Honored Nov. 17 as "Communicator of the Year" by two professional public relations organizations, President Gordon B. Hinckley said communication is not as difficult as some believe.
President Hinckley received the Parry D. Sorenson Communicator of the Year Award at the annual Golden Spike Awards luncheon of the Intermountain Association of Business Communicators and the Public Relations Society of America. The event was held in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City.
"I guess we're all interested in communication," the Church president mused in his remarks after accepting the award. He said that he is amazed when he hears a woman say that she cannot communicate with her husband or a man claim that he cannot communicate with his wife. "I suppose they communicated while they were courting," he said. "I can't understand why in the world they can't talk to one another because, when all is said and done, communication is nothing more or less than talking and expression concerning our interests, our desires, our concerns and all such matters as that."
President Hinckley, who has had 41 years as a General Authority and an earlier career in which he helped develop what is now the Public Affairs Department of the Church, said that he has had a vast experience in dealing with the mass media. He has been interviewed on nearly every continent by a wide variety of reporters, notably CBS "60 Minutes" host Mike Wallace and Larry King of "Larry King Live."
"You just have to recognize that those who are interviewing you, or whatever the case may be, are just ordinary people. They want to do a professional job, when all is said and done, but they're just people who go to the dentist and go to sleep at night, get up in the morning and have to make a living. . . . If they're just regarded as ordinary people, you can get along with them," he noted.
In introducing President Hinckley, co-chair Cindy Gubler mentioned that he has a book due out next February or March by a national publisher, with a foreword by Mr. Wallace. The book is titled Standing for Something — 10 Neglected Virtues That Would Heal Our Hearts and Homes.
The award given to President Hinckley was named for Parry D. Sorenson, a retired public relations professor at the University of Utah. "I know Parry well," President Hinckley said. "He was on a [Church] mission in England when I was in England. Parry's done a great job at the University of Utah."
