and technology, India is fast approaching the status of a developed nation, according to many observers. But very often we find that even while urban India is galloping like a race horse technically, and technologically, rural India is limping like a beast of burden carrying the unwieldy bundle of historical and sociological debris. Change we must. Will PR managers take up the task of instilling into the elite and the ordinary business people, and also the common people with whom they come into contact, a sense of national urgency in re-building India into a new nation with new priorities?

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APPENDICES

Appendix A Top Fifteen PR Firms in the World and their Links to Top Advertising Agencies—1995

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Public Relations Firm

AD Agency

Burston-Marsteller Shandwick Hill & Knowlton Communications International-Porter-Novelli Edelman Public Relations Worldwide Fleishman-Hillard Ketchum Public Relations Ogilvy, Adams & Rinchard Robinson Lake /Sawyer Miller The Rowland Company Manning, Selvage & Lee GCI Group Rudder Finn Financial Relations Board Cohn & Wolf

∗ Young & Rubicam — WPP Group Omnicom Group — — Ketchum Communications WPP Group Bozell Worldwide Saatchi & Saatchi D’Arcy Masius Grey Advertising — — Young & Rubicam

Total Net Income of Top Public Relations Firms in the US and Europe: $1.4 billion Source: O’Dwyer’s Directory of Public Relations Firms, 1995. ∗Burston-Marsteller claims that the role of communication is to manage perceptions which motivate behaviours that create business results. ‘We are totally focused on this idea as our mission…. ‘B-M helps clients manage issues by influencing—in the right combination—public attitudes, public perceptions, public behaviour and public policy’ (O’Dwyer’s Directory, 1995: 207–208).

Appendix B Commonly Confused Words 1. ADAPT, ADEPT, ADOPT To ‘adapt’ something is to change it for a purpose. ‘Some people try to adapt the Constitution for their own special needs!’ ‘Adept’ is an adjective meaning highly skilled. To ‘adopt’ means to accept into the family. To adopt something means to take control or possession of it. ‘He adopted the Gandhian ideals at a very young age.’ 2. AFFECT, EFFECT Both words can be used as verbs, and also as nouns. But ‘affect’ as a noun may be reserved for psychologists and writers on psychological matters; affect as a verb means ‘to influence’. For example, ‘His decision to settle in Qatar affected the artists and others in India’. The idea can be expressed using ‘effect’ as a noun as follows: ‘The effect of his decision to settle in Qatar was considerable among artists and others in India’. The verb, ‘effect’ can be used as follows: ‘The new Director effected important changes in our office procedures’. As a noun, ‘The effect of the herb was not great’. 3. ALL READY, ALREADY The first, a phrase, means that everything is ready. ‘We are all ready for the trip to Kanyaakumaar’i, and our driver is already here. Already’ is an adverb; and ‘all ready’ is an adjectival phrase. 4. ALLUSION, ILLUSION ‘Allusion’ is a passing reference; ‘illusion’ is something that deceives by creating a false impression. ‘His supposed godly powers are pointed out in several allusions in the work. But in the end, readers get a clear indication that the powers are just an illusion.’ 5. AMOUNT, NUMBER ‘Amount’ is singular and it cannot be counted. It is a mass word, whereas ‘number’ can be used as a plural noun in the phrase, ‘A number of women who go to her room return with a heavenly smile! The women’s debt of gratitude amounts to a great deal’. Do not say, ‘the amount of people in the hall…’. 266

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6. ANGRY, MAD ‘Angry’ is angry, it is never ‘mad’. Do not use ‘mad’ for ‘angry’ in serious writing because it has the meaning of mental derangement. But you can say: ‘She was so angry that she almost went mad when she found him stealing a kiss from that woman.’ 7. BESIDE, BESIDES ‘Beside’ means ‘by the side of’. ‘Besides’ means ‘also’ or ‘in addition to’. ‘We sat beside the waters of Jordan and sang some old songs.’ ‘He is highly educated; besides he is handsome!’ ‘Besides her father and her elder sister, nobody stood beside her at the wedding.’ 8. BORN, BORNE ‘Borne’ is the past participle of ‘bear’ (to carry something heavy). He entitled his autobiography: ‘I have borne much’. ‘Although born to parents who belonged to the orthodox tradition, he followed the heterodox path even from his boyhood days’. 9. COMPARE, CONTRAST ‘Compare’ means either make a comparison or liken. To compare something with something else is to make a comparison between them; the comparison may show either a resemblance or a difference. To compare means to assert a resemblance between two things. A simple example in poetry is: ‘Her face is like the full moon’ (simile). Similes and metaphors are two figures of speech that help comparisons and contrasts. The example for simile already given here can be re-stated as a metaphor: ‘Her face is the full moon in April.’ Contrast emphasizes differences: ‘The lecturer contrasted the bravery of the Bohemians with the timidity of the Timbuctans.’ 10. COMPLEMENT, COMPLIMENT ‘Complement’ means something that completes or accompanies; ‘compliment’ is an expression of praise. ‘As a complement to the sports complex, a facility for sauna bath was provided. The Minister for Sports & Games complimented the University Physical Director for completing the Project in record time.’ 11. CONTINUAL, CONTINUOUS ‘Continual’ means occurring at intervals; ‘continuous’ means uninterrupted. For example, ‘The ambulance sounded the alarm continually, but its lights shone continuously’. Appendices

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12. CONVINCE, PERSUADE ‘Convince’ means win agreement; ‘persuade’ means move to action. ‘If he could convince her that he was honest, he could even persuade her to marry him.’ 13. DISINTERESTED, UNINTERESTED Some writers make the mistake of equating these two terms, but there is a world of difference between them. ‘Disinterested’ means impartial. It does not mean ‘uninterested’. ‘A judge must be disinterested, but not uninterested.’ 14. DOUBTFUL, DUBIOUS ‘Doubtful’ means having doubts. Some distinctions are ‘dubious’; they are not distinctions but a shame. For example, the statement that India is a country ‘with the largest slums in the world’, ensuring that she won an Oscar for ‘Slum Dog Millionaires’ is a dubious distinction, a left-handed compliment. 15. EMINENT, IMMANENT, IMMINENT ‘Eminent’ means prominent; immanent means ‘of the mind’, subjective, remaining within, inherent. ‘Imminent’ means ‘about to occur soon’. We have an ‘eminent’ economist as our Prime Minister. ‘Immanent’ is used in relation to the mind. ‘Imminent’ means impending. ‘The dark heavy clouds indicate that a storm is imminent.’ 16. ENORMITY, ENORMOUSNESS ‘Enormity’ means ‘atrociousness’. The word you need in most circumstances is ‘enormousness’. Enormous means ‘big’. ‘The enormousness of the elephant startles you, but not its enormity. The elephants are gentle most of the time, and they play in the rain with children on Kerala’s high-lanes and by-lanes!’ 17. FEW, A FEW; LITTLE, A LITTLE ‘Few’ means almost nil. ‘Few people attended the classes on that day because there was a “hartal” but a few sat sipping tea at the canteen.’ This means there was almost none in classes but there were some students in the canteen. ‘Little’ did he know about this. (He did not know anything at all, practically.) ‘But when he began to notice some girls moving to the canteen, he became a little wiser and cancelled his class!’ 18. FLAUNT, FLOUT To flaunt means to display arrogantly: ‘The man flaunted his superior wisdom, but she was not impressed. She did not want to flout her earlier resolution to remain aloof from him.’ 268

