As the public relations profession absorbs its share of the COVID-19 impact with job, contract and revenue losses, most practitioners are still seeking to help their clients and employers craft truthful, productive and forward-looking messages.

Yet examples of both good and poor PR practice abound, in the current environment. How is COVID-19’s global societal impact bringing out the best – and the worst – in brands’ public relations and marketing communications?

Two veteran practitioners who – like Kelly and Mary Beth – are no shrinking violets to calling shots as they see them, Julia Angelen Joy and Molly McPherson join #MsInterPReted with the latest they’re witnessing from the PR front lines of the crisis.

• What to do as an independent practitioner, when faced with sudden loss of bookings and business
• How a “rising tide lifts all ships” mentality in the PR profession and a sense of connectivity between public relations professionals will help our community of colleagues 
• Why being bold and calling out bad PR examples is important for the improvement of the profession to elevate trust and ethical codes in public relations
• Entities doing PR wrong or right during COVID-19: WeWork, Gov. Cuomo, Texas Roadhouse, the tourism / hospitality industry, mega-brands versus small-businesses (among other examples)
• What happens when there are disparate value systems, mixed motives and disconnects between leaders and staff
• How PR needs to be mobilized to fight fear that’s pervasive in teams, organizations, communities and entire societies right now
• What it means to “have the difficult conversation” to acknowledge from the beginning of a crisis situation that a crisis is – indeed – happening (and how skipping this key incremental step is a major mistake)
• Why information-hoarding is one the most common – yet most damaging – behaviors leaders engage in, that damages (or even destroys) trust
• What roles ACCOUNTABILITY and TRANSPARENCY play in the current crisis
• Is COVID-19 the PR industry's “moment of truth” to prove our worth in serving our clients / employers AND the public… and if it is that moment, are we making effective use of it?
• Observations of small and regional PR firms being the culprits of bad PR pitches tied specifically to coronavirus
• How LEADERSHIP is the common (yet uncommon) thread that must undergird strategy and basic good decision-making 
• What it means when “doing the right thing” can mean completely different realities to completely different entities (such as a commercial retail interest versus public health official)
• Use of humor as a coping mechanism by individuals (such as on social media) versus as a connectivity tactic by brands in their advertising
• How strategic communicators should help brands stay human and real in this crisis
• How COVID-19 is going to force companies to build better, stronger cultures of communications
• How being labeled an “essential” versus a “non-essential” business factors into messaging and decision-making during COVID-19
• And much more.

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag across social media
• Follow Julia Angelen Joy

Twitter: @JuliaAngelenPR
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliaangelen/  
#PrimeTimePRchat

• Follow Molly McPherson

Twitter: @MollyMcPherson
LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollymcpherson/

Confident Communications podcast: 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/confident-communications/id1441897190 

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• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest