Connie Chung (’69) leads the ceremony dedicating Knight Hall, the new Philip Merrill College of Journalism building at the University of Maryland.

What a difference a quarter century makes.

In 1985, I graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism.  I returned to my alma mater last week with my colleague and fellow alum Rosemary (’93) for the dedication of Knight Hall, the new Philip Merrill College of Journalism building.

When we attended the university, the journalism school included public relations as one of the specialty tracks or “sequences” students had to choose in addition to their core journalism major courses.  But first and foremost, we were taught to be journalists. 

After we graduated, the powers-that-be decided the public relations sequence didn’t belong in the journalism school and moved it out, a highly controversial action that left a bitter taste in many mouths.  For me, the rigorous journalism training I received at UM made me a stronger PR person.

On the day of the new building’s dedication, Rosemary and I listened to presentations by various professors and other speakers.  CNN/US managing editor Jay Kernis (’74) presented The Front Lines of Journalism: Leading or Chasing the Change?  It was fascinating to hear a veteran of such esteemed news organizations as NPR, CBS and now CNN take us through one of his typical days in search of the news.

Kernis talked about the role of good journalists in today’s world. He said that no matter what changes, reporting the news will always be about putting a human face and voice to the stories we tell, and making them come alive for the audience.

Reporting the news is important, he said, simply because what happens in the world is important. Good journalists foster a connection to others and to truth by trying to make sense of things together with their audience.  He said it’s a comfort to know “that some of the things that confound, amuse or confuse you has the same effect on others. If we all participate, we’ll get to the truth.  No one is alone.”

I was struck that much of what he said about journalists also applies to public relations professionals.  Maybe the things that really matter haven’t changed much after all.

“That will never happen.”

It’s human nature to avoid thinking about anything negative happening down the road.  While there is a myriad of bad things that can happen on any given day, it’s unproductive and even unhealthy to dwell too much on the “what ifs” of life.

But when it comes to a company’s reputation, preparing for the seemingly unthinkable is vital to maintaining good relationships with all the constituents an organization values.

Toyota’s situation is an excellent example of this, as my colleague Tracey explained in her recent blog post about the company’s current woes.  I imagine that Toyota, with its heretofore stellar reputation for quality products and outstanding customer service, considered the extent of their cars’ technical problems a “never event.”

Similarly, pharmaceutical company sanofi-aventis likely didn’t count on the fury of a very vocal woman who used Facebook to vent about hair loss she alleged was caused by the company’s chemotherapy drug Taxotere.

We counsel clients to contemplate “never events” – whether it’s an accident, a faulty product, a security breach or an errant employee – and be prepared to respond to all the various audiences who may be affected by (or at least interested in) the incident.

When crisis strikes, unprepared companies scramble to assess the situation, track down contact information, craft thoughtful statements, assign an appropriate spokesperson and proceed with an agreed-upon plan of action.  All the while, the clock is ticking away – and the delay alone may irrevocably damage the company’s reputation in the eyes of the public, even before any remedies are implemented. Tiger Woods demonstrated what happens when you wait too long before addressing a crisis.

We advise developing a crisis communications plan that includes possible scenarios with action steps for each, a key party contact list (with office, home and mobile phone numbers), media list (which today must include social networking sites and bloggers), statement template, company backgrounders and fact sheets, among other items.  The company’s executive team should review the plan carefully so everyone is onboard and on point.  In some cases, we suggest conducting drills to test the efficacy of the plan.

When we speak with clients about crisis communications planning, they sometimes say they want to shelve such preparations until later and deal with current issues at hand. It’s true we can’t control our destinies, but there is much a company can do upfront to save precious time if and when a crisis hits. 

Why not be prepared?

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony award winner and Alexander Hamilton aficionado.

Alexander Hamilton was an author of the Federalist papers and first secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He was the leading champion of a central government and was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.

A little boring, right?  How about this:

“How does the bastard orphan  

Son of a whore and a Scotsman 

Dropped in 

The middle of a forgotten  

Spot in  

The Caribbean

By providence

Impoverished

In squalor,

Grow up to be a hero

And a scholar?”

Aside from his Tony award-winning musical In the Heights, a less well-known demonstration of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s storytelling genius is a rap he composed about Alexander Hamilton.