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19. GOOD, WELL In India, we ask: ‘What’s your good name’. Unless you have two names, one good and the other bad, you shouldn’t be asked this question. This is a literal translation of a Hindi colloquialism, it seems. Aap ka s’ubh naam kya hei? This may be idiomatic in Hindi, but the question when asked in English, becomes ridiculous, to say the least. ‘Looking at her, he said with great enthusiasm: ‘Vow, you’re looking good tonight’. Embarrassed, she retorted: ‘Don’t be foolish. You’ve seen me umpteen times…’ and walked away. He did not hear her whisper, ‘You look well after your recent hospitalization’. ‘Looking good’ means ‘making a pleasant impression’. ‘Looking well’ means ‘not looking sick’. 20. IGNORANT, STUPID To be ‘ignorant’ of something means not to know something. Even Sir Isaac Newton was ignorant in that sense, because he knew nothing about the Theory of Relativity. To be ‘stupid’ means to be mentally incapable of learning: ‘He was unpardonably ignorant because stupidity made him assume an air of superiority’. 21. IMAGINARY, IMAGINATIVE ‘Imaginary’ means unreal or imagined. ‘Imaginative’ means ‘showing imagination’. Do not say, ‘His plans are imaginary’, that is, if you want to pay a compliment to him. 22. IMPLY, INFER To imply means ‘to mean’, to leave an impression. ‘Infer’ means to make a reading of the situation. ‘She implied that she would stay, but her nervousness indicated that she would rather leave than stay for the late-night party—that’s what I could infer.’ 23. IT’S, ITS ‘It’s’ is a contraction for ‘it is’. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’ ‘Its’ is the possessive form of ‘it’. Unlike usual forms of possessives, ‘its’ does not have an apostrophe after ‘it’. ‘The brightness of the day heightens its beauty.’ 24. LAY, LIE, LAID, LIED Lay is the past tense form of lie. ‘He lay on the couch and she sat on the floor.’ She told him a big lie when she said that she could not see the TV from where she sat. He wondered why she lied to him. She was angry that he called her a liar, but he did not care.’ Appendices

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He said that the book ‘lay’ on the teapoy. She wanted to know who laid the book there, but he did not answer. Quietly she placed the book on the bookstand, murmuring ‘everything has a time and place!’ He looked at her with amusement writ large on his countenance. She did not look at him. Instead, she went into the kitchen ‘to lay’ the duster in a corner. 25. MANY, MUCH ‘Many’ people sat through the speech without showing ‘much’ interest in it. Do not say, ‘There were much people at the meeting!’ Always say, ‘There were many people at the meeting.’ 26. ORAL, VERBAL ‘Oral’ means by mouth. ‘This medicine should be taken orally twice a day.’ ‘Verbal’ means in words—in speech or in writing, not visual. Do not say, ‘verbal presentation’ because presentation implies oral, that is, in reading/ speech. 27. PERSECUTE, PROSECUTE ‘Persecute’ means ‘mistreat’ whereas ‘prosecute’ means ‘to bring to trial’. Poverty is often the cause for persecution. But poor people are not persecuted only for poverty; they are put to untold trouble if they belong to a low caste, and if they are landless, jobless and especially, if they are women and children. The trouble-makers are prosecuted, if caught. 28. PRECEDE, PROCEED To ‘precede’ is to go ahead of; to proceed is to go forward. ‘The legislators preceded the Speaker at the Assembly meeting. When they took their assigned seats, the Governor and the Speaker proceeded to the dais (pronounced days not dayas).’ 29. REPLACE, SUBSTITUTE ‘Replace’ takes as its object the item being abandoned. For example, ‘Ms Elizabeth Vergis replaced her old Contessa with a new Nano’. The same idea can be expressed using ‘substituted’ first: ‘Ms Vergis substituted a new Nano for her old Contessa’. 30. SENSUAL, SENSUOUS Do not use one for the other, you will be in trouble. Sensual means sexual, voluptuous, etc., whereas sensuous means ‘of the senses’, ‘beautiful’, ‘receptive’, etc., (a respectable distance from sex). 270

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D.H. Laurence and Henry Miller have written sensual novels; Keats and Shelley have written sensuous odes. 31. WHO’S, WHOSE ‘Who’s’ is a contraction for ‘Who Is’ (Like It’s), whereas Whose indicates possessive form of who. ‘Who’s Coming to Dinner?’ (meaning ‘Who Is Coming to Dinner?’, title of an old American movie). Whose motorcycle is this? (Who owns this motorcycle?) 32. YOU’RE, ‘YOUR’ ‘You’re’ is a contraction for ‘You Are’, whereas your is the possessive form of you. Peering into her eyes, he whispered: ‘Dear, you’re beautiful!’ ‘Why, dear?’ she asked him with some expectation. ‘Your glasses are shapely!’ he replied.

