Jim Parham, PR Chronicle

Swine flu is going to be a big public relations test for the fledgling Obama administration. It’s really the kick-off to our first crisis on a national scale. Forget about pirates and North Korean missile tests, this one is occurring on our continent and has the potential to scare the stuff out of most Americans.

The Center for Disease Control is getting good marks so far, but as surely as the tide rises, the potential deadly impact of the swine flu could flood our cities, towns and rural landscape.

Overreaction is not good, nor needed. Today we are better prepared for the onslaught of a fast spreading influenza than in decades past. But how are we on the public relations front? I think about the Bush Administration and the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Massive national disasters, coupled with inept and inefficient communication, spells trouble for anyone…a president or whomever.

So, here’s an early test for the new Administration and many of the state and local health departments, school systems and health care providers.

It would be foolish to predict the public relations outcomes at such an early stage of this developing story. But like the flu, public relations problems can spread quickly, sometimes effortlessly, and be hard as heck to clear up.

Words are the building blocks of communication.

Have you ever noticed that you use more words when speaking than you do when writing? Forget the funny sounds you make when you speak — ums, grunts and breathy sounds — I’m talking about the utterance of a lot of words. Many times, when vocalizing, it seems like people are just talking to fill up dead air and awkward silence. To me, that’s why the word that is an abomination to our society, “like,” seems so prevalent. It simply fills up space.
“Like, my mom, said, like, you need to clean your dorm room, like, every day.”

There’s not as much pre-planning in extemporaneous speaking as there is in writing. This lack of preparation gives poetic license to spew forth a lot of words, strings of them connecting into sentences. And then those long, rambling sentences turn into soliloquies that have you talking without thinking.

Good verbal communicators, however, take many writing rules and apply them to their spoken words: strong, definitive phrases, short, clear sentences and rich, descriptive words.

Here’s the one that really gets you on a new level of verbal communication: Thinking about what you want to say before saying it.

So, you think that’s obvious, huh? How many celebrities’ reputations have plummeted upon the utterance of an unplanned faux pas? How many people would like to take back what they just said to an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend? I think you get my point.

Speaking is easy. Speaking well and with impact is a whole different deal. Choose your words wisely, talk in understandable and concise phrases, repeat important points and give strong inflection to the things you want people to really hear.

Think, plan, pontificate.

There’s a lot of information floating around out there. In a time when newspapers are folding at a faster pace than wooden chairs in a revival tent, it’s always good to reflect on the state of our business and that of the media, who we must depend on…or do we?

Is social media driving news coverage? Or is mainstream media driving social media? And what is the impact of this change on print media and mainstream broadcast?

Social media in all forms and stages has become a major source of information (of greatly varying types and quality) for our nation’s internet users.

And the mainstream newsies are catching on. The media rage now is to Twitter or blog. Notice all the anchors on network news suggesting you go to their Twitter or Web site or send them an e-mail or get online and join the conversation/debate via the Web site.

But there is a deeper change afoot that is a revolution in information output and sharing that will force some media out and change most forever. Younger people are accepting of social media as a more valid source of information than those of us in our middle or late years. But that is changing, too.

And with YouTube and its variations, there is now the chance to post news-breaking footage immediately on the Web for millions to see. And it doesn’t take a high-paid cameraman with expensive equipment to capture real news.

Or what about when a single blogger makes a major social media company change its policies overnight? That is powerful.

And so for gatekeepers on both sides of the fence, those of us in PR and those in news, it’s a bit scary. Loss of control is one thing, but now with all of these various upstarts in the blogosphere and billions of bits of information flowing electronically everyday, the old command and control mentality is out.

Welcome to the new world of over-information. We’re now preoccupied with just sorting information and that seems to take a lot of time. A thousand posts here, a million entries there, and pretty soon the idea of managing perception and controlling content is out the window.

Where are all these people coming from? Writing, conversing, debating, questioning and deciding. It’s a new world. Bigger and more omnipresent than George Orwell would have ever imagined.