Industry body PRIA moves toward PR accreditation
The Public Relations Institute of Australia is poised to launch an accreditation program for the PR industry, Encore can reveal.
While PRIA has long accredited university public relations programs there has not previously been a standard of accreditation for individual public relations professionals.
“We have a code of ethics which members of PRIA adhere to but not everyone in town belongs to our organisation,” said Teri-Helen Gaynor, national president of PRIA.
“We have set up an accreditation committee which spans the whole of our profession from academics, to practitioners, to registers consultancy groups and in house staff. There really needs to be a look at accreditation not just the universities and their courses but on the individual level.”
The new committee will examine the Universal Accreditation Board system used by the American public relations industry and consider how applicable these standards would be in the Australian context.
“It is a way of raising standards. At the moment, you can come out of anywhere and say I work in PR, I’m a lobbyist or a government relations specialist,” said Gaynor.
“What we are looking to do is to protect the reputation of the industry through accreditation.”
Details of the members of the accreditation committee will be announced in coming weeks.
PRIA said it would consult widely before instituting any accreditation program. “The bottom line is what we are trying to do is to set the bar high and ensure accreditation doesn’t just cover people coming out of university it takes it to the practitioner level,” she said.
“Which I think adds value to the membership and adds value to clients and the industry.”
Recent months have seen PRIA face a series of challenges including the sudden departure of CEO Jon Bisset and the creation of rival body, the Public Relations Council.
Nic Christensen
This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.
great step.. about 10 years late, but lets hope they do it properly.
its ridiculous in 2013 you can have a profession with no rules/standards/accreditation.. currently anyone can say they are a PR practitioner, and, they are!
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a great move.
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This is SORELY needed – Great step forward if we can lock this in and raise standards across the board!
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Agreed, great move and sorely needed. As a PR practitioner, I wouldn’t dare call myself a journalist, no matter how many articles I write or where I work … yet I’m afraid far too many of our media colleagues are happy to step across the divide and call themselves PR professionals without a clue about strategy development, event management – or frankly, anything outside media relations …
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It’s a great move for the industry. Bring it on!
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This is an excellent move. TH Gaynor is definitely a mover and a shaker.
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The PRIA already has membership. How will this differ? If PR wants to be taken seriously, the PRIA accreditation needs to be chartered, just as it is in the UK.
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No point if there’s no consequence for not being accredited… Agree with Greg – up to his claim that accreditation should be chartered… I understand one can still happily practice PR in the UK without being accredited.
And anyway, can anyone really define what PR is these days. (Please spare me the text book definition)
Will one have to be accredited in all disciplines? Is it a case of proving one’s ability in a minimum number of disciplines.
Am curious to see what comes of it. Feel there probably is need to differentiate between an in-house professional and those choosing a career in consulting. And for that matter, for the unis to differentiate the two career paths…
(BTW – these are purely my personal opinions)
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Fantastic. This is a very important step forward for the industry and will shift out the practitioners that shouldn’t be in this business.
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