Appendix C A List of Commonly Misspelled (Misspelt) Words, Correctly Spelt (Spelled) for You A Accommodate; acknowledgment; adolescence; advice (noun in British English)∗∗; advise (both verb, in American English; but noun and verb in American English), aging/ageing; all right; altar (noun, at the church); alter (verb, meaning change); always, altogether; analysis (singular noun); analyses (plural of analysis); analyse (British), analyze (American); Antarctica, Arctic Ocean; athlete (person), athletic (adjective); athletics B Benefit, benefiting; bigot; bigoted; billionaire; breadth (length and breadth); breath (noun), pronounced ‘breth’); breathe (verb) pronounced ‘breeth’; breath-analyzer (an instrument used by the traffic police to detect if a driver is under the influence of alcohol; pronounced ‘breth’-analyzer); bureau; business; busyness (being busy) C Cafeteria (two e’s after initial ‘a’); calendar; capital (city); capitol (state house); category; ceiling; cellular (pronounce with a short ‘a’); cemetery; changeable; Appendices

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choose (verb), use two ‘o’s; chose (past tense of ‘choose’); chord (tones); cord (rope); cite (verb, meaning mention); sight (view, eyesight); site (location); climactic (relating to climax); climatic (relating to climate); coarse (rough, coarse cloth); color (American); colour (British); course (direction), course (what you take up for study); commit; committee; competent; concomitant; conscience; conscientious; conscious; consistent; consistency; consummate; control; controlled; controlling; controversy; coolly; corollary; correlate; corroborate; counterfeit; criticism; criticize (British); criticize (American) D Dairy (pronounced ‘dai-ry’ rhyming with ‘fairy’); diary (is the small note-book) (You cannot get milk from ‘diary’ but you can, from MILMA DAIRY); dais (pronounced ‘days’ not ‘dias’. Dias, like D’Cruz happens to be the last name of a person. For example, Shri Dias of Kollam, Kerala, nominated to the Kerala Legislative Assembly); deceive; defendant; defence (British); defense (American); deity; deleterious; desperate; desperation; die, dying (expiring); dye (colour); dilapidated; discipline; dual (double); duel (fight); duly; dynamic E Ecstasy; eighth; elicit (draw forth); illicit (unlawful); emanate; embarrass, embarrassed, embarrassing; embrace; embracing; envelop (surround); envelope (for mailing); environment; equip; equipped; equipment (Note: There is no word ‘equipments’, the plural is ‘pieces of equipment’); evenness; exaggerate (pronounced ‘exajerate’); exhilarate; existence; exonerate; exorbitant; exhort; extraordinary F Fallacy; familiar; fascinate; fascist; fascism (pronounced ‘faashism’) faze (daunt); phase (period); February; fiend; fiery, focused (American); focussed (British); forbear (refrain); forebear (ancestor); forehead; foresee; foreseeable; foreword (preface); forward (ahead); forfeit; forgo; forty; fourth; friend; fulfil (British); fulfill (American); fulsome; futilely G Gases; gauge; glamour (American and British); glamorous; grammar; grammatically; greenness; grievance; grievous; gruesome; guarantee; guard (pronounced ‘gaard’) H handkerchief; hangar (for airplanes); hanger (for shirts and pants); harangue; harass; heroes; heterogeneous; hindrance; homogeneous; honest, honesty 272

z


(pronounced as ‘onest’ and ‘onesty’; hoping, hypocrisy; hypocrite (pronounced ‘hipocrit’; it is a noun, used for a person; adjectival form is ‘hypocritical’, and the quality of being a hypocrite is hypocrisy (pronounced hipawcrisy); but hypochondria is pronounced ‘hipucondria’, although hypothesis is pronounced ‘hypothesis’ I Idiosyncrasy; imagery; inadvertent; incidentally; indestructible; indispensable; infinitely; innuendo; inoculate; interrupt; irrelevant; irreparable; irreparably; irreplaceable; irresistible, italics (prounounced as ‘It-alics’, ‘it-alicise’, etc.) J Jeopardy (pronounced ‘jepardy’, with a short ‘a’); judgment (American); judgement (British) K Knell; knit; knoll; know; knowledge; knowledgeable (in all these words, ‘k’ is silent) L Laboratory; lead (noun, pronounced ‘led’; a metal); lead (verb pronounced ‘leed’); led (verb, past tense of lead); legitimate; leisure; lessen (to reduce); lesson (teaching); library; licence (British); license (American); lightening (getting lighter); lightning (flash); loath (reluctant); loathe (despise); loathsome; loneliness; loose (slack); lose (mislay); losing; lying M Maintenance; maneuver (American); manouever (British); manual; marriage; marshal (verb and noun); marshaled (American); marshalled (British); marshaling (American), marshalling (British); material (pertaining to matter); materiel (military supplies); mathematics; medicine; memento; millennium; millionaire; mimic; mimicked; mimicry; miner (one who works in the mines); minor (as noun, one who has not attained majority); minor (adjective, small, lesser); mischief, mischievous; missile; moral (ethical); morale (confidence, pronounced ‘moraal’); mortgage N Naval (nautical, pertaining to the Navy); navel (bellybutton); necessary; nickel; niece; noncommittal; noticeable; noticing

Appendices

z

273

O Occasion; occur, occurred, occurring, occurrence; omit, omitted, omitting, omission; opportunity, opportunities; optimist; ordinance (Legislative Assembly); ordnance (explosives) P Pajamas; parallel; paralleled; paralyse, paralysis, paralyze; parliament; passed (went by); past (previous); pastime; peace, (tranquillity, British); tranquility (American); piece (part); perceive; perennial; perfectible; perfectibility; perform; performance; permanent; permissible; personal (individual); personnel (employees, often pronounced with stress on the last ‘e’ to distinguish it from ‘personal’); perspiration; phony; physical; physician; playwright; pleasant; pleasurable; possess, possession; practically, practice (noun, British and American), practise (verb, British noun and American verb); pray (verb-implore); prayer (noun); prey (noun and verb, meaning victim, victimize); principal (adjective and noun), principal of a school/college); principle (only as noun, meaning ‘rule’) (for example, ‘The Principal’s action is based on a principle.’); privilege; probably; professor; pronunciation; propaganda; propagate; prophecy (noun, meaning prediction); prophesy (verb, predict); prostate (gland); prostrate (verb meaning, fall at the feet of, adjective, prone); psychiatry; psychology; pumpkin; pursue, pursuit; putrefy Q Quisling (noun, meaning a betrayer of the nation, politically, militarily); quiz, quizzes, quizzical R Rack (framework); wrack (ruin); wreck (accidental destruction as in ‘shipwreck’); wreak (pronounced ‘reek’); rain; rein (restrain); reign (rule); rarefied; receipt (pronounced receet, without the ‘p’ sound); recognizable; recommend; refer, referred, referring; regretted, regretting; relevance, relevant; relieve; remembrance; reminisce; repellent; repentance; repetition; resistance; restaurant; rhythm; ridiculous; roommate S sacrilegious; said; schedule (pronounced ‘skedule’ in American English, but ‘shedule’ in British English); secretary; seize; separate; sergeant (pronounced ‘saarjent’); sheriff; shining; shriek; siege; significance; similar; simile; smooth

