What is good public relations?

Public relations, or "media relations," is responsible for the communication between a company and the general public. Its job is to portray a company or a company's products in a positive light, as well as performing damage control during times of crisis within a company, and are responsible for releasing information to the media.

The better a company's public relations department is, the more highly they are regarded, not just by company officials or rival companies, but also with people from the outside. To make this happen, the company must have a fair hand at persuasion, and essentially persuade the public that X Company's products are the best ones.

Rather than cover hard or soft news stories as those in print or television news do, PR writers are responsible for writing press releases. These press releases are what gets the word out to the media, ensuring coverage and spreading of their message to the public. PR can also be more biased in the sense that usually only a company or event's positive aspects are highlighted. Being fair and unbiased may lead to the public making note of the company's flaws and can hurt the company, or affect how much publicity an event gets, in the long run.