Intended for use by instructors of public relations courses, this paper discusses teaching methods that can be used to demonstrate to students how much of the news involves events that are carefully planned by public relations practitioners and some of the techniques the practitioners use to create these events. The paper describes in detail Daniel Boorstin's concept of "pseudo-events"--experiences that are planned, often "hyped," and evaluated for success by how much news media coverage they receive. It examines the relationship between pseudo-events and planned media events, and then describes an assignment given to students in which they prepared an analysis of a pseudo-event covered by the media. In conclusion, the paper discusses some of the societal implications of the proliferation of pseudo-events. (FL)