That’s right, rap. The Hamilton Mixtape, part of which Miranda performed at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word in 2009, engages and entertains like no dry history textbook account could.

We as public relations professionals are essentially storytellers.  We spend much of our time researching our clients and choosing the right words to tell their stories.  Relating the facts isn’t enough.  It’s our job to tell each story well. 

Good PR people don’t distort the facts of any story to make it more provocative or sensational.  Facts reign supreme.  But we must strive to humanize the message – tying it in to something with which the receiver can connect and delivering it in a way that resonates.  Doing so shows a depth of understanding – not only of our clients and their stories, but of the audience for which each message is intended.

Telling a story well lifts the veil that separates the sender from receiver, enhancing the transparency that is so important to an organization’s credibility and, ultimately, its authentic connection to its audience.

Reese Cleghorn, dean of the University of Maryland School of Journalism from 1981 to 2000.

I’m a stickler - a term made popular by Lynne Truss in “Eats, Shoots & Leaves,” her paean to the values of grammatical correctness. For some, my adherence to the rules of the proverbial road borders on ridiculous, but for me, it is close to godliness. An out-of-place comma or a possessive when plural is intended (as in “five star’s to watch”) is enough to send me over the edge.

Although I may have been blessed at birth (or cursed, depending on your perspective) with the ability to see a preposition dangling from a mile away, I also credit the dean of my journalism school for my sometimes manic devotion to linguistic accuracy. Reese Cleghorn started as dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism department in 1981, my freshman year there. He established strict standards and quickly transformed the school from being barely a footnote to one of the best - if not the best - journalism schools in the country. Cleghorn passed away earlier this week.

Of course, Cleghorn instilled in UM journalism students so much more than a passion for language. He also taught us the fundamentals that should guide every true journalist: integrity, ethics and objectivity. He made sure professors gave us history lessons along with tutorials on how to write a solid lead. To Cleghorn, journalism was a profession on par with the law. A Baltimore Sun article from 2001 quoted him as saying, “Since we are all journalists, I get to preach the gospel, go to the freshmen and tell them we are the only profession mentioned in the Constitution, that we have a unique responsibility and our democratic government depends on it.”

Preach he did, and as one of his faithful disciples, I happily absorbed his philosophy. 

I still proudly carry the wisdom of Cleghorn’s journalistic training with me in my work as a public relations professional. While the public relations concentration is no longer part of UM’s journalism school, I recommend anyone interested in a PR career to pursue a degree in journalism there.  The skills learned and the insights gained are invaluable in all areas of the communications field. 

To this day, I apply the timeless lessons he and his faculty taught on writing well and telling a good story. Cleghorn’s definition of an effective journalist, as described in the May 2000 issue of the monthly American Journalism Review (of which he was president), remains true today:

“No doubt we’ll still be experimenting with how to make news more comprehensible, more memorable, more flexible for multiple uses. But more important will be sharpening up for our main mission, as storytellers. Not as mere information conduits; anybody can do that. But as people who can find the stories, understand them and tell them compellingly.”

The legacy of Reese Cleghorn, stickler extraordinaire, lives on in thousands of students who, like me, are better storytellers for having learned from him.

The recent appearances of the CEOs of the “Big Three” automakers before Congress offer fascinating lessons in public relations and brand image. Major news outlets seized on the fact that the CEOs hopped on their private jets to travel to Capitol Hill for the first hearing. How could the companies’ leaders expect a bailout, the argument went, when they were being so extravagant themselves?

The CEOs left the hearings empty-handed.

It was reported that one of the CEOs commented on the private jet brouhaha, stating he didn’t want to fly commercial in case the plane was delayed. He didn’t want to arrive late for the hearing and risk upsetting the nation’s lawmakers. After all, he said, how would that look?

The CEOs (or at least their PR people) realized the error of their ways and made sure travel to the second set of hearings was much less frivolous. (“We’ll drive our own cars! Brilliant!”) But being so out of touch with the customer says a great deal about the type of decision-making that landed them in such a dire predicament in the first place.

While empty gestures and publicity stunts are anathema to true PR professionals, demonstrating a clear understanding of – and belief in – one’s brand means carrying it throughout all aspects of the company. It should be second nature, not something to be conjured only when public opinion turns sour.