Journalists Perceptions of PR

Often when I talk to my friends studying journalism, they perceive public relations negatively. They think it unethical ,saying journalists should be wary of public relations people when using their information. They also think that public relation practitioners are failed journalists or journalists who wanted an easier job. In fact they don’t respect PR as a profession, and believe that news produced by PR sources is usually in the interest of their clients, because public relations practitioners try to achieve their own objectives in order to enhance the reputation of their organisations. They focus a lot on the issues which are in the interest of the organisation, and this denies journalists information that will enable them to be critical and independent.

Similarly professional journalists view PR in a more negative way, Luke Johnson of the Daily Telegraph calls PR practitioners ‘‘those horrible manipulative PR people who soil the common man's newspaper with their dirty underhand tricks.’’ He also says that ‘‘ with the expansion of the media industry, PR has moved out of the shadows and become a central part of the corporate world. Globalisation, advancing media technology and the rise of activist groups have all enhanced the status of PR.’’ These negative perceptions always create a distance between the two groups, and the two mutually dependent parties end up with a love-hate relationship. While journalists are being so negative and anti-PR, they still rely on the PR sources, and the need for this is growing because the demand for producing copy journalists is facing is an all-time high. The majority of journalists (56%) believe that these demands of their job have increased significantly over the last year, while 35% feel their demands have increased ‘somewhat’ www.workinpr.com.

The question is that whether the distance and relationship between journalists and PR is getting better or worse. Is PR really dominating the media? Moloney in his book Rethinking Public Relations (2000) analysis the situation and says, ‘‘this distance is shrinking over time. What is unsaid by media commentators is that journalists are complicit in the in-take of PR material. But how does that complicity come about in the face of journalistic hostility? Is dislike not enough to keep the two groups apart and stop any PR-isation’’. Moloney mentions two related explanations which explain the contradictory mixture of hostility and complicity. He says,‘‘ Journalists are too weak as a professional group to halt PR-isation. They are caught in markets in several ways, a structural process of marketisation is happening which is sucking in PR material to fill the space, and its labour market position is weak with too much supply for too few jobs. In this marketised environment, some journalists are hostile to PR but they are too few.’’ After all I am confident to say that in one way or another PR has dominated the media. Weblog.bastreau.com What we are witnessing in many ways is what is called the PR-isation of the media. The independence of journalists can be called into question as they become more dependent on PR sources, without this being made clear to their readers. This dependence mean that their ability to question and analyse is being challenged by public relations practitioners who wield real power.

‘‘Gatekeeper’’ shared role of media and PR

Reading James Grunig's book Managing Public Relations I found it very interesting to find him calling the media ‘gatekeeper’. As the media is playing the role of ‘ gatekeeper’ in controlling and disseminating information to the public, public relations also play the role of ‘ gatekeeper’ in controlling and giving information out to media.Anne Gregory FIPR President IPR Elect Journalists often complain that public relations people block their way for finding information, and they find it challenging to get access to what they want at the right time.

The word ‘gatekeeper’ from James Grunig's book is always reminding me of my recent job in my home country Afghanistan, where I worked for more than a year at the Public Relations and Communications Directorate of the Ministry of Counter Narcotics. Our office was dealing with all the press and communications issues. In general the press or public relations offices are in charge of all the communications issues within government ministries and organisations. All the press and communications inquiries are dealt with through the press office. Journalists can only get access to information or interviews through the press office. It is the authority and choice of the press office whether or not to give journalists their required information or time for an interview. Often the press office will ask the journalist for a copy of the question he/she is going to ask, and instruct them accordingly.

Hence, it is PR within governement offices playing the role of 'gatekeeper' in sharing information to the media. For the very reason journalists are dependent on public relations. They should refer to public relations people for the information they require. In the absence of a certain degree of cooperation from public relations people they will not be able to get accurate and comprehensive information. This increased dependence of the media on public relations makes a good example of PR-isation , and i assume it is a growing trend with the rapid expansion of the industry. .Aeron Davis (20020 in his book Public Relations Democracy, Public Relations Politics and the Mass Media in Britain, writes ‘‘ Public Relations Practitioners are becoming too powerful and, consequently, journalists are losing their conscience autonomy. PR power has manifested itself in several ways. First with the rise in media outlets, more journalists are likely to be competing to get the attention of prominent sources. As a result, top PRPs are finding themselves in the position of being able to control media access and /or exclude journalists altogether.This power to exclude journalists from, for instance, the briefings of the Prime Minister’s press secretary has been frequent cause of complaint for journalists operating it the lobby system at Westminster.’’ He also mentions the example of interviews with financial journalists who felt their access to key business people was increasingly restricted by PRPs.

