You’re a Public Relations Specialist, not a conniving magazine journalist trying to keep ahead of the Kardashians.
You may think this is common sense to leave out any gossip and untrustworthy information in your communication with the public. For most, it is.
While gossip sinks into the white papers and press releases of the low-minded, ill-fitting amateurs, a real PR professional eliminates any possibility of it entering their work and their life.
See, the real gossip problem is not “in” the work, but “around” it.
As a PR Specialist, you are working with a gargantuan amount of information, on clients and their businesses or organizations. Just as well, you are being constantly overloaded with conversations, emotions, behaviors and memos from them and the public. There’s a reason Public Relations is rated one of the top 10 most stressful jobs.
Like nearly any other drug, gossip is a quick reliever of the stress. It allows you to vent, to be subjective, to rant, to release all the stressful emotions you acquire. But at the same time, it defeats your credibility, your clients trust in you, and creates a conflict of interest, rendering business with you unnecessary.
In PR and life, it is your reputation that gossip damages, not anyone else’s.
