Week Eleven: Public Relations

PR is one of those topics I admittedly know nothing about but have long been interested in in theory. Thus it’s probably the only topic we’ve discussed this year I’m completely objective about. (It must be a nice break for others having to read me spout off on my blog.) I liked our discussion in regards to it on Monday and found it interesting that a few students were wary of it. As a journalist, should I be wary of PR? I’m still not sure, though Wednesday’s class gave me a bit of an idea. I’ve actually got endless admiration for the people who have to put up with politicians’ crap and was highly amused at John Coffin’s reaction to the question: “What do you do when your politician makes a really stupid mistake?” (I’m paraphrasing here.) I mean, at that point, there’s really nothing to be done except back slowly away. Too bad for Mourdock. Mwahahahahahaha. (Pardon my schadenfreude.) Going off on another tangent: like Franki, I had no idea about DePauw’s party ranking upon coming here—to be truthful, it amused me more than anything—so DePauw’s PR people must’ve done a good job covering that up. My mom actually just today made a remark on seeing DePauw’s high academic ranking and how she knew it was good, but not that good. Bravo! Brava! Bravi! to public relations. My expectations are a little bit more specific this week. I’d love to talk more about how PR ties into our careers, especially if we’re aspiring journalists.

Because of a continuing discourse on gun background checks, I decided to go with “Seeking Gun or Selling One, Web Is a Land of Few Rules.” I had a bit of an idea from the aforementioned discourse but was mostly unaware of the online spin, so no, I wouldn’t have known about this without the good ol’ New York Times. Anyhow, Armslist is just… ugh. First of all, I love the hypocrisy of their theoretical mission of “creat[ing] a place for law-abiding gun owners to buy and sell online without all of the hassles of auction and shipping” while selling guns to people who legally cannot own them. (77% of sellers would sell guns to people who admitted they probably wouldn’t pass a background check, it says later in the article.) Then it feels the need to “protect the anonymity of their users.” Everything about this operation is shady, sounding paradoxical to “law-abiding.” I’m honestly aghast at people’s problem-solving skills or lack thereof. If this disgusting franchise is going to continue (and it will, beyond any doubt), background checks have to be done in tandem with the sales.

Anyhow, salaam, shalom, peace out, wear a flower, promote positive change, and make love, not war!