Bridging Public Relations and Faith

Original broadcast date March 21, 2022.  Discover how the realms of public relations and Christian values intertwine through the insights of Dr. Amanda Stagenborg from George Fox University and Reverend Brian Fessler of the Religion Communicators Council. Dr. Stagenborg elaborates on how integrating Christian ethics into PR education at George Fox shapes students to serve both community and vocation. Reverend Fessler unpacks the complexities of religious communication in today's saturated media landscape, stressing the power of storytelling and the importance of cultivating authentic media relationships.

We move deeper into the world where PR meets religion, with Reverend Fessler sharing his triumphs in promoting community events, such as the Tennessee celebration of International Human Rights Day. This segment also explores the alignment between PR ethics and Christian principles, noting how values like honesty and advocacy are vital in both arenas. Our conversation addresses the challenges of public misconceptions about PR and its ethical maturation over time, drawing intriguing parallels with religious motivations and the necessity of crisis communication skills.

The discussion shifts towards the critical role of internal communications within organizations, emphasizing how creating respectful and engaging workplace environments can spur morale and productivity. Dr. Stagenborg and Reverend Fessler highlight the importance of ongoing training and education in enriching religious communication, advocating for professional development that lifts individuals while staying true to core values. Finally, we touch upon a program with a global reach, examining its organic growth and its far-reaching impact, illustrating the power of strong foundational values in achieving widespread influence.

Information on NEW podcast website.

Chapters

• 1:05 Christian Public Relations
• 12:12 The Intersection of PR and Religion
• 23:14 Recognizing the Value of Internal Relations
• 30:44 Global Public Relations Program Discussion

Transcript

Announcer: 1:06

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:26

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now, today we have a discussion about a segment of public relations I've had very little experience with, and perhaps others as well, and that is public relations from a Christian perspective. It just so happens one of my listeners reached out to me and said you should perhaps give some consideration to doing a podcast on Christian public relations. Well, so, wanting to present a wide variety of public relations information, I see this as an opportunity to broaden our knowledge base. So today my guests are that caller, dr Amanda Stagenborg. She is the Assistant Professor of Public Relations and Director of PR Internship and Practica, and she joins us today from the George Fox University in Newburgh, oregon. And we're also joined by Reverend Brian Fessler. He is the National Vice President of the Religion Communicators Council, and he joins us today from Nashville, tennessee. So let me thank both of you for being guests on the podcast today.

Brian Fessler: 2:35

Thank you, great to be here.

Peter Woolfolk: 2:37

So, amanda, let's start with you. Just for openness, give me your overview of public relations from a Christian perspective.

Amanda Stagenborg: 2:47

Well public relations in the way that we teach it at George Fox. We believe that we do everything for the glory of God and we believe that our students, our PR students, respond to their calling. We believe that there is a difference between a vocation and a career. We believe that their calling to serve their community and to serve other people could present themselves in public relations practice, doing campaigns for a nonprofit, ensuring that there is visibility for businesses in the community that are aligned with Christian values, christian faith, and also aligned with the PRSA Code of Ethics, and so both from their Christian values, christian standards, from their Christian values, christian standards aligning with their professional standards, then we believe that that is a complete person and then we are also honoring God, the Father in that.

Peter Woolfolk: 4:04

And Brian, from your perspective, you are out there on a regular basis, as I would imagine, dealing with the media to get placements and that sort of thing. Tell us about your experience and your relationship with the media and how you go about it and, if at all, you've had any challenges there.

Brian Fessler: 4:18

Sure, you know I've had some interesting challenges. My personal background I come to this occupation and profession as a Scientologist. I'm actually with the Church of Scientology in Nashville and that led me to. I've done public relations work with the church, so that has some unique challenges. And that led me to working with the Religion Communicators Council because I was looking for other people that have had the similar kind of challenges that I've run into. And I found RCC and been with them for about 10 or 15 years and that's allowed me to work with a lot of the Christian communicators. Rcc started as actually started as only limited to Protestant Christians back in 1929, and opened up to all denominations in 1967, and then interfaith later on. So, to answer your question, I find that media is really hard to crack these days. If you're trying to get a placement in the Tennessean or the Chicago newspapers or something, good luck. You're probably better off to just reach out to reporters. They write their own stuff. You don't get to just submit a press release and it gets printed anymore.

