Write a Careful Contract

Before signing the printer's contract, check three important areas:

1. How much time will it take from the day you deliver all the copy until you receive the printer's proofs' I How long will you have to correct and return the proofs? Make sure you will have an opportunity to make a final check of the corrected material before it goes to press. To guarantee that you and I the printer understand what you expect in terms of turnaround time work out a production schedule that shows how many days each of you has for each step in the typesetting, layout, and checking process.

2. How much material can you correct or change without paying extra? Some printers allow up to 10 percent without penalty Others charge for everything. You should be able to make "normal" corrections, plus a few changes of headlines that don't please you, without paying extra.

3. Where is the job to be delivered? If the contract doesn't specify, then the probable answer is the end of the printer's loading dock. If your publication is to be mailed, you may wish to contract with a printer who has the capability of preparing material for postal delivery and mailing it, thus saving you the bother.

 

Learn the Basics

You'll be able to work much more closely and effectively with your printer if you learn the basics of typography and printing by taking a graphics course while you are in college. You can teach yourself the basic nomenclature using the additional readings at the end of this chapter. You'll want to have a working knowledge of printing methods, art­work reproduction, typesetting, and type characteristics.

Printing Methods Offset, the predominant method used today, gives a flat, even image, and reproduction of art is inexpensive. Letterpress, which some specialized printers still provide, gives a sharper, glossier look. Gravure is used for large jobs where high-quality reproduction of color photographs is important.

Artwork Reproduction Line drawings, which have no intermediate tones of gray, can be reproduced quickly and cheaply in photo offset, and they can be put directly on the final layout. However, continuous-tone art, including photographs, must be made into a halftone screen, so that the image is created by a pattern of dots that will ink properly.

Typesetting Some special display types are still set mechanically or even by hand. But most text and display type today is handled through an electronic process called phototypesetting. The material is typed into a computer, which takes care of all spacing and word division, and the finished type comes out of a printer on strips of paper, ready to be pasted directly onto the layout sheet.

Type Characteristics Every typeface has special characteristics: plain, fancy, bold, light, italic (slanted), or Roman (straight up and down). Each has a "personality" as well: masculine, feminine, humorous, serious, pompous, dignified. And most types belong to a "family" that includes bold, bolder, boldest, light, lighter, lightest, italic, and Roman variations on the same basic design.

 

Preparing to Speak

 

Speaking and speechmaking are as fundamental to public relations as writing. Reaching mass audiences often means using written messages, but reaching targeted publics often means speaking to them. Mass audi­ences must be spoken to through the electronic media, but targeted publics often must be spoken to directly at meetings, rallies, banquets, and even impromptu settings in the workplace.

The same person who supervises the preparation of news releases and broadcast messages is likely, at any given time, to be working on one or more of the following non-media tasks:

• Preparing the head of a department to brief the press on a new program.

• Writing a "stock speech" for delivery to any visiting group be­fore beginning a plant tour.

• Rehearsing the president of the firm for an appearance before the Chamber of Commerce.

• Setting up a speaker's bureau to provide presentations on non-­technical topics of interest to community, professional, and ed­ucational groups.

• Drafting the question format for interviewing employees' chil­dren who are candidates for company scholarships.

• Making arrangements for a dialogue session that will bring company officials together with community members to dis­cuss problems of pollution and waste disposal.

All of these events have one thing in common: Someone will have to be prepared to speak on behalf of the organization.

 

It is useful to understand the ways in which speaking differs from other communication skills, and the ways in which it is similar. First, two important differences:

• While a written message such as a newsletter, brochure, or ad­vertisement is somewhat impersonal, the spoken word carries the credibility of the speaker. Enthusiasm, concern, tolerance, understanding, and empathy are all best demonstrated through the verbal and nonverbal act of meeting an audience in person.

• The speaking situation is flexible and can be altered to fit the response of the audience. With the print or audiovisual message, you fire your shot and hope it hits the target. In a speaking situa­tion, you can make mid-course corrections.

 

But, in some very important ways, the speech is similar to other public relations messages:

• It must be consistent with other messages disseminated by the organization. The speaker must be familiar with positions taken in written communication, and must strive to articulate them in a personal style that is consistent with the view of the organization.

• Careful and complete preparation is necessary in order to avoid embarrassment. The speaker must have all the facts straight. He or she cannot hope to merely "wing it" on personal charm alone.

• The speaking situation poses the usual "packaging and deliv­ery" questions for the public relations department: Is this the best forum for reaching the target audience? Will it help us to achieve our goals? Is it the best use of resources? Should it be re­inforced with other channels of communication? Will we be able to measure the effect?

