"Impediments to Journalism"

PRWeek, a publication for people in the public relations industry, has just interviewed Slate media critic Jack Shafer. Bear that venue in mind as you enjoy this exchange:

PRWeek: How do you feel about PR pros?

Shafer: Well, I have found, with only rare exceptions, that PR officers are impediments to journalism. They are the people who man the barricades, who salt the earth before you can get to it to plant your story. The number of times in my career that I have responded to somebody doing outreach PR, trying to convince me to do a story, and turned that overture into a story, you might be able to count on two fingers. And it was only because I was already planning or desiring to do a story and it was just a coincidence. And I'm certain that in no case did I ever write the story that the PR officer wanted. I'm certain that the PR officer would have just as soon that I'd never been born. I don't feel bad about saying this, as I don't think PR people like me any more than I like them. They're time-wasters, hall monitors. I just want to call up the person I want to talk to and not go through this incredibly long dance with a PR officer in order to get to my quarry. Their interests are so alien from mine. That said, it's not that every person manning a PR office has blocked my efforts to do a story. But it's only the rare one that's willing to aid you in getting access to the story you want.

PRWeek: If you accept the fact that you have to deal with PR people…

Shafer: I don't deal with PR people. As best I can, I will avoid PR people. If they won't allow me to talk to the person that I need to talk to, then I have to do the story by other means.

Comments

[Number 6]

I agree wholeheartedly with Schafer. Being a PR person is not precisely the same as being a paid liar, but it's pretty damn close. Professional whores shouldn't be surprised when people regard them as such.

[Sean Dougherty]

Jack Schafer also never reads the New York Post and all of his checks are in the mail. ALL Journalists work with PR people. Schaefer may be one of the tiny elite who can get stories without our help but vast lumpen majority of them need us for ideas, fact-checking, access, etc.

PR is a profession like any other with helpful people and not so helpful people. As an advocacy journalist, Schafer is going to be in adversarial situations with his subjects often - and apparently prefers that they not have professional assistance in dealing with him. In that situation, the PR counsel is no more a "whore" than a defense attorney.

Also, this is Reason's Blog, right? When did libertarians start using "whore" as a pejorative?

[Number 6]

Sean- You're right that most journos have to deal with PR types. Smart ones view everything they say with skepticism, and remember that they are paid to, if not lie (and I've got a couple doing just that), spin. I'd apply the same standard to a defense attorney, or a prosecutor for that matter. People in those professions at least are part of a process that is supposed to seek the truth. The same can not be said of PR types.
There is a natural conflict between PR types and journalists. Journalists, when they are doing their job, seek the truth. PR types, when they are doing their job, color or conceal it.
By the way-A PR person who is being "helpful" is hoping to use you.

[Number 6]

That should be "I've caught."

[rob]

Jack Schafer is just one of those guys who likes to give himself a warm sense of comfortable righteousness by belieiving that altho his profession is shifty, there's someone in an analagous job who is worse. It is no different in type than the call girl who looks down on the streetwalker...

I remember a journalism class in which the statistic that was thrown out (without sourcing - not a good sign for its credibility, as we'd already learned) that most reporters think of PR people as "weasels."

Funny, the last time I checked you could tell who most PR types work on behalf of. It's reporters who have innate biases that they conceal with claims of "objectivity" when writing a story. If you talk to the PR guy at General Electric, you know you're going to get GE's side of the story.

When you read a newspaper, tho, all of the bias is behind a curtain of objectivy... Which is the less intellectually honest of the two? My gut tells me it's the reporter, not the PR rep.

[Sean Dougherty]

Gee, and journalists don't "use" their sources to do their jobs? Journalists should view everything everyone says with skepticism - not just PR people. That's their job. I don't take offense at having my facts questioned and I offer proof behind what I'm selling. I expect reporters I work with to go to outside sources.