Brian Fessler: 5:28

But there's a lot of other media outlets. There's a lot of smaller press dailies, weeklies that are important and looking for news, as well as specialist-type journals, trade publications. We have some local papers that are eager to hear from you. They want to hear from you, they want to report what's going on in the community and they're not just bound to whatever comes on the wire or so forth. So I think the best luck that we've had and the best advice would be to reach out to those kind of media outlets.

Peter Woolfolk: 6:05

Well, one of the things, at least from from it. We're all in the practice of public relations that we need to understand, first and foremost, that that reporters are interested in a story and we've got a frame that is something that they would be interested in. So part of it, part of the success, regardless of what it is you've got, is the pitch, and does it fit what the reporter writes about? I I mean, are we all sort of all on board with, with that part of it?

Peter Woolfolk: 6:31

oh, yeah, absolutely and quite honestly, brian, as I listened to part of it, you're absolutely right. Simply because of the pandemic and the reduction force in so many, particularly newspapers, uh does present a problem, I mean regardless of who it is, simply because there are fewer people writing the same amount of information coming at them. So some make it and some don't. So I guess, as with anything else, you have to be skillful as to how you go about pitching it and what is the story that you're trying to get out to these reporters.

Peter Woolfolk: 7:04

I think we're all going to suffer that sort of inconvenience of problems is the best way of putting that.

Brian Fessler: 7:11

And I think it's important to treat these reporters as people and your friend and not just somebody you're trying to use to get a placement. And, you know, put the relations into the public relations part of it.

Peter Woolfolk: 7:27

Well, I certainly agree with that question about it, amanda. Let me get back to you now. Let's talk, perhaps, about a student coming out of George Fox and applying for a job. Or maybe they've gotten recruited or gone to one of these recruiting sessions so they're going down for an interview at a major PR firm. How do they approach that? I mean in terms of looking for a job down there? Are there certain things that they would be on the lookout for that would make them feel uncomfortable and not want to go forward? And if so, what would they be?

Amanda Stagenborg: 8:03

Well, there could be some of those things, and we want to ensure that they are aware of the social patterns and how those reflect their values and spiritual practice.

Amanda Stagenborg: 8:19

However, it's also important for them to get a job, and so when they are at George Fox, they do sign a lifestyle agreement and they abide by certain standards of conduct, and those standards include avoiding alcohol, gambling, promiscuous behavior, tobacco use, profanity, use of profanity, and a lot of times when they are looking for a job in the agency world, they run into situations where they are torn about going to happy hours, or some of those places might have stocked bars in the office, or tobacco use and profanity, and that culture is just a lot different than what they're used to, and so that has caused a bit of a cultural challenge, and we need to well inform them of those challenges so that they don't have culture shock when they go into these places.

Amanda Stagenborg: 9:32

They need to be well aware of the sort of clients that some of the firms and agencies represent. For example, if a firm represents a brewery or a casino, would a student be comfortable working on campaigns for that client? And so we like to be incredibly realistic with them, get an idea of where they want to go and how they want to apply everything that they've learned in a realistic setting, at the same time understanding that they do come from a Christian university and they might be interested in maintaining those standards.

Peter Woolfolk: 10:17

Let me go back to going into a firm and some of the clients there, because that raises the question for me. Assuming, yes, that they are being interviewed by a PR firm and that firm does happen to represent the hard alcohol client, but at the same time they might have a government agency that they're working with, a nonprofit that they're working with, as long as that student does not have to work on that particular client, that alcoholic client's project. And then let's say, they can work with the nonprofit. How do you view that particular set of circumstances?

Amanda Stagenborg: 10:58

Well, we view that as fine, as long as the entry-level professional feels empowered to say something. And a lot of times, students in their, or graduates in their first position, they don't really say anything. They're just happy to have a job or they just want to do the PR work that they've been trained to do, and so making sure that they do feel empowered to say something, that they aren't entirely comfortable with working for one client, but they are comfortable with working for another client. I think that's key to all of this ensuring that they can say that. I don't think that rejecting the firm entirely is realistic. I think that there are many, many clients out there that do excellent mission-driven work or agencies that do mission-driven work, and they have several clients that might conflict with a student's values or spiritual beliefs, but that doesn't mean that they can't work at that firm. It just means that they have to be empowered to say what they're comfortable with.

Peter Woolfolk: 12:09

Okay that I think there's a huge clarification right there. Brian, talk about some of the things that you're pitching to newspapers where there might have been hurdles for you in terms of topic or whatever. Some of the issues, because when you say religion communicator, that is a wide, wide range of things to communicate about. So give me some ideas of where you're successful and where you maybe had some bumps in the road.