 

Which Programs?

Speeches and interpersonal communication skills have a place in all of the programs aimed at specific publics, especially when the programs have the two-way symmetric model of public relations as a framework. Some examples:

• You and your managers prepare to meet personally with the press and hold press conferences—essential to symmetric me­dia relations.

• Members of your organization give speeches to community groups. They also have face-to-face interviews and dialogue ses­sions with community leaders and other citizens.

• You speak at tours and open houses, help dedicate community facilities, visit school classes, and put on events for scouts and other youth groups.

• Public relations practitioners and managers meet directly with members of activist publics, trying to negotiate compromise so­lutions to conflicts with consequences for the organization.

• Government relations specialists meet with officials and mem­bers of key constituencies to present their organization's posi­tions on policy issues. They also give numerous speeches to civic, professional, and political groups.

• Specialists in educational relations and economic education set up speeches and small group sessions to facilitate interaction between students and organizational representatives.

• Financial PR specialists talk with stockbrokers and give speeches to members of the financial community. They also plan the exten­sive spoken communication that takes place at the annual stock­holders' meeting.

• The fund raiser finds that personal contacts, speeches to alumni and supportive publics, and telephone calls are essential for raising money.

 

The chief executive officer tells the secretary, "I'm speaking to the Management Club March 14 on the future of business-labor relations in Britain. Have Bob prepare a speech for me by next week." The secre­tary dutifully calls the vice president for public affairs, who passes the job to the public relations manager, who assigns the task to a second-stringer in his department, who fails in her attempts to get an appoint­ment with the CEO. Laboriously and without direction, she comes up with something she hopes is satisfactory. When the CEO finally gets around to reading the speech, he reworks it and gives it to the secretary to type half a day before he delivers it.

The speech, needless to say, is colorless and completely forgettable. Says Pope: "The writing-by-committee has mangled the best parts of the speech. What's more, unrehearsed, it comes across flat and lifeless."

The moral of the story is that:

1. Adequate planning must precede speechmaking.

2. Writing and reviewing it are important group tasks.

3. The speechwriter must have access to the speaker.

4. Presentation of the speech should be rehearsed to assure that it will have the desired impact.

Let's look at the many facets of the job in greater detail.

 

Research

Anyone who has prepared a term paper has experienced the first phase of speechwriting: library research. Statements made about the topic should be reviewed in order to know what the main arguments are and what raw data are available. In addition to books and periodicals, make sure you check professional or trade journals and government publica­tions for statistics and informed opinions that can lend credence to your presentation. Your own files are also important: You should be able to put your hands quickly on everything your organization's man­agers have written or said on the topic.

 

What's the "Big Idea"?

After you've gathered the data, but before you prepare an outline, the all-important question is. What is the main point we want to make with this speech? Just as the advertising copywriter must be able to reduce the en­tire message to a phrase, a slogan, or a headline, the speechwriter should be able to summarize the big idea of the speech in a single line: "XYZ Cor­poration believes high property taxes are driving business out of Central Valley" or "The main goal of the state Environmental Protection Agency during the next year is to clean up the air in our cities."

Deciding on that single thrust will help you to sort out information that may be interesting but that does not support or illustrate the main point. It may cause some tension with your spokesperson, since there may be pressure to "tell them about all of the wonderful things we're do­ing and all of the problems we think are important to overcome." Cer­tainly, you should try to work in some background about the organization and its many concerns, but as one professional PR speechwriter suc­cinctly puts it, one of the simple but hard-and-fast rules is to "keep your eye on the ball" at all times.

 

Before writing the speech, make sure that speaker, speechwriter, and public relations staff agree on the purpose of the speech. That way you can judge whether every piece of information and every rhetorical device is serving the main purpose of the speech event. Speeches have these main purposes:

Persuade/Defend —Present your organization's point of view and defend its actions. Data should support the views of your organization. Especially in the two-way symmetric model, opposing views should be acknowledged.

Inform/Explain —Present information on what your organization is doing and explain the reasons for the actions.

Entertain/ Welcome —Greet guests, represent your organization, and spread goodwill. May include some facets of inform/explain function.

Background —Similar to inform/explain, but without the urgency of breaking news event or public issues. Sometimes referred to as a "technical" presentation.

Pro-forma —Includes "welcome" speeches, award acceptance speeches, and other occasions where your organization is respond­ing to the needs of others rather than serving its own communica­tion needs. Should serve your purposes while fitting the scene and setting created by the sponsoring organization.