An Inconvenient PR Truth or an Inconvenient Solution?
PRWeek UK reported on a campaign recently launched by Realwire chief executive Adam Parker and supported by Borkowski founder Mark Borkwoski, Speed Communications MD Stephen Waddington and Umpf founder Adrian Johnson. The campaign is designed to reduce the copious amounts of “spam,” or untargeted email pitches and press releases, sent to reporters by public relations practitioners. Offered up are a “Bill of Rights,” proposing such things as enabling reporters to pre-approve content being sent to them or mandating that PR pros read all publications first. In theory, this should help foster give and take relationships with the press and remove a lot of the negative stigma associated with our industry. In concept the idea is valid and the idea are great, but is it really realistic to believe this is an executable program?
The Inconvenient PR Truth campaign focuses on the belief that media relations should be rooted in relationships and targeted, appropriate outreach. While completely true, this isn’t a groundbreaking revelation. PR people and journalists have been promoting this type of interaction for decades. Hopefully PR people who continue to toss spam at reporters will seal their own fates. As an industry, we can and should promote and demand positive media relations habits and work hard to educate our peers on the long term benefits of knowing how and when to pitch a story. My question; however, is whether or not putting a Bill of Rights in writing is continuing to throw our industry under the bus. Do we continue to promote the bad seeds, fueling the sour taste for PR, rather than showcase the successes we drive on a daily basis? Who becomes the PR police in enforcing these rules? Is this really executable? I’d love to hear from PR people and journalists on their thoughts in the comments below.
And of course, there’s always the flip side of journalists and bloggers that break agreed publication curfews; bastardized quotes; and not always updating a negative piece with a correction if proven wrong.
There does need to be a more integrated approach to a solution on all sides; but creating a “mandate” seems to be counter-productive. All it’s doing is tarring everyone with the same brush. And if you treat the good and the great the same as the bad schoolkids, you’ll lose access to their classrooms.
Hi Rachel
Firstly thanks for discussing the campaign. As you say the principles espoused are hardly groundbreaking and as Danny says there is more than one side to a story but as a group it seems that this debate only happens in reaction to criticism from recipients.
I take your point that good practitioners will be trying to address the areas indicated in our “rights” anyway, but given the concerning level of irrelevance still indicated by the research our question was “Is this enough?” Our concern is if we don’t address this one way or another is it reducing the industry’s ability as a whole to add the value it can with the interesting stories that it does create potentially getting lost, ignored or blocked. Like pollution if one pollutes we all suffer.
With regards to the issue of “rights” we were also trying to highlight (based on posts written over recent years by bloggers) that as the PR community increasingly engages with people who blog in a personal capacity that arguably higher standards are required. Don’t individuals have rights?
As you say though lists of rights may well be unworkable. Our point is that we believe these things have been demanded by journalists and/or bloggers over recent years based on what some have said.
But we don’t claim to have all the answers despite how it may appear. We used what some have termed controversial language and content to start this debate precisely because we doubted that it would start otherwise. And yet the fact that we are having this conversation and the significant amount of comment that has already happened in such a short time is evidence that those who care about public relations like you and us would like to address this issue if possible
In the UK there have already been many constructive suggestions about how this debate could be taken forward and the only things that seem to be a barrier to that for some are the lack of independent leadership and the language used to date. It is for this reason that we posted on Friday that we would start over on the language and structure of the campaign, or better still hand over leadership to someone else e.g. our CIPR or PRCA, rather than limit the conversation in any way.
Whether anyone in the US sees value in this debate will be interesting to see.
Thanks again.
Adam
Whenever I read about a new law, I wonder whether the law is the answer (let alone enforceable) or if education and emulation is preferable.
Hey Rachel,
The spirit of your post is right on, with the exception that guidance over regulation represents the evolution in field.
Spamming journalists is not the answer, but as long as journalists pick spam stories over selective pitches, I suspect we’ll continue to see companies support public relations practitioners who offer more exposure avec less outcomes. How do we change it?
Chances are, short of sharing spam stories, I suspect we’ll see spam continue to rise as more people become publishers. Only when readers start to reject unvetted news in favor of objective reporting will we see more self-restraint. Of course, that will not prevent me teaching students a better way to approach public relations.
All my best,
Rich
Rachel,
A journalist Bill of Rights seems to raise the same issues as any PR professional ethics code. As you mention, policing and enforcement of proper behavior within the PR profession is difficult at best.
In one of my PR writing seminars, our professor had us take on the topic: should PR professionals be licensed? We had to write two op-eds, one supporting each viewpoint. Do you think licensing PR professionals (similar to doctors and lawyers) would benefit or hurt the industry?
What do you think of Chris Anderson’s famous blog post “Sorry PR people: you’re blocked?” Was his posting of spammer’s email addresses well deserved? (There were many people on the list from reputable PR firms.)
The best way I’ve heard the relationship between PR professionals and journalists described is: friendly adversaries. Fraser P. Seitel, another professor of mine, said we (PR folks and journalists) are like two ships passing in the night, though every so often our paths (interests) do align.
I’m new to PR and hardly an expert, but it seems very difficult to codify, let alone enforce any standard of behavior in such a wide and varied profession like PR. Like you say, bad PR practitioners will hopefully seal their own fate. Ending up in a blog post like Chris Anderson’s may make people think twice–though I doubt it.