Public relation and press release are two of the most effective, yet risky way to build your public image.

All risks of public relation and press release are coming back to one activity that is commonly held between the business owner, public figure or news sources with the journalists – an interview.

A knol in Google Knol elaborates this loudly and clearly, with first hand stories and case studies.

The Image Guru, the knol writer, explain that it is not advisable for news sources to go off the record with reporters. Although there are pros and cons about the advise, the knol writer explain that from his experience, going off the record has devastating effects.

One of his stories involves a news source being interviewed about a product launch, iPhone. The news source go off the record with the reporter, mentioned some international product variants doing well in the market. What next, the statement headlined into ‘launch of new phones by Company X to compete with the iPhone’ – this undermine the plan by the iPhone-selling company.

The Image Guru suggested that news sources have to know when to say no to reporters. He then stated that there is no such thing as ‘off the record’. Again, learn to say no to reporters’ tricky questions that aimed to open up ‘more detailed’ conversation.

Image by scragz.