Institute of Public Relations Malaysia

The 44th IPRM Council wishes members and those in the public relations fraternity a very healthy, happy and prosperous 2008 as to the Gregorian calendar.

We in the 44th Council have pledged to do our best to fulfil IPRM’s missions. Our priority would be to further enhance our profession and bring members closer together as well as to get more public relations practitioners to be with us.

At our second meeting we have decided to get as many qualified and experience public relations practitioners that are our members to be accredited. During our first meeting immediately after the Annual General Meeting, the Council just manage to elect the principal office bearers. I must thank the members who attended the AGM and the councillors to have confidence to elect me as the new President. We also thanked the out going councillors and those that stayed on to further their contribution. In addition, we are very grateful to our patron, His Highness, Raja Dr. Nazrin and our advisors for their contribution to make IPRM an effective professional body. Let us work together to make IPRM a great professional body that we all can be proud of.

While public relations practitioners work towards conveying realistic images of causes or organizations, it is ironic that the profession has been stuck in a misconstrued image. Till now, it is common for outsiders to register a blurred look when ‘public relations’ is mentioned. To many, it’s all about press conferences, sugar-coating bad news to make it more palatable and, the de rigueur of PROs, being seen at social functions with the “visible” crowd.

Gone should be those glossed images of PROs! “Our scope of work is beyond attending cocktails. Plus, we do not paraphrase bad news!” It looks like PR practitioners must put their skills now to patch up their reputation. And there’s so much to be done to debunk some myths of the profession.