The following is a conversation with my 6-year-old daughter.

“Daddy, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m in PR, sweetie.”

“What’s PR?”

“PR is short for public relations. It basically means that, uh, I help people relate to the public.”

“Huh?”

“Uh, what I do is get my clients publicity for themselves, their product or their service.”

“What’s publicity?”

“Uh, that’s when you let people know something good about someone.”

“Like when I get an ‘A’ in spelling and mommy tells everyone?”

“Sort of like that. Except I tell more people than that.”

“Mommy tells a lot of people when I do something good. So does Grandma.”

“And they should. We’re very proud of you. What I do in PR is go and promote my clients to the news media the way that mommy and grandma pump you up to our friends and relatives.”

“Your clients are good spellers too?”

“It’s a little different than that. Each of my clients does something different, but all of them have something that other people should know about. For instance, one restaurant has great musical acts and another client is a woman doing something nice for soldiers and another makes really good smoothies.”

“So you tell people about that?”

“Exactly!”

“Well, there are a lot of people. How do you talk to them all?”

“I’m not sure. That’s why I’m on the cell phone a lot. But what I usually do is get other people to do it for me. Members of the media.”

“What is that?”

“Media is anything like a TV show, a radio station, a newspaper or a Web site. I basically let the folks at these places know about my client and why they should want to talk about them.”

“And do they?”

“Sometimes. It depends. Some media are more willing to talk with me than others.”

“Is it because they like you.”

“I hope so, but, really it’s about what I have to offer them in terms of a story. Media people can be really nice, but not want to do my story because it doesn’t suit their current needs. On the other hand, some media people might like my story, but almost be angry that they do.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, some media people want to think they come up with all the stories themselves.”

“Dr. Suess came up with all his stories himself…..”

“Are you sure about that? How do you know the Grinch didn’t have some guy like me saying, ‘Hey, Dr. Suess: I got this great character for you. Get this: He has green teeth and hates Christmas’?”

“Huh?”

“And how do you know the Lorax didn’t hire somebody to get his message out to a bunch of writers and Dr. Suess was the first one to pick it up?”

“Daddy! You’re being silly.”

“Yeah, well. It’s what I do. But, the point is, people hire folks like me to come up with ways to get media — newspapers, TV, radio, Web pages — to do stories about them in order to increase sales.”

“Is it fun?”

“Yeah, it is. I like having a nice client, coming up with a pitch that helps them get their message out and then convincing media types to do a story on it. It can be a lot of fun. I feel really alive when I do it.”

(pause)

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“If I do well on my times tables, can I hire you as my publicist?”

“Honey, I’ll work for you pro bono.”

David Moye is the media relations manager of Alternative Strategies, a full service marketing communications firm. As a media professional with more than 20 years of experience in journalism, PR and publicity, he has used many alternative strategies to get publicity for his clients and has also worked as a consultant for national PR companies like Hill and Knowlton, Fleishman Hillard and Edelman where he helped PR pros tailor their pitches for maximum pop culture impact. He is the creator of PR Puppet Theatre, a YouTube instructional series that was “must-see entertainment/ education for every PR flack.”

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