So if an individual calls a reporter and offers a tip on a good story - that's okay, but if the same person gets paid to do that, that's bad? Because profit is corrupting? I don't resent reporters getting paid to write/report the stories, why is it bad for me to get paid to help develop them?

[rob]

"Journalists, when they are doing their job, seek the truth. PR types, when they are doing their job, color or conceal it." - #6

I'd argue that PR types are actually doing their jobs when they tell the truth, no matter how painful, in order to protect the organization they work for.

It's a tough gig, as you might imagine, to convince your boss that the truth is the only thing that will save him/her and the organization - no matter how painful the truth and what you're doing to change a given problem is.

Of course, acting as the voice of reason and conscience before-hand, persuading your boss to the right thing to begin with, is what most PR types who are actually doing their job should be doing.

[bubba]

Shafer is either a member of a very small minority, or a lying sack of shit.

Newspapers reprint unedited press releases all the time. Trade magazines routinely get story ideas and materials from PR types.

I got news for you, many/most PR types are more interested in trade magazine type publications because they do a better job of reaching their target market.

Heck, MyYahoo headlines are full of press releases, and you can't research a company's stock without reading and parsing that company's press releases.

[NaG]

Of course, Shafer has already decided the angle of his piece before he's made his phone calls. When PR people try to change that...bah! Useless! I already know how my piece begins and ends; I'm just looking for filler!

Indeed, it's hard to tell who is being more intellectually "honest" here.

[Kwix]

Rob,
Of course, acting as the voice of reason and conscience before-hand, persuading your boss to the right thing to begin with, is what most PR types who are actually doing their job should be doing.

Nice thought, unfortunately a lot of companies(and government types) view their PR departments as "damage control" instead of an integrated part of the decision making process like the legal department is.

Bubba,
Newspapers reprint unedited press releases all the time.

This is true, but does that make it journalism? Of course not. It is no more journalistic to publish unverified PRs from GE than it is to publish unverified PRs from the DEA/ONDCP but papers do both. The job of a newspaper journalist is to find a story, root it out, view it from different angles and then, finally, write/publish. Anything less than this is lazy incompetence and not journalism.

Of course, in this day and age, newspaper readers don't want journalism, they want to know who Jennifer Aniston is sleeping with this week.

[Jesse Walker]

I suspect that none of you have ever had to deal with a stonewalling PR person. It's not a matter of someone trying to change your mind, NaG; it's a matter of someone standing between you and the people who really could change your mind, or help you come to some conclusions in the first place, if they'd only answer your questions.

(I hasten to add that I'm only talking about one group of PR people here, not the whole profession. Indeed, I'm guilty of a little PR work myself: One of my first jobs, home one summer from college, was to churn out press releases for a medical school. Bubba won't be surprised to hear that the local paper had no problem reprinting my anonymous prose virtually unedited.)

[Ironchef]

Sigh. The business models of the future: The most successful won't be those with a "better product", the best Service, winning the Time To Market race, or even being the most efficient, profitable manufacturer. Nope. The most successful corporations (governments included) will have the best:
- PR men
- marketing gurus
- ombudsmen
- lawyers
- compliance personnel (accountants, auditors)

And these will increasingly take up a larger and larger share of operating cost - to the point that the cost of making anything is irrelevant compared to the cost of promoting it.

[Eric the .5b]

The most successful won't be those with a "better product", the best Service, winning the Time To Market race, or even being the most efficient, profitable manufacturer. Nope. The most successful corporations (governments included) will have the best:

What's the difference you imply between "the future" and now, or even "the future" and twenty years ago?

Aren't people always saying exactly this, but yet the free market somehow fails to dissolve into a marketing black hole?

[Number 6]

Sean-It's been my experience that at PR person who wants to "help" me really wants me to push their line. Of course, I could be bitter. Being lied to repeatedly tends to do that.
NaG-You're basing that claim on what, exactly?
Bubba- It's a reporter's job to be aware of his own biases and to keep them out of the copy. That is journalism. The failure of some to do so does not reflect on the whole endeavor.

