Are there minorities in PR?
January 15th, 2007 by Adam
A quick survey for our lurkers, readers and writers – how many people of color have you worked with during your PR career?
Did your answer come pretty quickly? Anybody even close to a handful? How many folks said zero?
I’ve done media relations for 15 years and I’ve worked with one African-American woman, one Asian-American, a Laotian and one Puerto Rican. That’s a truly embarrassing track record.
Friend of Topaz Partners (except during softball games) Mark McClennan, president, PRSA Boston and VP at Schwartz Communications shared some interesting diversity discussion from Rochelle L. Ford, Ph.D., APR, an assistant professor at Howard University and resources for agencies.
As Mark and I discussed over e-mails – surveys, numbers, projections and talking about diversity is a start, but what are companies actually doing? Given the numbers, my experiences and those I’ve heard, I say that they are not doing enough.
So, where is our favorite PR activity of implementing a strategic plan to improve the situation?
I noticed ad agencies starting to walk the talk under pressure and wonder what’s up with Boston and national PR firms. I think the interesting follow-on activity to outside pressure groups (and media coverage) is actual changes in how agencies recruit and sharing of best practices.
Do PR agencies have a clue about how to recruit at historically black colleges? Do they have ways to hire minority grads in general communications/PR programs or to seek out summer interns? Do recruiters attend National Black Public Relations Society events or network with the Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association or The Lagrant Foundation? Are there training programs in place for minority hires? Is it possible for people with heritage of Latin America, Korea, Egypt, Cape Verde or living in Roxbury or Bed-Stuy to get hired as account coordinators and account executives? Are minorities being recruited from other fields and industries as account directors and VPs?
Under outside pressure, big ad agencies seem to have PR activities moving forward on the issue – let’s see what results they can share. Closer to home, a challenge to agency owners, PR peers, HR consultants and staffers – where do you stand and what can you do to improve?
Happy Birthday, MLK Jr.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 3:09 pm and is filed under News & Commentary, PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:05 am
It’s telling that, 72 hours later, this is the first comment. Race is a scary subject for most to discuss.
In PR and as in life itself, can’t we just be color blind?
January 17th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Thank you Sam! I was getting a bit freaked out about the lack of comments – especially since we know the post is getting clicked a lot.
Your color blind comment is excellent and of course one of the key elements in the “I have a Dream” speech.
Sadly, I think those in recruiting and making hiring decisions are comfortable in seeing/networking and hiring people who look like they do. I’ve seen people glance over resumes and remark on schools that they feel are prestigious, and residence that fit a preconception. Not necessarily a built-in bias, but it does speak to a comfort level we exhibit and act on.
I doubt there is overt racism and bias involved in hiring at agencies. My point is agencies and recruiters aren’t doing enough to reach these under-represented populations.
I’m not blameless here. For example, I’m planning on sending a note to Syracuse U. today about a speaking slot with their PR classes on social media and Second Life – why didn’t I think to contact Roxbury Community College or UMass-Boston or Howard University? Is it racist or did I not think to consider diversity and who might also benefit from an introduction to the changing PR environment?
Race is a scary subject – there are lots of potential faux pas or statements and research that can be misinterpreted. As a nation we’ve progressed to considering a black man as our next President (and watching them on Fox’s “24″) and I’m sure there are Latinos, Asian-Americans, etc. in positions of power at PR and ad agencies. More power to them.
In e-mails about this blog post I asked people to share success stories and programs in place to improve diversity. Sadly, you are correct, where are the comments on this post?
January 17th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Ahem– I happen to know you worked with two African-Americans.
I think under-representation in industries starts at the schools, and even before college recruitment. What is the makeup of the PR program at Boston U.? Emerson College?
Hitting schools is the right idea, but maybe it is high-school career fairs where diversity can really begin.
(Disclosure: I am a Whitey McWhiterson)
January 17th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
In my civilian career, I have hired one person of Hispanic descent. And that was for my California office.
I did some research, and only about 6% of college students are in communications programs, and the percentage of Blacks and Hispanics is about 6% for each group. Not many when you get down to it.
I believe there is a degree of regionality to where minorities are working, as I have not seen alot of minority resumes cross my desk. Maybe we are seeing a problem where none exists.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Heya – I have learned not to sweat a slow trickle of comments: RSS readers fill-up, a week goes by, etc. This is the first time I am seeing this post, and it’s 4 days later!
Specific to the post… I used to feel the same way. But in our SF office, out of 30+ employees, only a handful are white. Most are Asian, and there are a few African-Americans, as well. I think there are maybe 10 caucasians.
PR could absolutely do better. I think we’re all too busy working to think about diversity as much as we should. I’d like to see PRSA and schools do a better evangelizing job.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I work for a company that has the following PR firms on retainer: IW Group (Asian-language PR); Lagrant Communications (African-American PR); and Valencia, Perez, and Echeveste (Latino PR). There’s definitely minorities in PR!
April 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Anonymous, where are you based, and where are your agencies based?
April 20th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Thank you for writing about this topic! I’m the co-chair of the Diversity Committee of the Orange County chapter of PRSA (yes, THE OC!).
To cite a diversity in PR “success story”, we recently held our 3rd Annual PRSA Diversity Conference on “Race, Media & the Role of Public Relations.” It was a great event, but what I loved best was the passion and involvement of the committee members themselves. Mostly young, minority PR professionals. Many of them say they joined the chapter because of our diversity committee. Most of them are the only person of color at their agencies or PR departments, so having the committee is like being able to “get off the island” once in a while.
It’s an ongoing challenge to recruit minorities to the PR field. We have outreach programs with nearby universities and colleges, but minorities in our field are still relatively few.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I felt really uncomfortable at my last job at an SF based firm because of the Asian jokes they made and the rudeness my manager showed to the cleaning staff that came by. I am a minority and I decided I just couldn’t stay there. I know it must not have seemed out of the ordinary to anyone at the agency to make jokes about people of color, but it just worried me — did they make jokes about my culture and my race behind my back?