Finding ways for public relations to give voice to those trying to rise above the media chatter
Students of the journalism program at the University of King’s College in Halifax are, at some point before the end of their studies, introduced to the public relations side of the skillsets they’re building in class. Many of those students will eventually end up working in that field.
Nzingha Millar was one such student a few years back when she took the one-year graduate program the school offers, after having already studied international development. Millar says the student body and staff alike had a term, tongue-in-cheek though the intentions may be, for the PR profession; “the dark side” of journalism.
“They did, and so did I; I also called PR ‘the dark side,’” Millar says. “But I became a convert.”
Born and raised in Halifax, Millar describes herself as a voracious reader and lover of stories, and is a seventh or eighth generation African Nova Scotian on her mother’s side. Her father immigrated here from the island of St. Lucia in the 1980s. Between this and having attended a private school in her youth where she says she rarely saw someone else like her, Millar says she learned quickly how to adapt telling her own story to different audiences.
“I’ve always been a curious person, since the time I was young. I love to read books. I used to digest them and I used to really enjoy stories, because it helped me to understand people,” Millar says. “I felt like I had a foot in multiple different worlds, growing up. Being from the Black community, but also having an experience outside the Black community, where one of my parents was an immigrant. That always gave me more than one viewpoint in life. I definitely had to learn how to navigate through spaces, and learn how to, in some ways, ‘code switch’ to tell my story in a different way.”
This is what ultimately lead Millar to journalism school, but she was told another narrative about the profession that many King’s students have been told in the last decade or so: the journalism industry is in a tough spot.
“At the time, there was a lot of negative talk about where the profession of journalism was going,” Millar says. “There was a lot of, like, doomsday forecasting. Companies and media houses were downsizing. They basically told us, be prepared to scrimp and save to eat your dinner. And it was scary!”
With the benefit of hindsight, Millar doesn’t exactly disagree with that forecast. However, she does note the skills of a good, professional storyteller are more important today than ever. There are a million campaigns across the glut of media we absorb now fighting for attention. And it turns out, there are lots of voices trying to do good that need those skills to rise above the noise.
“That’s where a lot of people with a journalism background can add value,” Millar says.
After graduating in 2017, Millar’s first role out of school was working as a communications specialist for a blockchain startup. But this wasn’t some crypto coin or an NFT thing; this tech was trying to make different professional sectors more sustainable, which was a goal that aligned well with Millar’s values.
“There’s a lot more opportunity overall to find the type of work that aligns with who you are,” Millar says. “[In] public relations, especially in this day and age, there’s so much happening around telling stories and narratives that promote social justice, equality, and protecting the environment.”
Since that first communications role, Millar has leaned into the PR life, using her communication and research skills to help build supports for the Black community during the initial onset of COVID-19, promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) career paths for African Nova Scotians with Imhotep’s Legacy Academy at Dalhousie, and co-founding the ACCE Network, which stands for Arts, Community, Culture, and Economics, as a way to connect young members of the Black community across those four pillars in the province.
“Our community, while we have amazing stories to tell, has so many people who are so busy doing the work that the story doesn’t always get told in the most effective way, and when it needs to be told,” Millar says.
“The work I do now with PR Hive and Crestview Strategy is totally aligned with the work I was doing previously. Some of the things our team has supported include advocating on behalf of LGBTQ+ communities, BIPOC communities, helping to direct funding into organizations that support both of those communities and racialized people in Canada. Really bridging the gap between decision-makers and policy-makers, and communities that are advocating on their own behalf.
“I think that that’s excellent, that I can do that as a PR professional,” Millar says.
Despite making a career in what she once called “the dark side,” Millar’s work has turned out to be mostly shining a light on communities and groups whose stories are worth highlighting, stories that Millar takes pride in amplifying. She hopes future generations of storytellers come to see PR as much less duplicitous than it once was, or seemed, in a bygone era.
“I do want to help change the perception of public relations as being limited, in terms of having the type of impact a lot of younger graduates want to have out here in the world,” Millar says. “If you look at most Gen Zs, they’re concerned with the environment. They’re concerned with promoting social issues and equity. We need PR professionals who can do that.”
Millar says the industry also needs many different voices and backgrounds, too. That way, like in her own case, many different communities can see their own stories better represented.
“It’s important we have more diversity in the PR profession,” Millar says. “All of those lenses you bring are an asset to somebody and some story. Don’t count yourself out.”