[Ed]

Boo hoo. Aren't adversarial scenarios the stuff of journalism?

[JimL]

There is a difference between PR people. A good one will not stonewall (unless for a legitimate reason), because they know that relationships built with reporters and editors are key to their success. But to say you're dissapointed about the one-sidedness that comes from a PR person is just silly. The whole point of calling X organization or X person from that organization is to get their side of view. Nobody would call CATO and expect a more government is needed view.

[jp]

So PR people aren't journalists. Here's some other news: security guards aren't tour guides.

[Number 6]

JimL- I'm not talking about groups like CATO. I'm talking about situations where the group in question is the subject of a story, and they are unwilling to give honest answers to questions like "Why did you not give public notice of your plans to ask the public utility commission for a rate increase until the day after you submitted the request?"

On a deeper level, I dislike PR people for the same reason I dislike advertisers: I have no respect for people who make a living by peddling bullshit.

[JimL]

Number 6,

I agree with you 100%. But are you blaming the PR hack, or the bosses behind the decisions? Anyone worth their salt knows that as much honesty and transparency as possible is important -- even when you are the subject of a story. You lie once or begin spinning the obvious, your credibility is shot, the press will take a more hostile attitude, and the press will ususally get the last word in any public debate -- so you have to play by their rules. Unfortunately, the PR person doesn't always get to make that decision.

And absolutely, a PR person is "using" the journalist for good pub, just like a journalist working with a good PR person will "use" them to do part of their job. It's a symbiotic relationship that is pretty standard practice. But sure, there are crappy PR people who stonewall, spin, and even outright lie to get their side across, just as there are journalists who will do the same.

[johnl]

Bubba -

It's the editors who greenlight unedited PR copy who are the real problem. I can't blame Jesse for getting free ad space for his employer. But ads dressed as news is a bad way to make a paper.

[Number 6]

JimL-Fair enough.

[rob]

"Nice thought, unfortunately a lot of companies(and government types) view their PR departments as 'damage control' instead of an integrated part of the decision making process like the legal department is." - Kwix

Sure, and some companies ignore their lawyers advice as well. But that's not an indictment of either the public relations or legal professions - it's a condemnation of bad management/leadership.

Just like the fact that there are plenty of hack journalists willing to print a press release word for word under their byline is not a condemnation of PR types but of bad (or lazy) journalists.

[Kwix]

Sure, and some companies ignore their lawyers advice as well. But that's not an indictment of either the public relations or legal professions - it's a condemnation of bad management/leadership.

Agreed. I was not making a condemnation of the PR profession but rather the poor "spin" that PR folks have to do, either because of a lack of input on the decision making process or the desire of the "bosses" to not fess up to a wrongdoing and pinning it all the the PR rep to "handle it". Unfortunately when you are stuck in a profession that is constantly required to run interference against the public or journalists it becomes tainted with scandal. Just like lobbyists, defense lawyers, drug cops or congresscritters.

[Larry N. Martin]

So I'm not going to find out who Jennifer Aniston is sleeping with this week from Jack Shafer?

😉

[Larry A]

By the way-A PR person who is being "helpful" is hoping to use you.

And a paid member of a "Citizen's Advocacy Group" isn't? Or a journalist writing an editorial?

I suspect that none of you have ever had to deal with a stonewalling PR person.

I've been a "stonewalling PR person," usually because:

• The legal department or management prohibits employees from talking to the press.
• I know the reporter in question has an ax to grind.

I've also worked the journalism side. Reporters are human, and no more successful than the rest of us in "being aware of his own biases and keeping them out of the copy."

In a crisis situation PR at its best can serve as a focus for reliable information. Think back at how badly that was needed in post-hurricane New Orleans.

I still have memories of the "hard-hitting" television coverage of Three Mile Island. Living 30 miles downwind, I really needed reliable information. What I got, from reporters "going to the source," was "Mr. Jones, you're the janitor at TMI. Can you tell us what happened inside the reactor?"