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● Introduction & Index ● What is PR ● Job Expectations ● Types of Media ● Building Relationships ● Media, Hams & FCC Rules ● The Basic News Release ● Interviews and Live ● Making your own show ● Easy P.R. ● Public Service Events ● Piggy-back to Events ● Pictures NOW! ● P.R. Research Aids ● Making Friends ● ARES® PIO ● Final Exam Information Next Page

If you make me think that you, and those other hams with you, are friendly, trustworthy and technically savvy, then I will listen to you when you want to put up an antenna tower. I will come to you when I need communications help. I will want to know more about you and this radio thing you do. I may or may not ever become a ham myself, but I will think of you as being “good people.” And, when your elephant tramples my flowers, we’ll talk about resolving it as friends, not adversaries. In Group vs. Public PR is Public Relations! Being a PIO is not the same as: Being the editor of your ham club newsletter. Sending out an email to the ARRL’s PR email reflector Writing a press release and sending it to your club members All of these are preaching to the choir! This is an easy way out for a PIO and, while a PIO may appear to be busy, it accomplishes little to achieve PR goals of making friends. The greatest of these errors happens around Field Day. The rules give you points for writing a press release, and this is a good thing as far as it goes. Many groups write a brief release, but it never is seen by the public. It goes nowhere. While we may not change those rules because you cannot force an editor to use your work, it still misses the point - you need to get to the public at large to be effective. That’s not as hard as you might think. In these days of reduced staff in newsrooms across the country, reporters and journalists have little time to research stories. Rush Limbaugh calls it the era of the “Drive-by Media.” The truth is that there simply are too few reporters trying to cover everything that might come up. So they are hungry for a good (a) friendly news source that they can (b) trust and (c) knows their topic. If that sounds like three attributes you heard before somewhere - you are correct! But what about when things go badly? When the elephant tramples the flowerbed, that’s the time for PR too. As peasants gather the pitchforks and light their torches, the experienced PIO remembers the old cowboy truism… “In a stampede, you don’t have to turn the whole herd, just the lead cows.” Your role is to be out in view as the face of Amateur Radio; calm, understanding and factual. The flames of bloggers and floggers actually do very little to change anyone’s minds to a positive side, while calm, deliberative statements can do miracles. As hams, we have some great stories to tell. Stories of progress, science, heroism, rescues, community service, ingenuity, humor and camaraderie. Too often we keep them to ourselves. While having them published in QST might make us feel good, it is not Public Relations. Your target is the public at large.