How to Work with Angry People and Outraged Publics

Book excerpt: Lots of folks think that public relations equates to getting publicity. Others, especially CEOs, tend to think of public relations as window dressing, image management and "spin." Well, author Noel Griese has a message for them. Much of the public relations job consists of dealing with people who for one reason or another are angry with your organization. He has lots of practical advice for how to deal with these outraged individuals and groups. A past public relations executive in the telecommunication and petroleum industries, he has also been a journalism professor teaching public relations at the Universities of Wisconsin and Georgia. He is the author of the highly acclaimed biography "Arthur W. Page: Publisher, Public Relations Pioneer, Patriot," recently selected by Knowledge Is Power as one of the 38 best books written about public relations. In this useful account of how to work with angry publics, Griese details how to reduce and sometimes even eliminate outrage in grassroots and grasstops groups, how to plan public meetings that reduce outbreaks of anger, how to overcome the tendency of reporters to give more attention to negative than positive news and a simple process for negotiating outrage to a satisfactory conclusion.