B. Jay Cooper experienced late 20th-century history from a unique vantage point -- a small office in the White House.
Cooper served as a deputy press secretary to former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush from 1987 to 1989. And during those years, he had to help answer questions about events and people that are now part of the history books. But his job also had its surreal and bizarre moments.
A former top White House aide revealed in 1988 that the then-first lady Nancy Reagan had hired an astrologer by the name of Joan Quigley to help Reagan win the presidency over Democrat Jimmy Carter.
The first lady also asked Quigley to help schedule the president's public appearances following an assassination attempt in 1981 that nearly succeeded. The revelation created a media frenzy that painted the already scandal-ridden White House as a madhouse.
Cooper found himself right in the middle of the controversy.
"Once the press got hold of that, the briefings were unbelievable," he says. "Crazy questions were asked and you had to go back to the transcripts. One day we had, I think, 147 questions on astrology, and this is the White House. I'm not saying that wasn't a story, but there were other things going on in the world at the time."
Yes. There were other stories. Negotiations over nuclear weapons and the Iran-Contra scandal come to mind. But the media was mainly interested in that story. So Cooper and his boss Marvin Fitzwater had to make sure it caused the least possible damage.
And here lies the essence of the public relations industry. Its goal is to help shape public images and perceptions.
Like many PR officers, Cooper worked as a journalist before he went into public relations. For 10 years, he was a reporter and later an editor of the Waterbury Republican-American, a daily in Connecticut.
A career in local state politics followed. In 1981, he went to Washington, where he was director of public affairs in the Commerce Department. He held this job until 1987, when he moved to the White House. He has also been the head of PR for the Republican National Committee and Yale University.
He is now a senior vice-president and director of strategic communications for a public affairs and public relations firm with 20 offices around the world. Its client list includes large corporations, individuals, politicians and political groups of nearly every stripe.
It also does PR for a number of large charitable organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
His employer has also designed software that helps you track issues and media coverage over the Internet. That was totally unheard of when Cooper started his career.
He still even remembers the early days of CNN. "When I started at Washington, CNN was a new thing, and everybody wondered whether that would work."
Well, it has been so successful that it has changed the entire news business by creating the so-called 24-hour news cycle. Cooper says he only had to worry about the wires when he first arrived in Washington.
And the emergence of the Internet has created even more challenges for those who work in public relations.
"Literally anybody can put something on the Internet and you have to deal with it," says Cooper.
"And that's one reason why we developed this type of software that tracks not just traditional sources. We also track the newsgroups and see what the buzz is and what's going on. You never know when one of these Internet rumors start."
The Internet can work both ways too, Cooper says. It gives companies a chance to target specific audiences relatively cheaply. "You can leverage your money a lot better than you were able to previously," he says.
Jacquelynn Nielsen is a communications officer at a university. She says that e-mail has become a more important tool in the delivery of information to groups inside and outside the university.
But there is no guarantee that information distributed over the Internet and e-mail will reach its intended audience, says Nielsen. A large portion of the university population has opted out of the system that delivers press releases and other information to their computers, she says.
A lot of people still do not have access to e-mail. And those who do may simply ignore electronic press releases.
"A lot of people might get a hundred e-mail in a day, and they will only look at what they have to," she says. "But if something crosses their table in a nice printed version, they can take it home or read it on the train. And it might get their attention more than something by e-mail."
So there is still room for the old-fashioned press release. And while technology has changed the nature and the speed of public relations, it has not changed the general rules of the industry.
Good writing skills are still a must. Always return calls and always give honest answers, Cooper says. "And sometimes an honest answer is 'I don't know.' The worst thing you can do in press relations is leave a reporter with the feeling that you didn't call back or that you didn't care."
He says ignoring the needs of reporters can create bad relationships. That makes it more difficult for everybody to do their jobs.
Cooper says he actually enjoyed being around the Washington press corps. "They were a bunch of wonderful reporters," he says.