Julia Hood is the editor-in-chief of PR Week, the leading trade publication for public relations and communications.
Tell us about your career path.
I went into journalism through a fairly indirect path. I could have used a mentor along the way. My original degree was in theatre and I kind of fell into public relations. I liked writing and journalism, so I started in corporate communications as a writer. I was writing newsletters and press releases for corporations. I found out I really liked the writing side of what I did, so I went back to school. I did my master's a little bit later than most people because I wanted to have the confidence to change career paths. When I wanted to change courses from public relations to journalism, I felt like I wanted to get a master's degree to get an academic foundation. I wanted to delineate my corporate communications side from my journalism side by going to school, but I wouldn’t say it was strictly necessary. It did help me, though. And hopefully I will be able to teach journalism one day, so it was forward thinking. I got my master's degree in journalism at NYU. Then I immediately got a job writing about corporate communications and public relations at PR Week.
It’s tough to break into journalism when you’ve been in public relations because they have a symbiotic relationship. Journalists rely on public relations people to give them information about companies. And in order to be an objective journalist you can’t have allegiances to a particular corporation.
I ended up in exactly the right job because I married my two disciplines together--understanding the PR industry but pursing it from a journalistic perspective. Over the course of four years I was promoted to bureau chief of San Francisco, and then two years ago I became the editor-in-chief of the publication. I have fourteen editorial people I supervise.
What advice would you give to aspiring professionals wanting to go into PR and Journalism?
There are a lot of PR education programs out there. There are different schools of though about whether or not a formal PR education is essential for a good PR career. But there is no doubt that the sophisticated programs now bring out other elements of marketing and business rather than just being about writing and the media relations side of PR. So if you wanted to pursue a PR degree you should look for a program that has a strong emphasis on business because today’s entry-level PR people and executives are expected to have a solid foundation in the business world. To understand how to read a P&L statement. To understand what top-line and bottom-line growth means, the PE ration and all the stock market terms you can imagine. They are expected to know that cold. They are expected to know what drives business, not just what drives PR and communications.
And they are expected to understand a broader range of the marketing world. You should know how advertising works and the advertising function within an organization. And direct marketing, Internet marketing, and gorilla marketing.
PR is a multi-disciplinary role. There are a lot of programs out there in the undergraduate level. Internships are very important mainly because it’s the kind of career that is highly tactical, definitely an entry-level stage. There isn’t a lot of theory that you can bring to an organization that will actually inform it. You actually have to be in the trenches and work at events like this. Having tangible real world experiences is invaluable.
What is the ideal school?
There are a number of them. University of Southern California at Aninsberg, Northwestern, Syracuse University, Columbia University, Boston University, all have a good program. There are about 800 programs if I am not mistaken. There are some that are more broadly communication oriented and often they have a liberal arts focus.
The most important thing about PR is to figure out what you passion is. Because there is PR for every passion. There is PR for entertainment marketing, for healthcare, for technology. If you have a passion and an interest in communications you can marry those two disciplines. Experience outside of school is very important like working for a political campaign. That’s fantastic experience to bring to a PR organization or a corporation’s PR department.
If you listen to your inner voice and figure out you are interested in space exploration, think about how you can have a communication career within that field. There are plenty of opportunities. NASA alone has a huge PR organization, not to mention all the other organizations and associations dealing with space exploration. Whatever your passion, you can always find an outlet through communication to really make a difference in that world.
What really differentiates a person when you are hiring an entry-level person?
An entry-level person in PR should have that palpable energy. It’s a high energy, socially oriented profession. You can’t really be a shrinking violet in PR. You have to be ready to get out there and talk to people, call journalists cold and say, “I’ve got a story for you.” You should present a curiosity about the world around you. You should be very current, very knowledgeable of current affairs. You should know who was nominated as secretary of state yesterday. You should be able to write well. Most programs have you take a writing test or send in a writing sample. That’s baseline for PR. You will do a lot of writing in PR, a lot of Press Releases, internal newsletters, etc…You should be unflinching in your pursuit of good writing because there really isn’t much of that out there.
How did you get to the top of your field?
You need to have curiosity about your organization beyond your own job. Your job and your function is your day job, but exercising an interest in what is going on around you and how your company actually operates and makes money. With journalism, it’s slightly different; it’s what is our focus, mission and purpose as a publication. What is our idea and what are we trying to bring to the world. Constantly offering ideas for change that may or may not be taken up especially when you are a junior person, but assuming you have initiative. It’s not just random ideas you pull out of your hat, but things that have a foundation with the mission of the company.
For example, when I was Bureau Chief, we had lie follow this tradition of having round-tables. We used to put together round table discussions with key opinion leaders in whatever key industry we were covering at the time. They were a pain to pull together. They were time consuming and you have to transcribe them and they can be really irritating and yet the value they bring and the engagement people have with them and how much people have to read them makes it so worth wile. So when I had seen we hadn’t had one in about three years I decided to do a technology round table out in the Bay Area where I was. It started a whole new wave of trying to find dynamic ways to interact with our audience.
Also, you should go to industry events. To see and be seen. A lot of people clock in at 9 and leave at 5 and that’s it. And they don’t want to do anything outside their 9-5 job. And that’s fine if that’s where you want to stay, and don’t want to have dynamic growth. However in this day and age you have to be willing to sacrifice your personal time and find a way to make it enjoyable. It’s not good going to an industry event and sitting in the corner and not talking to anybody. Just showing up isn’t what counts. It’s making connections with other people, networking so that you can bring those interactions to your organization. In a conference I might meet someone that might lead to a story. You must find ways to make it fun and make it worth the while to you and that’s why following your passion is important. I am very passionate about PR. I love writing about PR.
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