274

z


(adjective and verb); solely; soliloquy; sophomore (second year in college in a 4-year undergraduate programme); sovereign, sovereignty; specimen; sponsor; stationary (still, not moving); stationery (paper, pen, etc.); strength; stupefy; subtle, subtlety, subtly; succeed; success; succinct; succumb; suffrage; superintendent; supersede; suppose; symmetry; sympathize T Tariff; temperament; temperature; tendency; their (possessive case of ‘they’); there (at that place); therefore; thinness; thorough; threshold; through; to (towards), too (also); two (one+one); track (path); tract (area); traffic, trafficked, trafficking; tranquil, tranquility; transcendent, transcendental; transfer, transferred, transferring; tries, tried; truly (no ‘e’) U unconscious; unmistakable, unmistakably; unnecessary; unshakable, unshakeable; utility; utilize, unwieldy V Vacillate; vacuum; vegetable; vengeance; venomous; vice; vilify, vilification; villain; waive (relinquish), wave (of the sea), waving of the hand (movement); weather (state of the atmosphere); whether (if ) W Wednesday; wield; wintry; withdrawal; withhold; woeful; worldly, unworldly; worshipped (British), worshiped (American), worshipping (British), worshiping (American); wreak (inflict, pronounced as ‘reek’); wreck (ruin, pronounced ‘rek’); write, wrote, writing, written

Appendix D Unprecedented Growth of Indian Newspapers in the New Millennium Tables given below are based on the facts and figures given in the 2006–2007 edition (the latest available) of the 51st Annual Report of the Registrar of Newspapers for India.

Appendices

z

275

Table D2 Assamese Small Medium Big

08 05 01

Total

14

circulation: 1.003 lakhs circulation: 3.102 ’’ circulation: 0.814 ’’ circulation: 4.919

’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07: 165. Notes: Small newspapers: Up to 25,000 circulation. Medium newspapers: Circulation between 25,001 and 75,000. Big newspapers: Circulation between 75,001 and 2,500,000.

In Assamese there was only one big newspaper, having a circulation between 75,000 and 100,000. Its circulation during 2006–2007 was 81,443. There was only one periodical in Assamese, with a circulation under 25,000 (the actual figure was 20,833). Table D3 Bengali Dailies Small Medium Big

28 08 08

Total

44


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07: 165. Table D4 Gujarati Dailies Small Medium Big

40 38 15

Total

93


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Note: Medium: 38; Circulation: 10.53 lakhs (for 30 medium+8 medium with a circulation between 50,001 and 75,000—for a total of 4.68 lakhs: Total medium: 15,212. Big: 13 with a total of 30.567 lakhs+2 with a total circulation of 1.727. Grand total of big dailies: 15 with a total circulation of 32.294 lakhs. Grand total of dailies: 93; circulation: 53.47 lakhs.

276

z


Table D5 Hindi Dailies Small Medium Big

421 546 96

Total

1063

circulation: 055.12 lakhs circulation: 234 ’’ circulation: 144 ’’ circulation: 434

’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07: 168. Notes: Medium: 546 of which 393 have a total circulation of 1.39 crores and the remaining 153 have a total circulation of 94.18 lakh. The total circulation of 546 dailies is 2.34 crore. Big: Dailies number 31 with circulations between 75,000 and 99,999. But 65 dailies fall into the 1 lakh–25 lakh category. The 96 big newspapers in Hindi have a total circulation of 1.44 crore. In total, there are 1,063 dailies with a total circulation of 4.34 crores, in Hindi. This is language with the highest circulation of dailies. May be by 2010, the figures have exceeded 1,100 in number and 5 crores in circulation. Table D6 Karnataka Dailies Small Medium Big

47 20 05

Total

72


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Table D7 Malayalam Dailies Small Medium Big

37 18 20

Total

75


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Table D8 Marathi Dailies Small Medium Big

76 44 23

Total

73


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Appendices

z

277

Table D9 Oriya Dailies Small Medium Big

10 32 11

Total

53


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Table D10 Punjabi Dailies Small Medium Big

07 19 02

Total

28


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Table D11 Tamil Dailies Small Medium Big

59 20 10

Total

89


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Table D12 Telugu Dailies Small Medium Big

84 91 08

Total

183

circulation: 11.76 lakhs circulation: 34.20 ’’ circulation: 11.32 ’’ circulation: 57.28 ’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Table D13 Urdu Dailies Small Medium Big

085 132 002

Total

219


’’

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Note: Besides, there are 280 periodicals in Urdu with a total circulation of 35.91 lakhs. The grand total of Urdu publications is 499 with a grand total circulation of 107.05 lakh (1 crore 7 lakh). Urdu is not confined to any one particular state; it is widely used in all the northern states and in Andhra Pradesh.

278

z


Andaman & Nicobar Andhra Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh Assam Bihar Chandigarh Chhattisgarh Dadra and Nagar Haveli Daman and Diu Delhi Goa Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra

State/Territory 9 77 1 17 26 31 – – 308 3 25 10 5 66 10 67 18 25 225

– 77 5 23 1 0 29 9 58 5 14 53

W∗

5 88 5 15 6 15 2

D∗

– 320 5 7 15 0 22 1 48 14 7 151

8 70 – 11 8 19 –

F∗

O∗

5 2 188 122 1 1 19 7 21 23 99 44 2 1 No English newspaper 1 – 1,449 987 13 5 52 49 36 31 11 14 20 11 7 5 188 124 97 95 19 37 702 589

M∗

1 3,141 31 156 93 30 148 32 485 229 102 1,720

29 545 8 69 84 208 5

Total Eng.

20.00 35.11 30.01 05.20 7.76 14.00 28.40 13.60 14.65 10.06 2.27 22.55

48.30 16.4 61.53 13.47 5.30 49.50 01.04

% of Eng. in Total

(Table D14 Continued)

5 8,946 103 2,996 1,211 214 520 236 3,317 2174 4,495 7,665

60 3,312 13 512 1,597 420 483

All Lang

Table D14 English Dailies and Periodicals in States and Union Territories, 2006––2007 and Their Percentage of Total Dailies and Periodicals in India in Different Languages

8 4 1 5 13 – 4 4 2 26 2 7 27 23

Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Puducherry Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttarakhand Uttar Pradesh West Bengal

1 6 2 9 17 1 17 8 4 74 4 19 81 89

W∗ 1 1 – 1 9 2 15 22 1 67 3 5 38 56

F∗

– – 33 6 64 43 1 297 1 24 166 230

3 5

M∗ 5 6 1 1 47 10 36 36 3 201 3 25 168 229

O∗ 18 22 4 16 119 19 136 113 11 665 13 80 480 627

Total Eng.

