The old chestnut – who depends on whom, PR or Journalist – has been repackaged, re-spun and reprinted in a new book by Nick Davies. “Flat Earth News” has engendered massive current debate in the UK and beyond. An entire edition of BBC’s You and Yours was devoted to the subject, and included Nick Davies on the programme. By their own admission, the BBC had themselves succumbed to Chatto and Windus’ PR machine in devoting an entire hour to the subject.
So is reproducing media releases without checking the facts lazy journalism? Yes. Is it the way all journalists work? Unlikely.
According to UKwatch.net the research behind the book from Cardiff University’s media boffins is a depressingly true reflection of current journalism. I’ve been both a broadcast journalist and a PR (apparently I’m supposed to be a Flack, whatever that is). On occasions I’ve been both at the same time (the worst of all worlds)!
I’ve worked in local radio newsrooms in recent years and received the “are you mad?” looks when I’ve suggested actually stepping outside the office to go on a story, rather than settling for a 20 sec clip on the ‘phone. Yes, journalism has changed. There are is less money, fewer staffers and double or treble the amount of content required. That’s Nick Davies’ point. Quality of journalism has to suffer. But is it the journalists’ fault?
PRs hold a precious commodity – news – and good PRs know how to create news and make their story more attractive and newsworthy than someone else’s. Does that make them bad people? Does it prevent journalists from using their editorial judgement and whatever investigative skills remain open to them to look beneath the surface? I don’t think so.
Naked PR’s Jennifer Mattern turns her guns on bloggers who now seem to be demanding more relaxed and ‘promotional’ releases to be issued by newswires because this is the kind of stuff bloggers want. I’m with her and PRWeb. If bloggers want credibility, they should work as hard as any other journalists, regardless of the style or medium. In fact, looking at some of the PRWeb releases, if this is the kind of stuff they want – and the kind of things PRs believe is news – then they deserve each other.
At the end of last week, I gave a lecture to a group of young PRs on briefing spokespeople. The keynote speaker was Gito Harri, who had just delivered his last piece to camera for network BBC TV news before becoming a senior media strategist at PR giants Fleishman Hillard. The money certainly had an influence, but I wonder how long it will be before his carefully honed journalistic skills become blunted by the constant chipping of unrealistic client expectations and under-resourced journalist contacts.
Tags: journalists, Media, public relations
Nick Davies is a journalist who does for other journalists what other journalists do for everyone else – i.e. sniping from the sidelines. His criciticsms don’t have to be universally valid or even entirely accurate to hit home. This sort of stuff helps keep us honest.
Journalists these days may be (probably are) less committed to rigorous investigation and fact-checking. But in my experience, they have learned to ask tougher, more challenging questions than ever before. Good, or even excellent interview skills are more widespread. Thank you Sir Robin, and thank you Jeremy.
Agreed Magnus, in the case of the more experienced journalists, however I think the ’soundbite’ culture undermines this in many broadcast newsrooms where just getting a reasonable 20 second ‘clip’ is deemed good enough.
From recent experience, I’m not totally convinced that if you scratch below the surface of the usual network broadcast and ‘big brand’ news journos that you will find a significant number that are really prepared to take the time to challenge.