The primary corrective discovery about PR has to do with the ARC triangle of Scientology.

What is a “public”?

This triangle is Affinity-Reality-Communication. If one corner (say A) is raised, the other two will rise. If one corner is lowered, the other two are as well.

One hears “the public,” a star says “my public.” You look in the dictionary and you find “public” means an organized or general body of people.

Thus with high affinity, one also has a high reality and a high communication. With a low affinity one has also a low reality and a low communication.

There is a specialized definition of the word “PUBLIC” which is not in the dictionary but which is used in the field of public relations. “PUBLIC” is a professional term to PR people. It doesn’t mean the mob or the masses. It means “a TYPE OF AUDIENCE.”

With a high or low R one has a high or low A and C.

The broad population to PR professionals is divided up into separate publics. Possibly the early birds in PR should have begun to use “audiences” back in 1911. But they didn’t. They used the word “publics” to mean different types of audiences for their communications.

And so it goes. The whole triangle rises and lowers as one piece. One cannot have a low R and a high A and C.

So you won’t find this in the dictionaries as a PR professional term. But you sure better wrap your wits and tongue around this term for USE. Otherwise you’ll make more PR errors than can easily be computed.

PR is supposed to be a communication technique. It communicates ideas. Suppose one were to try to communicate an out-the-bottom R. In such a case the communication would possibly at first reach, but then it would recoil due to its R.

WRONG PUBLIC sums up about 99% of the errors in PR activities and adds up to the majority reason for PR failures.

This is of course an advance in the mental technology of Scientology. It was not available to early pioneers of PR. So they talked (and still talk) mainly lies.

So what’s a “public”?

Older PR practitioners preferred lies. They used circus exaggeration or black propaganda. They sought to startle or intrigue and the easiest way to do it was with exclamation point „facts“ which were in fact lies.

In PRese (PR slang) use “public” along with another word always. There is no single word form for “public” in PR. A PR never says THE public.

„Mental health“ PRs dreamed up out of whole cloth the „statistics“ of the insane. „Nine out of every 15 Englishmen will go insane at some period of their lives“ is a complete lie. Streams of such false statistics gush from PR lobbyists to get a quick pound from Parliament.

There is the “community public,” meaning people in the town not personally grouped into any other special public. There is the “employee public,” meaning the people who work for the firm. There’s the “shareholder public,” meaning the birds who own shares in the PR’s company. There’s the “teenage public,” meaning the under- twenty people. There’s the “doctor public,” meaning the MD audience the PR is trying to reach.

The stock in trade of PRs, whether hired by Stalin, Hitler, the I Will Arise Society, the US President or the International Bank, has been black, bald-faced lies.

There are hundreds of different types of publics.

The US President has given 2 different figures of the percentage of increased government cost per year in 2 months. His PR man was trying to influence Congress.

An interest in common or a professional or caste characteristic in common — some similarity amongst a special group — determines the type of public or audience.

The „Backfire 8“ as the „Car of the Century“ and the parachute exhibition „record delayed drop“ and the ambassador's press conference on „Middle East Aims“ are all PR functions – and salted throughout with lies.

The PR needs this grouping as he can expect each different type of public to have different interests. Therefore his promotion to them must be designed specially for each type of public.

You pick up a newspaper or listen in the street and you see PR-PR-PR – all lies.

In the PR world there aren’t kids — there is a “child public.” There aren’t teenagers — there’s a “teenage public.” There aren’t elderly people — there’s an “elderly public.”

A battle cruiser makes a „goodwill visit“ to a town it is only equipt to crush and you have more lies.

The PR man thinks not in huge masses. He thinks in group types within the masses.

The tremendous power of newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and modern „mass media“ communication is guided by the PRs of special interests and they guide with lies.

PR is an activity concerned with presentation and audience. Even when he writes a news release, he “slants” it for a publication that reaches a type of audience and he writes it for that audience (modified by editorial idiosyncrasies).

Thus PR is corrupted to „a technique of lying convincingly.“

A PR surveys in terms of special publics. Then he presents his material so as to influence that particular public.

It makes a cynical world. It has smashed idealism, patriotism and morality.

He doesn’t offer stories about wheelchairs to the teenage public or Mickey Mouse prizes to the elderly public. If he is a good PR man.

Why?

All releases should be designed to reach a special public.

When an enforced communication channel carries only lies, then the affinity caves in and you get hate. For the R is corrupted.

When you mix it up, you fail.

PR, dedicated to a false reality of lies, then becomes low A, low C and recoils on the user.

When you get it straight and survey it, you succeed.

So the first lesson we can learn that enables us to use PR safely is to KEEP A HIGH R.

The “police public” is not going to buy the glories of hash. The “criminal public” isn’t going to go into raptures over the “heroes in blue.”

The more lies you use in PR the more likely it is that the PR will recoil.

All expert PR is aimed at a specific, carefully surveyed, special audience called a “public.”

Thus the law

When you know that, you can grasp the subject of PR.

NEVER USE LIES IN PR.

