like it is a TOTALLY UNSKILLED JOB

I am not saying you can't be naturally charming but you is or you isnt

Professional glitter-rolling, innit?

YES but all you need is a pair of gloves and a shiny smile

I don't get the economics

and a tube of glitter I guess

Tits and teeth love.

but those are free in every bar in the land

Yep, and one of those pots of pva glue with the applicator which gets all gummed up, which is then immensely satisfying to ungum by peeling off the set residue.

halcyon days

I have thought about this too much, haven't I?

not as much as me

what are those entire multi-floored offices doing all day? like what happens when they sit down at their desk?

"hiiiiii AJ yaaaah "

A bit like investment bankers, really.

"I don't get the economics"

Businesses tend to need people to know about them to be successful. 

PR people convince business that they can do this. 

Businesses that no one knows about fail. 

There are whole economies now where being an "infulencer" is a thing. 

HTH

c-suite types are terrified of bad media. They are therefore prepared to pay heaps of their company's money to PR types.

quite straightforward if you ask me.

but why do they TRUST the "PR types" ??

PR girls are usually hotter than hot.  I suspect that’s got something to do with it.

Why do people TRUST the lawyer types? 

I was never a PR bod Clergs. A bit more senior, but i did have to manage a few of them. If f in doubt, say nothing.

christ

I always assumed PR firms were totally different to in house PR people. It's all about the "relationships" ie they are either blackmailing journos or bribing them with food, sex, or access to information or other clients in the stable.

Oh, and journalists have their own agendas. Don't trust them, don't meet them down the wine bar.

The amount of law firm misdemeanours I used to have to cover up.

Stonewall or platitudes. Not much of the worst of it made the legal press.

granted my agency and in-house PR and PA experience is 20-odd years ago and it's all different now, but BITD there were plenty of 'tiffany nice but dims' so the fact that you experience them today is no surprise to me, the technology has just moved on a bit

also you persist in generalising them all. There are plenty of pointless fluffy types, there are also some very astute practitioners. Y'know, like in every bloody industry/profession

why is Tiffany nice but dim?  why not Kirsty?

but my question is HOW is it an industry because all it is is as chambers describes!

I sometimes have to do public affairs stuff for my area and it literally is just writing about how we couldn't possibly say because someone else is awful and at fault

or saying nothing

it's not like doing a calculation or working out the likely analysis of a situation or painting a fricking fence it's just gas!

I can accept advertising and campaigning as a thing

but not public affairs no

not on this level

ugh whatever

having done both jobs you cannot possibly think there is substance to it that requires more than the occasional person to do it all

If you are worth of talking to c-suite types, you are worthy of being paid a hefty chunk....

plus there is a little bit of know-how. admittedly not much

it just wouldn't fill a day at work

I mean I guess "perusing" is also a thing lawyers do

c-suite is such an annoying americanism

nothing is ever ever as Chamob Describes. HTH. 

As well as being an annoying Americanism it's also pretty pointless. The c-suite of what exactly?

Chambo wasn't a PR man. They're mostly ex journalists who can spin a good yarn (heh).

Chambo was in some nebulous industry, like "business development" wasn't he?

PR is a huge industry because there are lots of lying w**kers and they need someone to employ them.  

HTH

Well that's the supply side sorted.....

Public affairs is usually a euphemism for lobbying and is (sadly) very much a real thing

Corporate PR also v necessary for most businesses. Mostly because most journalists like to stir up trouble and you need someone to neutralise it. 

Have you watched Mad Men? It's like that (in my mind).

Peggy! Get in here!

Yep there's no doubt that PR people are essential. Preferably ex journos and certainly people with good connections. It's an important role. I'm surprised people are belittling/questioning it. 

I genuinely didn't know this about lobbying, tc! am idiot (it makes sense now I think about it)

I don't understand how lobbying works. It seems like pharmaceutical sales reps write enorme.

I just don't think it's a real job, dux, it's schmoozing

Clergs in this day and age everyone likes to be able to blame someone else for their problems so if a company sends out a press release that gets them into trouble if they have outside PR, advertising agencies, etc. they can blame it on them and fire them rather than having to admit they made a poor decision.

Clergs, sure you're not thinking of BD? If so, agreed.

you meet MPs. you meet civil servants. you meet industry bodies. you tell them what you think about stuff.

The MPs may bear your thoughts in mind when they are shooting the breeze at a select committee. or sipping cheap wine at all-party parliamentary groups

I think you'd be surprised how many "news" stories are planted PR, so I guess that keeps them busy when they aren't covering up oil executives wearing freshly slaughtered rhino masks while urinating on babies' graves at an away weekend etc. 

Wot bananaman said, particularly in financial PR, like the Daily Heil continuing to blozz Neil Woodford as he spunks other people's money up the wall to the tune of millions per month.

As they say, real journalism is writing the things the subject doesn't want published. Everything else is just PR. 

@3dux

Yes, it’s important to be weaponised for PR because everybody else is and because journalists are careless, lazy, lying twots as well and media owners all have an agenda of lies to spread.  But it would all work much better with a lot fewer people, a lot less lying and a  it more realism.  

As I said up there, I never liked dealing with journalists or PR  people, though some of the latter came under my wing, as it were.

I kept on telling them that investigative journalists are not your bessie mates who buy you drinks down the wine bar. They will run a story for their own purposes and if you leaked anything, you'll be sacked.

"some of the latter came under my wing"

Not being funny, but why would a biz dev monkey be managing the Press & Comms department?

Because its a shitty job no one else wanted? 

Also how often does a law firm need real Press work? 

*photo of new hire shaking MPs hand in front of shiny building* 

*press release that British Spazz PLC's new merger will be handed by the Gimp Department and is worth 9 meelion squids*

*denial of another allegation that a senior partner sniff female seats after hours*

Heh! Fair point.