Source: Government of India, 2006–07. Notes: ∗D = Dailies; W = Weeklies; F = Fortnightlies; M = Monthlies; O = Others (Annuals, Quarterlies).

D∗

State/Territory

(Table D14 Continued)

155 77 139 20 1,189 87 1,386 4,084 44 3,749 115 1314 10,137 4,216

All Lang

11.61 28.57 02.84 80 10.00 21.82 9.16 2.76 25.00 17.73 11.30 6.08 4.73 14.89

% of Eng. in Total

As far as journalism /communication is concerned, there are 23 principal languages, but 15 languages do not have journals and periodicals of significant circulation; nor are there TV/radio channels telecasting and broadcasting in these languages to any large segment of the population. These languages are: Bhojpuri, Dogri, Garhwali, Garo, Halbi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Manipuri, Mizo, Naga, Nepali, Rajasthani, Samskrit, Sindhi and Tulu. But it is significant that English newspapers and periodicals are circulating among substantial segments of population in each of the 15 major states as follows. The number and circulation of newspapers and periodicals in English in the major states of India are given in Table D14. Table 14 indicates that publications (dailies, weeklies, fortnightlies, monthlies, annuals, quarterlies) in English form 80 per cent in Nagaland, 61.53 per cent in Arunachal Pradesh, 49.5 per cent in Chandigarh, 48.3 per cent in Andaman & Nicobar islands, 35.11 per cent in Delhi, 30.01 per cent in Goa, 28.57 per cent in Meghalaya, 28.4 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir, 25 per cent in Sikkim, 22.55 per cent in Maharashtra, 21.82 per cent in Puducherry, 17.73 per cent in Tamil Nadu and almost 15 per cent each in West Bengal and Karnataka. Barring Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Daman, Diu, Nagar Haveli and Puducherry, 11 of the 28 states of India are fullfledged states where English publications are in high circulation.

Note ∗∗Plural of ‘advice’ is ‘pieces of advice’; similarly, ‘pieces of equipment’ is the plural of ‘equipment’, not ‘equipments’.

Appendices

z

281

Bibliography ARENA (1985). Bhopal: Industrial Genocide, Kowloon, Hong Kong: Arena Press. Bahl, Sushil. 1996. Business Communication Today. New Delhi: Response/SAGE. Barzun, Jacques. 1976. Simple & Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers. London: Harper & Row. Belasan, Alan T. 2007. The Theory and Practice of Corporate Communication. New Delhi: SAGE. Bernays, Edward L. 1952. Crystallizing Public Opinion. Oklahoma City: University of Oklahoma Press. Bernays, Edward L. 1955. The Engineering of Consent. Oklahoma City: University of Oklahoma Press. Bly, Robert W. 1985. The Copywriter’s Handbook. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Brandt, Allan M. 2007. How a Public Relations Firm Helped Establish America’s Cigarette Century. New York, NY: Basic Books. See also http//www.alternet.org/media/50359? pp. 1–9. Brown, Marie and Sue Ralph. 1987. Time Management for Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Center, Robert and Scott Cutlip. 2000. Effective Public Relations (8th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Cohen, Allen R. 1995. The Portable MBA in Management. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Daymon, Christian and Immy Holloway. 2002. Qualitative Research Methods in Public Relations and Marketing Communication. London: Routledge. Dilenschneider, R.L. and D.J. Forrestal. 1984. Public Relations Handbook (3rd ed.). Chicago, Illinois: The Dartnell Corporation. Drucker, Peter F. 1974. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. New York: Harper & Row. O’Dwyer, J.R. 1995. Directory of Public Relations Firms. New York: O’Dwyer. Emery, Michael and Ted Smythe. 1972. Readings in Mass Communication: Concepts and Issues in Mass Communication, Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers. Fernandez, Joseph. 2004. Corporate Communication: A 21st Century Primer. New Delhi: SAGE.

Fischer, Louis. 1954. Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World. New York: Signet. Flesch, Rudolph. 1946. The Art of Plain Talk. New York: Harper and Brothers. George Jr, Claude S. 1968. The History of Management Thought. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Gokhale, Balakrishna. 1971. Images of India (Asian Studies 2). Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Government of India. 2007. 51st Annual Report of the Registrar of Newspapers for India, pp. 156–167, and Language-wise Circulation Patterns, pp. 165–177. New Delhi: Ministry of I & B, Government of India. Gregory, James R. and Jack G. Whitmann. 1999. Marketing Corporate Image, The Company as Your Number One Product. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC Business Books. Harcourt, Joules, A.C. 1991. ‘Buddy’ Krizen and Patricia Merrier. Business Communications. Cincinnati, Ohio: Southwestern Publishing Corporation. Hill, John W. 1993. The Making of a Public Relations Man. Lincolnswood, Illinois: NTC Business Books. Jebaraj, Priscilla. 2010. The Hindu, p.13, 21 June 2010. Joshua, Anita. 2009. ‘Editors’ Guild Denounces the Practice of “Paid News”’, The Hindu, 24 December, p.1. Kanter, R.M. 1995. ‘Future Leaders Must Be Global Managers’, in A.R. Cohen (ed.) Portable MBA in Management, pp. 369–80. New York: Wiley. Kemp, Graham. 1973. The Company Speaks: Communication in Modern Business Management. London: Longman. Levinson, J.C. 1994. Guerrilla Advertising. Boston: Houghton Miffland. McQuail, Denis, A. 2005. Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (5th ed.). New Delhi: SAGE. Mint. 2009. The projection was made by the Ad Agency, LINTAS, August 24. Morrison, Stanley. 1932. The English Newspaper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pandey, Mrinal. 2009. ‘Hindi Media and Unreal Discourse’ The Hindu, 18 November 2009. Pathak, R. S. 1992. ‘Private Initiative and Public Policy in Education’, Seminar Report, New Delhi: FMEL, 1992, p. 7. Pinto, Vivek. 1998. Gandhi’s Vision and Values. New Delhi: SAGE. Roy, A.K. 1999. ‘The Illusion that’s English’, The Hindu, 30 May 1999, Magazine Section. Rodgers, William. 1969. Think. New York: Stein & Day. Sainath. P. 2009. ‘It is Shameful to Misguide People’, The Hindu, December 24, p. 8. (Editorial page). Singh, Mahim Pratap. 2010. The Hindu, 16 June 2010. Singh, Manmohan. 2009. Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh made this observation at Bhubaneswar while laying the foundation stone for the National institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) on Sunday, 27 January 2009. See various newspapers of Monday, 28 January 2009, for full text of the speech.

