The UTS-Crikey analysis of PR influence on the media raises an issue of profound significance — when will journalists realise that PR influence is insignificant compared to other factors impacting on the media?
Some years ago Wendy Bacon and I were guests on an ABC program talking about PR’s influence on the media. Wendy was making a point about how PR people manipulated journalists. While not denying that many tried to, I asked whether, if journalists were always being manipulated, that implied that they were stupid and lacking in critical capacities? I don’t remember her reply.
Essentially PR people use the media by leaning with the wind, adapting their offerings to the commercial, lifestyle and conventional wisdom of specific media outlets. (More on precisely how they do it next week.)
But as I frequently ask journalists: when has PR done more to pervert and distort media coverage than the actions of proprietors such as Northcliffe, Hearst, Beaverbrook, Packer, Murdoch and Berlusconi?
And it wasn’t PR people who downsized newsrooms and reduced journalists’ capacity to undertake independent research.
Equally much of the concern about PR is predicated on the assumption that the media still constitutes an idealised fourth estate model. Last year a panel of four journalists (including then Crikey editor Jonathan Green) gave presentations at an RMIT Communicator of the Year breakfast. During question time I asked which country, what time and which publication had epitomised this idealised fourth estate model. Again I don’t remember the answer. But it has always seemed to me that the fourth estate model is a means of training journalists into a Marxian false consciousness, which allows them to operate in environments and workplaces that are far from the ideal without going mad.
One could also ask when PR people have done some of the things Nick Davies describes journalists doing in his great book Flat Earth News, although some PR people did “lean with the wind” and exploit the stories he reports on.
PR is part of a wider problem in society — anticipated by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century — the commoditisation of everything. But that problem stems from the mix of spin, advertising, media hype, celebrity worship, consumerism, media becoming lifestyle industries, the information overload and similar trends. PR people also frequently, along with politicians and the media, add to the general dumbing down of community debate, the misunderstanding of risk and the fostering of a constant climate of fear.
As Nassim Nicholas Taleb asks in his book about outlier events, The Black Swan, “…why does reading the newspaper actually decrease (sic) your knowledge of the world?” There is a problem but the amount of PR-inspired content in the media is a symptom of that problem, not the cause.
Incidentally, I suspect there is a methodological problem with the UTS-Crikey survey as its findings for PR-inspired material in the media is dramatically lower than previous estimates and the UTS-Crikey estimates for the business pages and politics are way off the mark. It may be that that the method used, basing research on media releases and common quotes, captures only a small part of PR-media interaction.
Ritual declaration of interest: I was a not very good journalist for some years and a (some others might say quite good) PR man for many more.
Curious that you question the UTS methodology but present no evidence to support your own claim that PR influence is insignificant compared to other factors impacting on the media.
Kayt
There are a number of very good biographies of Northcliffe, Hearst and Beaverbrook. A quick search of The Economist will give you stacks of material on Berlesconi. Most of them leave us with few illusions about proprietors.
PR only works with the media because the PR people package and frame their messages around the prejudices and conventional wisdom ruling in specific outlets. Not nice but as I say “leaning with the wind”.
There are a number of histories of the media dating from their time as party political/ sect outlets, through the days of being paid to print stories, to the revolutions of the 19th century and today’s tabloids that illustrate my contention that the constant references to a mythical fourth estate are valid.
Does the London Sun or News of the World elevate the public debate? If you haven’t already read Nick Davies book I can highly recommend it.
Plus I only questioned the methodology because the findings don’t match previous research in the area – see McNamara and Zawawi.
Shock! Horror! You could have added “Oh, the Humanity”! I’m astounded that this is news – newspapers and the old 4th estate have been toilet bound for years. All the PR influence aside, journalism/churnalism has been compromised/co-opted even worse by newspapers lurching towards advertorials, infotainment and the glossy dross of “lifestyles”. Haven’t bought one for ages and don’t intend to. Still check them online, but I won’t be upset if they go behind a paywall – I won’t be paying.
The revolving door of political writers to party staffers implies a systemic bias, which would be one of the factors NT refers to above. Interesting suggestion too about the Orwellian style double think that enables journos to work both in an idealistic frame [to quote WB allowing a moral/legal claim of protection of sources, confidentiality etc] while working to reinforce the establishment. The UK version of State of Play with fabulous Bill Nigh is another cultural reference point about this kind of thing.