As media has changed over the past several years, public relations executive Steve Rubel has reinvented himself many times to adapt, he said while speaking to an audience at the Walter Cronkite School’s Must See Monday speaker series.
“For the last four to five years I have mainly focused on where digital and social is going,” said Rubel, executive vice president of global strategy and insights for Edelman, a large independent public relations firm. “But in the last year, I changed my focus more to traditional media because I feel they have finally gotten their ‘mojo’ back.”
Rubel, who has spent his entire career working in public relations, discussed major changes in the media and introduced a new model of media he called “the Cloverleaf.”
The Cloverleaf is a model that combines traditional, hybrid, social and owned media into an overlapping service, Rubel said.
Morgan Theys, a public relations junior, said she attended the lecture because Rubel works for Edelman, a company she has always wanted to work for.
“It was amazing to see how much social media has grown since 2003 and how much we rely on it,” Theys said. “I don’t read the newspaper anymore and the Internet is just easier, but I have no idea how much content was being created every day.”
Bailey Johnson, a public relations sophomore, said the presentation was very useful and she gained greater awareness of how to be effective in her future field.
“As opposed to journalism and reporting, I don’t really want to be an observer. I want to be more hands-on to really get to know the people that I am working with,” Johnson said. “Media is growing more and more each day and PR people have to pay close attention to all the details that go into media coverage.”
As the lecture came to an end, Rubel said the new rules of media are to start with a good story and use the Cloverleaf method to synchronize how, when and where the story should be told.
“Keep stories alive for as long as possible,” he said.
Contact the reporter at nicole.stark@asu.edu
