Government Affairs Blog

PR Week’s Power Book

If there was a Close to Power Book I might get in it.  I would like to put a stress on the word might.  This week, the newspaper for the public relations world, PR Week has published its Power Book.  I know many people in the book professionally and, in some cases, socially. 

List are a popular thing these days and used by PR professionals to generate column inches.  This one is a bit different as it lists the entries alphabetically and not on a numerical scale.  What does the book, or list, tell us?

In an article introducing the book by Kate Magee she says that the book tells us: “There is a great array of personalities jostling to be heard.  One admits he likes to steal his children’s Easter eggs; one would give it all up to be a professional skater; one believes she was Jesus in a past life; and one writes a blog about life in her fish pond.” 

If anyone is upset by being omitted from the book the above should cheer them up. 

Magee begins her piece by describing the typical life of a PR professional.  Checking myself against it I can see why I never made it.  True I do listen to the Today Programme in the morning but I don’t check my Blackberry (I don’t own one) and I don’t buy the Financial Times from my local newsagent.  I do buy The Guardian (cited as the third most popular read among my peers) and do look at the pink paper when I arrive in the office although I wouldn’t count that as reading it.  But I don’t read The Economist.  So I score two and a half out of five against the criteria that would get me into the power list.  Perhaps not a dismal result but a very clear indication of why I am merely close to power.

Simon Goldie is Head of Communication at The Chartered Institute of Taxation – www.tax.org.uk - and a member of the CIPR GAG committee