Max Clifford is an extremely successful publicist – he is not a PR guru and it worries me that young people studying PR in this celebrity-crazed world we now live in think that he is a PR idol.
Having employed two PR students from the highly acclaimed University of Central Lancashire and Leeds Metroplitan University on their year placements, we were rewarded with two very bright individuals. I was horrified, however, to discover that business-to-business PR is not even part of the curriculum. How can you study PR for three years and not touch on B2B PR?
Our obsession with celebrity and making people who appear in reality TV shows famous for five minutes, is warping what young people think of PR – all glamour and parties. Not for them the 1,000 words on the future of telematics for Fleet News – more what can we get into OK! Magazine? Are our education establishments ignoring what could be a rewarding and fulfilling career in favour of what is popular? Are they dumbing down our industry?
Another PR student from Manchester University asked me who Vladimir Putin was. I explained he was the Prime Minister of Russia and how shocked I was that she didn’t know this. Her reply? “Has he ever appeared in Heat magazine?”. I rest my case.
