What Is a PR Person’s Job, Really?
If you’ve watched a little too much Sex and the City or Scandal, you might think Public Relations is all crisis phone calls, dramatic monologues, and clever one-liners delivered in glass-walled conference rooms. It makes for great television. It is also wildly inaccurate.
In reality, PR is about helping clients connect with the audiences they serve. Most often, that means generating publicity and securing media coverage that builds visibility, credibility, and trust. It can also include supporting social media strategy, producing newsletters, helping shape website messaging, or creating content that reinforces a brand’s story.
In a word, the job of PR is results. More specifically, it’s about putting up media hits that get attention.
A PR professional’s responsibility is to take what a client is already doing, what they are legitimately expert in, or the real-world impact they are having, and turn those elements into executable, pitchable stories that reporters actually want to cover.
These are not hypothetical concepts or “nice to have” ideas. They are stories that move from an inbox to publication or broadcast.
Ideas do not count unless they ship. Concepts do not matter unless they land. PR is a tangible discipline, and its success is visible.
If It Doesn’t Show Up in the News, It Doesn’t Count
There is a very simple way to evaluate whether a PR effort is working. When you pick up the newspaper, turn on the television, or open a trusted news site, you should be able to see stories that reflect your work and your expertise. When you walk into a room, people should say, “Hey, I saw you in the paper/on TV/on the radio/online.”
If you do not, then the narrative is being shaped by someone else. And you’re an afterthought.
Results Are the Real Job Security
There is also an uncomfortable truth in this business that many people avoid saying out loud. If your business is getting someone publicity, and you’re not producing results on a regular basis, eventually a client is going to question why they are paying you.
They are not wrong.
Clients are not investing in PR to have conversations about ideas. They are investing in visibility, credibility, momentum, and earned media that appears where their audiences actually consume news. When PR does not translate into coverage, it quickly becomes invisible and expendable.
Pitching and Placing Is the Work
PR is not internal brainstorming. It is not slide decks. It is not hypotheticals or potential opportunities.
PR is pitching. PR is placing. PR is earning coverage.
Everything else exists to support that mission. If it does not lead to stories being pitched and placed, then it is secondary.
A Simple Challenge for PR Professionals
For anyone working in public relations, here is a straightforward challenge: pitch and place one story per week for a client. Large or small, doesn’t matter.
Not one internal idea. Not one planning document. One story that actually runs.
Do that consistently, and the value of PR becomes obvious. Clients won’t question the work because they can see the results for themselves. By then, you won’t lose the narrative—you own it.
At its core, PR is not about talking about what could happen. It is about what actually does.
