Nancy Turett oversees five health specialty practices, Rx Health, Consumer Health, Life Sciences, Health Policy & Public Affairs and BioScience Communications, which is Edelman's medical and education publishing firm. Edelman is the world's leading independent public relations agency, offering a full range of communications services, with PR at the center with annual billings over $135 million. Some of Edelman's healthcare clients include Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Schering-Plough and Abbott.

Q: Do you think that "public relations" is still an adequate term to describe what your industry does now?

A: No, I don't. For people who are sophisticated public relations practitioners, it's a fine term, because we define it as how we actually live it and do it, but as a term for people who are not as familiar with public relations, it's actually limiting. They either think A) PR means press release, not public relations, or B) they think it means a relationship with the public rather than many publics.

Edelman used to be Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, and now we're just Edelman, and I actually led the process of changing our name. Along with a lot of other people here, and many of our clients who we surveyed, I thought "public relations" was too narrow a term for what we do. Having said that, PR is still a good shorthand for what we do because it is what we do.

Q: As the Internet has made information more available, how do you address both the challenge of managing proprietary information and keeping your client's message focused?

A: Those are two important questions. The first answer is that you can't really manage it. What you need to do is recognize that you can't own or control the situation, but you can ensure that you're communicating clearly, specifically and consistently enough to have the promulgation of your message not get too distorted.

The idea that you can actually control the message is a fallacy. The days of a company having one spokesperson are also over. Every employee is potentially a spokesperson for their company, official or de facto. The democratization of communications started on the Internet, but it's now happening offline as well as online.

Q: Media professionals consume an incredible amount of information every day. How do you stay informed?

A: My number one source of information is my BlackBerry. Other people funnel information over to me. When I think about what keeps me connected to the world, my BlackBerry comes first and my phone comes second. Actually, even ahead of the BlackBerry are people.

I definitely read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal every day, and I read the headlines of the Financial Times. I scan all kinds of electronic services that give me headlines in my email.

The way to be on top of things is to be in the world. For example, when I walk out of my office, there are lots of people staring up at the JumboTron in Times Square, getting their news in real time. When I read the New York Times, it's to get depth, not to find out what happened in the world; I already know that because I saw it on my BlackBerry when I woke up in the morning.