After several instances of PR professionals being mocked by journalists for their unprofessional behavior while dealing with media, Indian PR Forum (IPRF), India’s largest online forum of PR Professionals, has taken up an initiative to draft a ‘Code of Conduct & Guidelines’. This is aimed to bring in more professionalism in the Indian PR Professionals’ approach towards media and other stakeholders.
The guidelines will involve as many behavioural and ethical aspects, which will also include some Do’s & Don’ts while dealing with media. In order to make these guidelines holistic, the forum is inviting suggestions from PR professionals working at all levels across India
PR Professionals can send in their suggestions on indianprforum@gmail.com before 10th June, 2013. Thereafter the suggestions will be collated and studied by industry experts who will subsequently draft the Indian PR Industry’s Code of Conduct & set behavioural guidelines. This Code of Conduct will then be put up on various forums for review and feedback.
In addition to this, the forum also plans to start an education drive across India to inform and train / budding professionals about the expected code of conduct in their day-to-day functioning.
Public Relations as an industry need to set up standards of professional behavior outlining the principles and guidelines that will define professionalism and trust in this community. IPRF as a forum has over 3000+ members has taken a step towards crafting a framework for ‘Code of Conduct for PR professionals,’ which will help the sector to be more professional and respected amongst the media and society in general
Background: Recently a senior journalist posted a very unpleasant status on her Facebook Profile, against a PR professional for following up with her for an event during odd hours. This provoked reactions from the PR fraternity and the forum took up the responsibility to create a code of conduct that should be adopted by PR Pros in their day-to-day dealings with media and other stakeholders. This was not the first time that a PR Professional was ridiculed by certain section of media; some journalists have even gone to an extent of black listing an entire agency and have openly criticized PR professionals in their newspapers, on their personal blogs and social media platforms. The fact that this is happening more often than ever before, and in many instances PR Professionals themselves are responsible for evoking such reaction from media, a professional code of conduct is now a must for the sector.
The primary reason for such regular media bashing of PR pros is credited to the huge gap in training young professionals before they are put on a task of pitching to the media. Without clear understanding of the way media functions, and proper guidelines on how they should communicate with media, young professionals often commit mistakes, which are then generalized and impressed onto the entire PR community. Hence, Indian PR Forum has taken up the cause to educate newbies of the PR industry on the right conduct and professional behaviour expected from them.
Indian PR Forum is India’s largest online forum of Public Relations and Corporate Communications professionals, started in April 2007 with a noble intention of bringing all PR, Corporate & Marketing Communications under one platform. The forum shares information/insights/learning’s and has topical discussions and debates on an ongoing basis.
To join the forum you will have to just drop an email at indianprforum@gmail.com. You will receive a confirmation email and approving the same; which will make you a member of the forum. You could also join IPRF on other platforms as well such as below:
ü Main Google Group: https://groups.google.co.in/group/indian-pr-forum
ü Blog: www.indianprforum.wordpress.com
ü LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=98596&trk=hb_side_g
ü Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/indianprforum
ü Twitter: @iprf: Interesting Tweets on Marketing, PR, Social Media and more…
For more information, please connect with:
Founder – Indian PR Forum
Mobile: 09930143550
Email: pr.vikram@gmail.com
Indian PR Forum 