The Current State of PR in Portugal

Last week I wrote a rant on how Public Relations is seen in Portugal. To sum everything up,

• We are seen as party-goers, guest relations or hosts at night clubs;
• There are several Blogs from PR Professionals, some of which have a great deal of influence in the market. These blogs focus more on soap-opera discussions, exchanges of personal remarks that don’t belong in this public sphere;
• When we saw the Stockholm Accords come to light, I couldn’t find one mentioning it and the importance they have for our profession;
• The few PR associations around have not shown any action towards building a professional association or simply building awareness towards what the profession in fact is.

This rant began after yet another comment on a post titled “to be a PR professional in Portugal“, which was written in my old blog back in 2007 and keeps gathering new comments. The last of those comments is an “ad” for a job opening at a Night Club. Discouraging to say the least.

To top it off, over 1500 pageviews later, my initial rant does not seem to have made a dent. Not a single comment, not a single mention.

I believe that in the current state of things, Public Relations in Portugal may face its demise but I am not willing to go out without a fight.