When you can use it expertly, you are a pro PR!To give some examples of wrong publics, Ron’s Journal was designed for org staffs as an intimate chat with staff members to let them in on what’s going on and what we’re planning so that staffs could be informative to the Scientology public. It was a “staff public” medium of communication.

The trouble with PR then was its lack of reality. A lie of course is a false reality

Somebody (in NY) broke the rules, played it to the Scientology public. Then somebody else figured it was a substitute for a congress and dropped congresses.

The trouble with PR was R!

The exact end result was to cut totally my comm line to org staffs. The other day I heard how staffs missed hearing from me.

If my line to staffs in orgs is going to be played to PE attendees, that’s it. Wrong public. No comm line to staffs.

In getting out a press release on a new can opener that opens cans easily, and you want to say „A child could use it,“ find out if it's a fact. Give one to a child and have him open a can. So it's true. So use the line and say what child. Don't call it the „Can Opener of the Century.“ It won't communicate.

I do a briefing of SO members on Flag, some dimwit uses it to play to Public Div public. Wrong public. So that line is cut.

Just because radios, TVs and press pour out does not mean they communicate. Communication implies that somebody is reached.

Clear News publishes Treason orders on students to promote an AO! Wrong public.

Don't tell a lie to city officials when the truth is just as easy to tell. Why go to all the work of dreaming up a lie? If you do, it will weaken you if it is found out that it is a lie. Now you do have a PR problem with the „official public.“

Clear News is used for an FSM newsletter. Wrong public.

Any lie will either blunt the C (communication) or end the C off one day with revulsion.

Clearing Course fliers go to new book buyers. Wrong public.

Letter Registrars write to people on a mailing list sent in by a mail order house. Wrong public.

Handling truth is a touchy business also. You don't have to tell everything you know – that would jam the comm line too. Tell an acceptable truth.

A conclusion someone not knowledgeable in PR technique could reach would be “promotion doesn’t work.”

Agreement with one's message is what PR is seeking to achieve. Thus the message must compare to the personal experience of the audience.

Promotion never works on wrong publics.

So PR becomes the technique of communicating an acceptable truth – and which will attain the desirable result.

If there's no chance of obtaining a desirable result and the truth would injure, then talk about something else.

The PR has to figure out his precise publics. There may be several distinct types.

PR is employed to obtain a result desired by the PR and his group.

Then he has to survey and look over the reactions of each different type.

Or it is employed to cancel out the undesirable PR of others.

He then plans and designs his communication and offerings for each one.

Thus there is offensive and defensive PR.

An orderly org has each different public categorized and labeled in Address.

In defending against hostile PR, once more it is the R that counts. Sun Tzu in his book about warfare gives several types of agent. One of these is the „dead agent“ because he tells lies to the enemy and when they find out they will kill him.

Then the PR sends the right message to the right public in each case. There may be a dozen different messages if there are a dozen different publics. Each one is right for that public.

Hostile (or counter-PR) is usually the usual fabric of lies.

The PR is after a result, a call in, a reply, a response.

If one finds out the lies being told and documents just one as being false, he has made counter-PR recoil. His hearer will never believe him again. He's dead.

The right message in the right form to the right public gets the result.

In the war between psychiatric hostile PR and the truth of Scientology, the „dead agent“ caper has a field day. Psychiatric PR has been lying for 20 years. Documented, the fact of these lies are lies is killing off psychiatry.

A wrong message to the wrong public simply costs lots of money and gets no result.

You understand, it's not one PR's word against another's. It's one PR's documents against the other PR's lies! That is correct defensive PR.

Even if a PR is engaged in “molding public opinion,” it still requires a different message to each different public.

So you see that using out-R PR can be very dangerous.

If one is trying to PR an abuse into decay (a dangerous activity in itself), he obtains the desirable result by documenting TRUTH. But using the „dead agent“ caper is quite enough almost always.

The use of R not only involves truth, it involves acceptable truth and that involves the fixed opinions of another or others and their experience. All this is contained in the subject of REALITY.

What is the R of another or others?

This involves SURVEYS.

Then you know what truth he or they will accept.

Imagination in PR is not limited at all. It takes lots of imagination. But the imagination should be devoted to how the truth is made acceptable to the R of others and how the comm is delivered.

A totally imaginary statement or story is quite useful so long as it is known to be imaginary and not passed off as truth.

In a PR world truth is the almost unknown commodity. This world is full of the „noise“ of many lies, many babbles, many old fixations and hates.

But truth has comm value. All the lies will dead-end someday.

A (affinity) supports the R and C.

Therefore PR which seeks to incite hate will not have the C value of a message that carries actual affinity.

But affinity can also be falsified and in the PR world too often is.

A person who is sane has a high ARC value.

So the PR who is sane has a high potential. And those who have corrupted their A, R and C into a hole, wind up on the bottle or beating their dogs or cynical beyond belief.

Serving mad masters, a PR hasn't much chance.

So there is a technique known as public relations. And it has the high liability of abuse through lies and the degrade of its practitioner.

But if one strictly attends to the values of truth and affinity, he will be able to communicate and can stand up to the strain.

Knowing this, PR becomes a far more useful and mature subject.