Brian Fessler: 12:37

Well, I think, um speaking for my, my personal efforts, we've been um Most successful at community events, community-oriented events that we've worked with and worked on. I've personally chaired the Tennessee celebration of International Human Rights Day for a number of years, and so the papers want to hear about that. It's an easy sell to have something published about that and that mentions all the organizers and the participants, and maybe our church would get a little bit of press in that regard. Once again, it's kind of the purpose A really good friend of mine said one time. He said do you want it to get done or do you want your name on it? And I'm usually the guy that wants it to get done, so I kind of sometimes forget about getting the name on it, but when I'm thinking about that, that's probably the best way we go about things is just to do things and actually work in the community, and then people will find it's interesting. And I just wanted to comment too on what Amanda was saying. I'm really glad to hear about this emphasis on values in the education that they're providing.

Brian Fessler: 13:51

Religion communicators, working from my RCC role here, are a really varied lot of people and most of the time I'd say probably half the time or more, they come into this field almost by accident. Maybe they were just going to church and somebody asked them if you could send an email, and now they're a communicator. You know, now they're a PR person and so they don't really necessarily come into it with I'm going to be a PR personality, but they know how to do social media, so the pastor asks them to send out tweets or they have a little bit of experience, and so that's one really interesting bunch. And then there's another group that comes at it that are trained like they've gone to school for it or they've had life experience as a PR professional, and now they're working for their faith or another faith.

Brian Fessler: 14:41

A lot of our members in RCC are members of one faith and they work for another faith, doing public relations work. So that's an interesting twist. You know we're not talking about beer, now we're talking about. You know, I'm from the Church of Christ. Can I help the Presbyterians sell their message? That's a really interesting conundrum. That's particular, probably, to religious communications.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:06

Well, it's interesting because, for transparency, brian and I met years ago when I was handling public relations for Nashville's annual Martin Luther King Day march and I'm not sure how many were on that committee.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:19

We were probably looking at at least 10 to 15 or so odd people and a lot of the ministers there were Baptist ministers. So we had a wide range of folks who were involved in this singular annual event and everything went exceptionally well because the bottom line is getting the job done. Let me just refer right quick to this article that I got from this student from Messiah University. She says that part of advocating for publics as a PR practitioner is understanding one's priority as an advocator and sacrificing oneself for the greater good of society. As a PR professional, I will inevitably be faced with challenging decisions that could greatly impact the public I'm interacting with, and remembering that part of my role is to advocate for them helps me put my choices in perspective. So it sounds as though there's not a wide range of departure from, let's say, the Christian perspective than the PR perspective as a whole. Does that seem to make a lot of sense there?

Amanda Stagenborg: 16:23

Absolutely. It definitely can blend together and you can make it work together. I mean public relations at its core is a profession where you have to be honest and loyal and advise correctly and a lot of that. A lot of the professional values are definitely aligned with the Christian values. It's just a matter of how students do this and how professionals do this in practice.

Brian Fessler: 17:03

Yeah, you know, the history of PR is scattered with people's misconceptions of what PR actually is and they'll look at. There's a saying everybody listens to the anonymous source, nobody listens to the official spokesperson. But the official spokesperson is the one who knows what's going on in the organization. And you have the beginnings of PR that happens to. They say, well, it happened to cover up what was going on in the organization. And you have the beginnings of PR that happened to. They say, well, it happened to cover up what was going on in the steel industry and the workers, abuses of workers, and so they hired PR people.

Brian Fessler: 17:36

But you look back at the early PR people. Like you know the history probably better than I do. But Ivy Lee is a famous early PR person and he was attacked for representing the Rockefellers. But he also established one of the first codes of ethics for PR. And I think religion and PR go hand in hand. I think the first Christian PR person was Jesus. You know God sent his son. That was the word. If he didn't send his son, we would have never got the message. So here we are, you know, 2,000 years later, and we're still trying to spread the message. And that's probably maybe the difference between PR in religion and PR in the secular world is, I think the religious people are driven by some different motivations, or perhaps deeper than that, than you know selling soap or other things that are necessary but different.

Peter Woolfolk: 18:33

You know, I find it interesting because there is a major alignment there. One of the things that PR people also do a lot of them have some training in crisis communications, because sometimes, in delivering the message, it might be a huge mistake as to how it was delivered or the fact that the message wasn't delivered at all. So, as a result of that, you've got a big problem on your hands. And how do we fix this? And part of the fixing, as we find out, is basically you should have said given a truth the first time around, but you didn't.