Bibliographyâ•… lâ•… 283

Stales, J.R. 1971. ‘Preface’, in Balkrishna Gokhale (ed.), Images of India, Asian Studies 2. p. xii. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Subrahmaniam, Vidya. 2010. ‘25 Years and still Waiting’, The Hindu, 3 December, p. 9. Theaker, Alison. 2001. The Public Relations Handbook. London: Routledge. Theaker, Alison. 2001. The Public Relations Handbook. London: Routledge. Thite, Mohan. 2004. Managing People in the New Economy. New Delhi: SAGE. Vilanilam, J.V. 2000. Human Rights and Communication: Towards Alternative Systems of Development and Education. Bhubaneswar: CEDEC/NISWASS. Vilanilam, J.V. 2000. More Effective Communication: A Manual for Professionals. New Delhi: Response/SAGE. Vilanilam, J.V. 2002. More Effective Communication: A Manual for Professionals, New Delhi: Response/SAGE Books. Vilanilam, J.V. 2005. Mass Communication in India: A Sociological Perspective. New Delhi: SAGE. Vilanilam, J.V. 2005. Mass Communication: A Sociological Perspective. New Delhi: SAGE. Vilanilam, J.V. 2009. Development Communication in Practice: India and the MDGs. New Delhi: SAGE. Vilanilam, J.V. 2010. Malayaal’attile English. Trivandrum: Kerala Bhasha Institute. Vilanilam, J.V. and A.K. Varghese. 2004. Advertising Basics! New Delhi: SAGE. Warner, Carolyn. 1994. Effective Leadership: An American Perspective. New York: City News Publishing company. Whetten, David A. and Kim S. Cameron. 1998. Developing Management Skills. New York: Addison-Wesley. Whyte, William H. 1952. Is Anybody Listening? New York: Simon & Schuster. Wills, Garry. 1994. ‘What Makes a Good Leader?’, Atlantic Monthly, April: 63–80.

284â•…


index Abdul Kalam, A.P.J., 24–25 Alkire, Sabina, xiii Amar, Ujaala, 166 Amethi, 25 ancient PR versus modern PR, xiii–xiv Anderson, Warren, 112–116 Annual reports (Companies), 162 Annual Report of the Registrar of Newspapers, 282–283 ARENA (Hong Kong), 76, 282 The Art of Plain Talk, 254–255 Assamese newspapers, 276 Audio-visual media, 207 Babbage, Charles, xiv Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce, 8 Basic needs, 149–150 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 87 B&MGF (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), 26–28 Bahl, Sushil, 282 Bangladesh, 257 Barnard, Chester, 10 Barzun, Jacques, 282 Belasan, A. T., 282 Bengali newspapers, 276 Bernays, Edward L., 5, 83, 282 Big Business and the Aam Aadmi, 77–80 Big newspapers in Hindi, 166 BIMARU states, 20, 27

Bly, R. W., 282 Bonus system, xiv Brand ambassadors, 14 Brand preference, 175–180 Brandt, A. M., 282 Britain, 256 Brown, M., 282 Buffett, Warren, 27–30 Bulletin Boards (BB), 204–207 Business elements (five), 3 Business letters, 155–165, 216–218 Business magnates and news feeding, 174–175 Business schools and English, 167 Business Week (USA), 73 Byoir, Carl, 83 Cafeteria (categories), 10–11 Cameron, K. S., 284 Capernaum, xiv Caste discrimination, 259 Center, R., 282 Churchill, Winston, 256 Civic sense, 259 Civil society, 80, 259 Clarke, Arthur C., 240 Clay, Henry, 10 Cohen, Allen R., 141, 282 Cola-colonization, xv Communication, 133–148, passim Barriers, 136 Common route, 137

‘grapevine’, 135 information, 151–152 informal and formal, 135–136 intrapersonal, inter-personal and mass, 143–148 networking, 135–136 processes, 134 vertical and horizontal, 133–134 CNN (Cable News Network), 87 COMSAT, 240 Constitution of India, 259–260 Corporate gifts, 88 Corporate image marketing, 109–110 Corporate PR, 83 ff Advertising, PR and Publicity, 89–98 Audio-visual aids, 106–107 Choosing the medium, 98–99 Corporate communication, 179–180 Functions of a PR Manager, 91–92 Ghost-writing, 101 Hill and Knowlton strategies, 85–89 House magazines/house journals, 102 Marketing the Corporate Image, 109–110 Media’s dependence on PR, 95 Media Relations, 80–90 PR Crisis Management, 110–120 PR and tobacco industry, 83–90 PR Writing and copywriters, 94 Premature Publicity and Advertising, 107–108 PRSA and PRSSA, 92 Press Releases, 93–97 Radio/TV appearance, 108–109 Sample Press Release, 96–97, 99–100 Speech-writing and delivery, 102–106 Corporate Communication, 14, 134–152 Barriers, 136

286â•…


Communication and information Routes and Processes, 134, 137, 151–152 Grapevine, 135–148 Networking, 135–136 Informal and formal, 135 Intrapersonal, inter-personal and mass, 143–148 vertical and horizontal, 133–134 Corporate publicity, 83 Company histories, 163–164 Company publications, 227–228 Corporate responsibilities, 3–4, passim Corporate communication Methods, 178–180 Correspondence (external communications), 215–227 address styles, 217–218 body of the letter, 221–222 complimentary close, 222–223 despatch and franking, 218–219 expenditure, 224–225 ‘and fly’, 225–226 letter-heads, 216–217 mailing of photographs, 216 ‘Mrs & Mr’, 225 preference for written messages, 215 saluting women, 220–221 signature, 223–224 Credibility of PR, 209–210 Cross-Cultural Communication (C-3), 252–264 Cultural peculiarities, 258–260 Cutlip, S., 282 Cyrus, xiii Daily wages, 15–20 Dainik Bhaskar, 166 Dainik Jagran, 166 Dandakaaranya, 257 Dandi, 257 Darfur, 14 Daymon, C., 282 Desai, Professor Armaity, 117

