Friday, April 11, 2008
Lively Westminister debate finds PR not guilty of threatening press integrity
On Wednesday night, a couple of the team from Rainier PR attended a University of Westminster debate on whether ‘The growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press’. And before we get complaints of bias, we would like to point out that of the two of us that attended the debate, one is currently moonlighting as a hack and the other is a former IT Week journo - so we can see from both sides of the fence.
There was an impressive line up of speakers at the event: Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News and Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror and Professor of Journalism at City University, argued for the motion that the growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press. Lord Tim Bell, Chairman of Chime Communications, and Phil Hall of Phil Hall Associates and former editor News of the World were both against the motion.
Both Davies and Greenslade didn’t pull any punches and heavily criticised the PR industry for taking advantage of the vulnerability of the press. Journalists do not have the time to research stories properly due to time constraints and decreasing budgets. Apparently a Fleet Street journalist now writes three times more copy than a decade ago.
Davies claimed that journalists had become “a passive process for other outlets”. The PR industry feeds false stories to the press and the Iraq war was cited as a perfect example of how the trust between PR and journalists has become abused, alleged Davies. Greenslade continued the criticisms of the PR industry describing those that work in it as “people who earn money by being between us [journalists] and the truth”.
Lord Tim Bell argued that it was questionable whether journalists had integrity in the first place – the reporting of the McCann’s was highlighted – and admitted freely that his work had his clients’ interests front of mind. Both Lord Bell and Hall believed that it was not the responsibility of the PR if the integrity of journalist was undermined – most of the problems of the press could be blamed on low prices and the pithy investment by those that own the press. Their clients are also entitled to be protected from the press and information withheld, said Lord Bell – why should they have to air their dirty laundry just because the media thinks it would make a good story?
The debate was very lively and all speakers came off well, particularly the stoical Phil Hall. The one thing both sides agreed on was that the media was broken, but disagreed on whose fault or responsibility it was.
When the votes were counted 59 were for the motion compared to 164 against. Is the growth of PR threatening the integrity of the press? It was quite clear that those who attended the event didn’t think so.
On Wednesday night, a couple of the team from Rainier PR attended a University of Westminster debate on whether ‘The growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press’. And before we get complaints of bias, we would like to point out that of the two of us that attended the debate, one is currently moonlighting as a hack and the other is a former IT Week journo - so we can see from both sides of the fence.There was an impressive line up of speakers at the event: Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News and Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror and Professor of Journalism at City University, argued for the motion that the growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press. Lord Tim Bell, Chairman of Chime Communications, and Phil Hall of Phil Hall Associates and former editor News of the World were both against the motion.
Both Davies and Greenslade didn’t pull any punches and heavily criticised the PR industry for taking advantage of the vulnerability of the press. Journalists do not have the time to research stories properly due to time constraints and decreasing budgets. Apparently a Fleet Street journalist now writes three times more copy than a decade ago.
Davies claimed that journalists had become “a passive process for other outlets”. The PR industry feeds false stories to the press and the Iraq war was cited as a perfect example of how the trust between PR and journalists has become abused, alleged Davies. Greenslade continued the criticisms of the PR industry describing those that work in it as “people who earn money by being between us [journalists] and the truth”.
Lord Tim Bell argued that it was questionable whether journalists had integrity in the first place – the reporting of the McCann’s was highlighted – and admitted freely that his work had his clients’ interests front of mind. Both Lord Bell and Hall believed that it was not the responsibility of the PR if the integrity of journalist was undermined – most of the problems of the press could be blamed on low prices and the pithy investment by those that own the press. Their clients are also entitled to be protected from the press and information withheld, said Lord Bell – why should they have to air their dirty laundry just because the media thinks it would make a good story?
The debate was very lively and all speakers came off well, particularly the stoical Phil Hall. The one thing both sides agreed on was that the media was broken, but disagreed on whose fault or responsibility it was.
When the votes were counted 59 were for the motion compared to 164 against. Is the growth of PR threatening the integrity of the press? It was quite clear that those who attended the event didn’t think so.
Labels: after work, journalist, media, PR
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Comments:
I'm a PR but am passionate about the media, so hopefully I can see this from both sides of the fence.
There's a lot of cr*p PR people, but sadly a lot of cr*p journalists as well. Both sides are heavily influenced by the ideological or commercial bias of their employer. However....
a) There are too many media outlets who are competing to be heard by screaming at us every day, often by taking a deliberately partial view of a story, which is ruining debate in this country, especially in the areas of politics and football, which drive the front and back of the papers.
b) Newspaper resources are getting thinner, so journalists have less time to get to know stories, produce genuinely investigative reports arther than re-writing dodgy research based press releases.
c) Decline in the number of specialist correspondents, which is again bad for politics as health, education, industrial relations, foreign affairs etc are all dealt with by the lobby. They are reliant on being spoon-fed by politicians and overly focused on personality.
The only way we'll move forward, though, is to admit errors on both sides rather than clinging to the cariacture of journalists being fearless defenders of truth and PR's being svengalis.
There's a lot of cr*p PR people, but sadly a lot of cr*p journalists as well. Both sides are heavily influenced by the ideological or commercial bias of their employer. However....
a) There are too many media outlets who are competing to be heard by screaming at us every day, often by taking a deliberately partial view of a story, which is ruining debate in this country, especially in the areas of politics and football, which drive the front and back of the papers.
b) Newspaper resources are getting thinner, so journalists have less time to get to know stories, produce genuinely investigative reports arther than re-writing dodgy research based press releases.
c) Decline in the number of specialist correspondents, which is again bad for politics as health, education, industrial relations, foreign affairs etc are all dealt with by the lobby. They are reliant on being spoon-fed by politicians and overly focused on personality.
The only way we'll move forward, though, is to admit errors on both sides rather than clinging to the cariacture of journalists being fearless defenders of truth and PR's being svengalis.
Thanks for the comment Mark and completely agree. Nothing really to add to that. I was tempted to ask how blogs and citizen journalism came into all of this but didn't get a chance.
Anyone want to have a crack at that?
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Anyone want to have a crack at that?