Brian Fessler: 19:07

So now we've got to put it out there, but you didn't, so now we've got to put it out there.

Peter Woolfolk: 19:13

Right, we've got to go back and clean that up so that you can hopefully regain some reputation that you lost in the first go-round. So I can see that there is certainly some parallel there between the Christian perspective and the public relations at large, because they're pretty much bound to do the right thing and be honest and transparent.

Brian Fessler: 19:38

Yes, yes.

Amanda Stagenborg: 19:39

That's right, amanda, do you teach?

Brian Fessler: 19:40

crisis communications.

Amanda Stagenborg: 19:42

I do yes.

Brian Fessler: 19:44

Yeah, it's a very popular subject for the RCC members as well. We have workshops on that at our convention just about every year.

Amanda Stagenborg: 19:53

Oh yeah, it's so important. You know about 60% of organizations don't have a crisis plan in place, and the ones that do don't update it, and usually when people don't know the difference between an issue and a crisis. And then how do we address both right and how do we prevent an issue from becoming a crisis? And that is something that's incredibly important, especially in today's world, where there's so much visibility on everything that everyone says. So we need to make sure that we are supporting the right message at the right time.

Peter Woolfolk: 20:35

You know, I'm glad that came up. It came several of us probably maybe a little. Around a year and a half ago I did a guy you know had him as a guest. He was a crisis communications expert and part of his job, before he really got into this, was an investigative reporter. And the one thing that he told me that I remember to this day in terms of crisis communications is that most crisis communications plans are built on you know how to. You know what do we do if something happens. You know how do we, who does what, when and where, who does what when and where.

Peter Woolfolk: 21:13

And he said to me that one of the most important parts that people fail to do in their crisis communications plan is look back at any and everything that possibly could go wrong and have everybody from every department to come together and say, well, fine, somebody left the back door open last night. Well, who did that? You know these kinds of things so that if you take these preventative actions ahead of time, that might cut down on maybe a good 20%, 25% of what your problems could be. You know, rather than waiting for the horse to get out, as they say, as the barn door is open, and then try to fix it. Let's look at what could go wrong right now and then put in some preventative measures for that sort of activity.

Amanda Stagenborg: 21:54

Sure, well, sure. I think it's the difference between being proactive and reactive. And it's hard for organizations to do that because then they have to take a pretty thorough, in-depth look at themselves and where they could go wrong, and a lot of times they don't want to do that. So that's where the. Pr person comes in.

Brian Fessler: 22:18

Well, you know some of our first.

Peter Woolfolk: 22:20

Go ahead, Brian.

Brian Fessler: 22:22

I was just going to say. Some of our first PR is the internal PR, to explain to our coworkers and the congregation and the trustees and everybody else what we're doing and why we're doing it and to kind of get their buy-in. If you can't convince your own people of something, you're going to have trouble convincing the world around you of something.

Brian Fessler: 22:43

But that's a tougher sell and once they understand oh, this is why we have to do this, this is why we need to keep that back door closed. Then your job as a communications professional becomes easier, because you don't have to talk about it.

Amanda Stagenborg: 23:00

Right, that's a really good point and I think that just stemming off of that, you can't ever make your external PR work unless that internal is solid Absolutely. And I think that the blend of marketing with communications and public relations over the last 10, 15 years has really hurt public relations. And now we're at a time where people are wanting that internal, the emphasis placed on that internal, to return.

Brian Fessler: 23:38

I agree.

Peter Woolfolk: 23:39

Well, and sort of amplifying that further. If you look at the data about why a lot of people are, maybe the pandemic opened the door on us. A lot of people are resigning from their jobs. It was because of how they were being treated there. You know folks are a little bit slow picking up on that. But now that the folks are out of the door and it's become a problem in terms of bringing hiring new folks and so forth. But going back to what I said earlier, if you get ahead of this and have good interaction with your complete staff, being honest with them you know fair treatment, the ability to say things, that if they find something wrong, encourage them if something goes wrong to report it, doing it, and that there is going to be no blowback for doing it, then these kinds of things can certainly help an organization move forward and improve employee morale in the process.