Deutsche Bank, 10 Dilenschneider, R. L., 83, 282 Dreze, Jean, 22 Drucker, Peter F., xiii, xv, xvi, 1, 3, 117–120, 251, 282, 284, passim Dinamani, 178 Dinathanthi, 178 DTP, 230 Dudley, Pendleton, 83 Dunlop Tyre Company, 177–178 Editors’ Guild of India, 71 Education, 33–44 high school, 34–36 higher education and the CSS, 34–39 Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.,178 Ekka, J. T., 117 Emery, M., 282 English newspapers, 279–281 English for PR, 167, 252–253 English on the Internet, 231–232 Environmental concerns, 11–12 External PR, 213–233 DTP, 230 English on the Internet, 231 Information Age and basic needs, 229 Media revolution, 228–229 Publications, 227 External correspondence, 213–230 Addressing style, 217–218 “And Fly”, Mrs. and Mr., etc. 222–224 Body of the letter, 221 Complimentary close, 222–223 Cost of correspondence, 219–220 Dispatching, franking, mailing, 224–226 Letterhead, 216–217 Preference for written material, 215 Rules to follow, 216 Salutation of women, 230–231 Fernandez, Joseph, 79, 282 Fischer, Louis, 283 FM Channels, 87 Farming Commission of British India (1859), 23

Fayol, Henri, 10 Festivals and celebrations, 88 Film, 207 Flesch, Rudolph, 254, 283 Follett, Mary Parker, 10 Forrestal, D. J., 83, 282 Fourier, Francois, 10 Galilee, xiv Gandhi, Mohandas K., 256 Gandhi, Rahul, 25 Ganesan, Gemini and Savitri, 178 Gantt, Henry L., xiv, 3, 10 Gates, Bill, 25 Gates, Belinda, 2, 26–28 Gates and Public Health, 25–28 Gates’ visit to UP, 25 GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccine Immunization), 27–28 Gender justice, 259 George, Jr., Claude S., 9–10, 283 Gilbreth, Frank B. and Lilian, 10 Ghost-writing, 101–102 Global warming, 12 Gokhale, B. G., 257, 283 Government PR/MGNREGS, wages, 15–25 Government PR and public health, 258–259 Gregory, J. R., 121, 283 Gregory, S., 110 Growth and development of modern PR, 46–82 Definitions, 46–48 Growth of newspapers, 275–278 Gujarati newspapers, 276 Gunning, Robert, 255 HDI, Human Development Index, 24 H & K (Hill and Knowlton) strategies, 83–85 Hamilton, Ian, 10 Harcourt, 256–258, 283 Harvard Business School, 11 Indexâ•… lâ•… 287

Hasina, President Sheikh, 257 Hawthorne Experiment, 147–148 Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow’s Chart), 150–152 Hill, John W., 83–84, 283 Hindi and other languages of India, 253, 277 The Hindu, xiv, 12, 16, 20, 21, 26, 70, 112, 178, 184 Hindustan, 166 Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, 13 History of Management Thought, 9–10 Hoffman, James H., 175 Holloway, I., 282 House magazines, 102 Human relations, xiii, 147–150

International Business Communication, 210, 212, 234–251, 253–255 Business writing, 234–236 History, 239–240 Satellite communication, 239–242 Vocabulary, 236–238 Interpersonal base of Communication activities (McQuail’s Chart), 146 IT, ICT, ITES, 5, 10, 12–13, 23, 25

Image of India abroad, 14, 24, 40–41 India’s constitutional goals, xvi, 259 India’s development problems, 15 Indian industrialists, 13 India and the global meltdown, 1–5 India as a paradox, 25 The Indian Express, 178 India’s poverty, 8–9, 65–70 India’s PR problems, 1, 6, 12–18, 40–41, 68–70 Indigenous PR, xvi Indo–Pakistan War, 257 Industrial psychology and sociology, xv Information Age and Basic Needs, 229–230 INTELSAT and Early Bird, 240–241 Internal PR, 200–212 Bulletin Boards (BB), 204–207 CEOs’ mindset, 202 Credibility, 209–210 Film, 207–208 Medium as message, 203 PR, an attitude of management, 202 PR persons as CEOs’ conscience keepers, 15 Ten Organs of Internal communication, 210–212

Kannada newspapers, 277 Kemp, G., 283 Khap panchayats, 3 Khilnani, Sunil, 14 Kintner, Rosebeth Moss, 262 KISS PRINCIPLE, 261

288â•…


Jan sunwais, 16–18 Japanese culture, 261 Jebaraj, Priscillia, 283 Jerusalem, xiv Johns Hopkins University, 14 Joshua, Anita, 70, 283

Labour relations, old, xv Land reforms, 24 Language of business, 252–254 Leadership, types of, 137–143 Lee, Ivy Ledbetter, 83 Levinson, J. C., 109 Lincoln, Abraham, 255–256 Leadership, 137–143 Low wages, 5 Machiavelli, Niccolo, xiv Mailing of photographs, 185 Malayalam newspapers, 277 Management education, 10–11 Management science, xiv Scientific management, xiii, 10 Management–worker interaction, 9–11 Mappillai, K. M. Mammen, 176–177 Marathi newspapers, 277

Mass consent principle, xiv Mayo, Elton, 10 McLuhan, Marshall, 165 McQuail, Denis, 146, 283 Maslow, Abraham, 150 Measuring PR success, 182–183 Media relations, 155, 171, 197 Business magnates as news feeders, 174–175 The Power of the Media—A Case Study, 171–173 Media revolution and PR, 181–182, 228–230 Methyl Isocyanate (MIC), 76 MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), 12 Wage payment, 24 MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), 16–20 Mayawati, Ms., 27–28 Microsoft Corporation, 26–28 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 11 MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Sabha Sanghatan), 16–18 Minimum hourly wages, 5–10, 16, 20–22 Mint, 170, 283 MNCs (Multinational Corporations), 3, 11 Media contents, 167–170 Morrison, S., 283 MPCE (Minimum Per Capita Expenditure), 12 MPs’ salaries and perks, 12–13, 79 MRF and MRF-Mansfield Tyres, 175–179, 178–180 MSP (Minimum Support Price), 24 NCF (National Commission on Farming), 23 New management responsibilities, 15

