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PRSA Boston Blog

This is a blog written by the PRSA Boston president (Tom Nutile for 2008) about events and activities involving PRSA Boston

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

PR Lessons from the War Zone

Imagine having to create the public relations plan to embed journalists during the Iraqi conflict. Then imagine having to handle the PR effort to communicate daily not only with the embedded media but with the thousands of unembedded journalists covering the conflict.

Guy Shields, APR, then a colonel with the U.S. Army, and his colleagues had to do just that. He and his public relations staff had to deal with everything from Fox’s Geraldo Rivera inadvertently giving away troop movements, to military maneuvers that resulted in the loss of civilian lives.

Shields, now a public relations officer for Raytheon in Tewksbury and a member of PRSA Boston, worked with and received feedback from numerous journalists as he peformed his tasks in Iraq. One of those journalists was Steve Komarow, who was embedded for USA Today. Along the way, Shields learned valuable lessons that have helped him be a more effective public relations practitioner.

Come to PRSA Boston’s March 25th program at the Newton Marriott to hear Shields and Komarow share more than just war stories.

You will learn, for example, how to build a public relations program virtually from scratch with a limited amount of time. You'll also learn how Shields and his colleagues coordinated and developed uniform messaging across both internal and external audiences.

To register or to learn more about this program, click here: http://prsaboston.org/calendardetail.asp?ID=1

-- Tom Nutile, PRSA Boston President