Amanda Stagenborg: 24:39

Absolutely Definitely. One of the things that we wanted to emphasize here at George Fox in our program is not just standard public relations of how to get a message across and how to make it stick, but also responding internally. How do we treat each other? How do we treat people with compassion and respect and maintain that throughout our professional careers? And it's not about getting the almighty dollar, but it really is about people, and I think that that gets lost in the messaging, and there are so many studies being done right now where people need that. They need to feel respected.

Amanda Stagenborg: 25:26

I believe there was an organization that did an internal survey and this was recent and there was so much turnover at the organization and they tried to give them more money, give them more time off, try to make them happy the employees in any way that they could, and what they found out was that the people just wanted to be respected, they just wanted their voices to be heard, and I think that's why public relations is so important, especially at a Christian level, because you are, it is sacred, you are giving a voice to the voiceless and we really believe in that.

Peter Woolfolk: 26:07

Let me just add to that, because one of the other things that I just said being heard when I worked in the federal government in Washington DC, one of the things that I started there was an internal newsletter and one of the things that was very, very important is that the individual people, regardless of who, you were.

Peter Woolfolk: 26:27

If you had something good that happened to you in your job or on your family, you could talk about it and you could get some space in that newsletter, because people also like recognition. I mean it does not have to be at the end of the year where you get a plaque, but if you do something that's small and appreciated and help the project going, if you give them recognition for that, they really like that idea because that's what they're there for to do their job and doing it. You know the small pieces of it Because you know you can have 100% of the people participating in a project but if 1% of them doesn't do the thing right, then the project doesn't go well at all. So everybody needs to have that recognition. So that internal part of it should also be a part of an organization's outreach efforts and ways to maintain camaraderie and goodwill in an organization.

Brian Fessler: 27:22

Yeah for sure. Pr department or communications department. Some of our members in RCC do just internal work. Some of them just do the internal employee handbook and that kind of annual reports and that kind of thing, and sometimes they'll have different professionals that work on internal and external PR. It just shows you how valuable that is.

Peter Woolfolk: 27:49

Well, in some cases you really don't have to have a large organization. You know, the leader of the organization should take the leadership in that and letting people know that they are well-recognized. Because one of my practices that I believed in was, as I said, you know, I would walk the hall, so to speak. I would go to where the people are to sit down and talk to them. How are things going? What's missing? What do we need to do to help you do a better job? Those kinds of things. It doesn't have to be confined just to the annual awards dinner for the organization at the end of the year. So let me ask you now, I just want to make sure have we covered all of those things that you think are important for people to understand about your perspectives when it comes to public relations?

Brian Fessler: 28:35

Well, you could take that question a lot of ways. There's a lot of important things to cover.

Brian Fessler: 28:40

But you know, I think if I were to add anything, I just want to say that I really appreciate people like Amanda that's really taking the the care to train people. Our members are proud of their, their credentials, and you know some of them are. They have their APR credentials, are very proud of that, and the more training you get, the more professional you become, the better able you are to do, to do the work. So that's something that we focus on in RCC and professional development and so forth, and so I think that I would advise people interested in this profession or that are already working into it to keep their continuing education Things change and just to keep learning and keep growing and keep spreading the good word.

Brian Fessler: 29:27

What we're doing in religious communication is so important. All you have to do is turn on the news for five minutes and that will remind you how important it is to lift people up and that's key to what we're doing. That's why I support the RCC. That's why I support anybody that's trying to lift people up. Give them the power. That's all I've got.

Peter Woolfolk: 29:50

Okay, Any closing remarks Amanda.

Amanda Stagenborg: 29:54

Well, I would absolutely echo all of that and wanted to mention that public relations is always evolving, it's always moving forward, but at the same time, we have to know who we are and be true to ourselves and understanding that we can work for an organization, we can work for a nonprofit or a religious organization and we can absolutely maintain our spiritual values and do the very best work that we possibly can. And I certainly support everything that Brian is doing and appreciate the platform. Thank you.

Brian Fessler: 30:41

Yeah, thank you, and thank you, peter, for lifting up this profession like you do.

Peter Woolfolk: 30:45

Well, let me say thank both of you for joining to talk about this. You know, I think it certainly sheds a lot more light, and the fact that you know this program is worldwide and you know not that I worked at it, it just organically happened. So I want to thank again both guests, dr Amanda Stegenborg from George Fox University and the Reverend Brian Fessler from the Religion Communicators Council, and I always want to thank you for being our listeners and if you've enjoyed the show, we look forward to getting a review from you and, of course, tell your friends and join us again for the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast.

Announcer: 31:26

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.