New Media, 180–182 New PR Concerns, 11–12 New York Times, 184 News channels, 87 Newsletters, 106–107 News Releases, 94–97, 165–166 Nigeria, 14 Nixon, President Richard M., 257 Non-verbal communication, 189–192 O’Dwyer, J. B., 282 OPHI (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative), xiii Oral Communication, 187–192 Barriers, 189 Non-Verbal, 190 Public speaking, 187–188 TV/Radio appearance, 186–188 Orissa, Oriya newspapers, xiii, 12, 178, 283 Owen, Robert, xiv, 10 Outsourcing PR work, 186–187 ‘Paid News’, 70–72 Pandey, Mrinal, 166, 283 Pamphlets, 162 PATH, 26–27 Pathak, R. S., 283 Payment of wages, 22–23 PCI (per capita income), 13 PDS (Public Distribution System), 24 Personnel training, 136–137 Persuasive Arts, 72–73 Pinto, Vivek, 79, 283 Post-industrial society, xiii, xiv, 5–9, 19–25 Poverty lines, 13 Poverty in ten states, xiii Practical PR, 155–160, 155–199 PR Crises, 110–123 Bhopal, 110–120 Crisis Prevention, 121–133 Gerber Baby Foods, 111–112 Nuclear accidents, 110–111 Tylenol ( Johnson & Johnson), 110

Indexâ•… lâ•… 289

PR Managers’ basic tasks, 157–159 PR and Media relations, 85–86 PR and publicity, 93–94 PR as a top management function, xvi, 4–5, 130–138 As a development tool, 128–133 Organization Chart, 129 Planning, Controlling and communicating, 133 PR, advertising and publicity, 89–92, 107–108, 181 Qualities of a PR person, 134–138 Professional management, 139–141 Proto-PR, xiii, xiv, 9 PR Tools, 200–233 External, 213–233 Internal, 200–212 PR and common causes, 88 PR and its definitions, 46–56 PR and social change, 194–195 PR’s new problems, 193–194 PR’s new responsibilities in India, 74–76 PR and its variations, 197–199 Prasaar Bhaarati, 87 PRCI (Public Relations Council of India, xvi, 73 Press Council of India (PCI, 71 Press relations, 83 Press Releases vs news reports, 267–168 Prose engineers, 254–255 PRSA (Public Relations Society of America), 73, 93 PRSSA (Public Relations Students’ Society of America), 3 Press releases, 90–101 Choosing the right medium, 98–99 Length of press releases, 99 News angle, 96 PR and copywriters, 94–95 Sample press release, 96–97 Tips for PR people, 100–101 PR Writing, 83 ff Press Conferences and their success, 280–183

290â•…


Pseudo-speciation, 19–20 Public affairs, 197 Public Opinion Research, 69–70, 88 Public Relations Society of India (PRSI), xvi Public speaking, 103–104, 187–188 Oral communication, 188–192 Qualities of a public speaker, 187–188 Visual aids, 106–107, 188–192 Publicity, 284 Publicity pictures and mailing, 184–185 Punjabi newspapers, 278 PURA {Providing Urban (amenities) in Rural Areas}, 25, 32 Purchasing power and wages, 15, 24 Qualities of a PR Person, 124–150 Formal and informal Grouping, 127–128 Leadership, 124–127 Planning, controlling communicating, 130–133 Top management team, 129–132 Radio Mango, 87 Radio Mirchi, 87 Rae Barelli, 26 Rajan, Y. S., 25 Rajasthan, 21 Ralph, S., 282 Ram, N., 26–28 Ramjumar, R., 12 Rehman, President Mujibur, 257 Reynolds, R. J., 84 Rodgers, N., 283 Roy, Aruna, 16–18, 283 Rubber Exhibition, 177–179 Sainath, P., 70, 283 Saint-Simon, Comte de, 10 Say, J. B., 10 Scales, James R., 257, 287 Schiller, Herbert I., 73 Shah, Mihir, 29

Shibusawa, Eiichi, 10 Shannon, Claude, xv Shining India, 24 Shivgarh, 27 Siemens, Georg, 10 Silos, 23 Singh, Arjun, 117–118 Singh, M. P., 283 Singh, Dr. Manmohan, 13, 283 Smythe, T., 282 Soft drinks, 30–32 Speech-writing and Public speaking, 103–104 Subrahmaniam, Vidya, 21, 112, 284 Sub-saharan Africa, xiii Suroor, Hasan, xiii Swades’amitran, 178 Swaminathan, Dr. M. S., 8, 23–24

TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences), 12, 117 Twentieth Century PR, 11–12

Taylor, Edward W., 3, 10 Tamil newspapers, 278 Technical Aspects of printing, 164–165 Telugu newspapers, 278 Theaker, A., 284 Third Press (Media) Commission, 70 Thite, Mohan, 79, 284 Three R’s & Three V’s, 166 Time Management, 241–251 Efficiency tips, 245–248 Empowerment and Delegation, 248–249 Managers’ Meetings, 247–248 SAQ, 250–251

Wage payment to be made daily through systems improvement, 15, 20–22 Wake Forest University, 257 Warner, C., 284 Weber, Max, xv Weiner, Norbert, xv Wharton Joseph, xiv Whetten, D. A., 284 Whitman, J. V., 110, 121, 283 WHO, 31 Whyte, William H., 247, 284 Wills, Gary, 124–125, 284

UCC (Union Carbide Corporation of Vienna, West Virginia), 117–120 UNAWEE (United Nations Agency for Women’s Equality and Empowerment), 197 UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), 24 Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), 76, 117–120 Urdu newspapers, 278 U.S. Seventh Fleet, 257 Vedanta, 12 Vilanilam, J. V., 25, 284–285

Indexâ•… lâ•… 291

About the Author J.V. Vilanilam was Vice Chancellor (1992–96) and Head of the Department of Communication and Journalism (1982–92), University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He has taught in several universities and colleges in India and abroad, besides lecturing in universities and colleges in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Canada and the US during his long teaching and research career spanning about half a century. Dr Vilanilam was the first VC of any affiliated university in India to introduce the flexible credit and semester system (CSS) in higher education, which he maintained, would empower both students and faculty. Almost all the leading newspapers and periodicals of India have published his articles on topics as varied as literature and communication, history of journalism, journalism education, occupational safety and health, work-related diseases, advertising, rubber technology, etc., besides poems, short stories and light essays. Dr Vilanilam has so far published six books through SAGE/ Response books and 25 others (both in English and Malayalam) through other publishers during the past 25 years. His publications include: Mass Communication in India: A Sociological Perspective, Advertising Basics (co-author: A. K. Varghese), Communication and Mass Communication in India, and Growth and Development of Mass Communication in India. His website is vilanilam.com and email: [email protected]

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