Rise in Newspapers Contents

There is a noticeable increase in the media copy produced, which is not supplemented by an increase in the number of journalists. Less money is spent and more work is required. Indeed, doing more with less is a universal newsroom song. In reality, journalism is repeatedly cut and squeezed while the demand for media copy is rapidly growing. We see more newspapers with more contents but fewer journalists with limited resources. I believe that if this continues there will be more reliance of the media on the powerful and well resourced PR sector, and journalists will more likely be accepting material from PR sources which in a sense is the acceptance of PR's imporatance and credibility.

Aeron Davis in his book ‘Public Relations Democracy, Public Relations Politics and the Mass Media in Britain’ brings the example of British Journalism fallibilities. He says ‘‘ journalists must do more with less resources and, therefore, are increasingly reactive and less discerning in their activities. Under such a state of affairs, the weakened media industry, remains an easy prey for an increasingly powerful and predatory PR sector. He adds that, journalists are becoming out numbered and out-resourced by their PR counterparts.’’ He also mentions the example of the Times of London, which between 1984 and 1994 saw a 125-percent increase in the number of pages, but over roughly the same time period, only a 22- percent increase in the number of staff

While Davis assesses the British Media an easy prey for an increasingly powerful PR sector, Moloney is making an even more specific assessment of the situation. He thinks it may be time to abandon the idealised notion of the free press as the ‘‘Fourth state,’’ and acknowledge the unhappy reality of journalism as the ‘‘passive reworking of PR material.’’ He sees them as complicit in their own colonization. Only when journalists treat PR ‘‘ with scepticism, bordering on the hostility,’’ he believes, can regain their credibility and play a legitimate role in strengthening adversarial democracyTHE WALRUS MAGAZINE .

PR and Media dependence

There is certainly a great deal of dependence between the two parties, and it is deliberately not declared. According to Anne Gregory FIPR President Elect IPR, ‘‘ journalists and public relations people have always had an ambivalent relationship. Simply put, there is mutual dependence, but also mutual caution and that doesn’t lead to a trusting atmosphere.’’ I support the fact that as the media becomes more dependent on PR it always creates concerns for the journalists, which they assume is a threat to their freedom and integrity. Although journalists use the material produced by public relations, still for many years, there has been an anti-PR voice from both media and the journalists that deliberately denied the role of public relations. Journalists blame public relations practitioners for sending them press releases, features, and news artiles that have no news value and lack professionalism. For example The Guardian (quoted in Farish 1998), and called public relations ‘the latrine of parasitic information’.

Public relations people on the other hand feel that the press always treats them with suspicion. Public relations staff try their best to provide full information and background facts to represent their organisation’s issue as transparently as they see them. However, they are most surprisingly disappointed when they see their copy appearing in the media to twisted from what they said and their openness has been used against them. Moloney in his book Rethinking Public Relations quotes ‘‘Godfrey Hodgson’’ of The Observer as saying that journalists have a mixed attitude towards PRs and that part of their dislike is ‘snobbish’. To avoid this clash I believe there is a need for an open dialogue rather than a cold war of blaming each other and not accepting the importance of their individual roles. Things are more likely to become promising and much more workable if the two parties publicly admit the importance of PR for journalism and journalism for PR. Thus, we will have an independent, transparent media with PR supporting public issues.

PR’s rapid growth is dominating the Media

Recently the PR industry has grown tremendously in all its departments. Surveys indicate an average growth of 17 % of the industry per year. Not only is public relations a growing and popular industry, but organisations are increasingly acknowledging that a communications professional is a necessary appointment and that organised internal and external communications is a vital ingredient in management. With the growth of the industry, it has dominated the media and more columns of newspapers are covered with PR generated stories today. Statistics show that almost 80% of the business news that appears in the media is PR-generated. Similarly, over fifty percent of the general news comes from the PR sources and there are more people in public relations than in advertising. I support and agree with the facts that such growth of the industry has created the culture of PR-isation; the mentioned facts and figures show that the media is being PR-ised; and that journalists have become more dependent on Public relations. The trend of journalists dependence on PR is increasing as the industry is expanding.