8.17.2008

in defense of public relations.

In what is a fairly common occurrence, the blogosphere hates PR this week.

This is going to come off defensive, as PR is what I do for a living, but I feel like two things need to be brought to light.

My mother is a teacher, and her and I have a fairly regular argument regarding the children she works with.  She consistently argues that the internet has ruined research skills in the generation of kids she currently works with.  I argue that the failure isn’t based on the internet, it’s a failure to teach children research skills that relate to the research tools that are relevant to them.

This came to mind when I was reading about the Cuil fiasco, and chuckled when people blamed overzealous PR, etc, for the fact the bloggers, print media, and television collectively went crazy over an experience that is more or less completely underwhelming.

If the situation has changed, and you’re having trouble delivering results, blaming someone else isn’t the solution to the problem.  If you work in a journalistic capacity, you are supposed to be the gatekeepers.  If you can’t fulfill that role, you probably shouldn’t be blaming someone for providing information that led you in the wrong direction.  Update your skill set, so you can judge what is worth covering, and how to cover it.

That said, there’s no excuse for PR reps that out and out lie.  No one, especially not the clients, is helped by that.

The other thing I’ve noticed, despite everyone complaining about PR, is that traditional media journalists complain about PR the way I complain about taxes.  I hate paying them, but I recognize they serve an important purpose.  That said, I get irritated when my taxes are wasted, or used against my own beliefs.

More often than not, it seems like bloggers complain about PR the way a 15 year old complains about curfew - they have something resembling the point, but they irritatingly ignore every positive aspect, and would rather throw the entire industry out with the bath-water than learn to work with the practitioners who get it, and the aspects which are positive.

PR has an image problem.  A serious one.  That’s something I look forward to working against.  Pretending PR has become irrelevant, however, because there is an ever larger number of unofficial information sources to parse, makes no sense whatsoever.

Signal is noise, because anyone with an opinion can publish.  Crafting valid, relevant signals, as getting them in front of the right people, is what I do.  Done well, that’s inarguably valuable.  But only done well, and with an understanding of how the game is changing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

in journalism's defence (and in sideways, tempered praise for PR), some days are so dry for news you thank the gord for press releases -- and then of course sometimes you find brilliant stories angling off of press releases.

that said, i can't count the number of times PR has ruined a potentially good story when people knee-jerk refer all interview requests to their prepared (and entirely unhelpful, shallow) PR material. it's a crutch for journalism.

jon crowley said...

I see what you're saying, and I can guarantee it would piss me off, too. But at the same time, deferring everything to only the PR material is really terrible PR. If you were getting sent to actual PR humans, who were being closed, I could make an argument that they were defending the clients interests. Deferring to prepared material, though, is either lazy, or a statement that they don't want to deal with you.

Anonymous said...

I really like your analogies, though people won't be able to get beyond the "you're not paid to like it, you're paid to sell it" ethic that any marketer has to adhere to from time to time. Which, as you inferred, anyone who gets paid to do what they're doing is to blame.

... but what more do you want? Hollywood already dedicated the movie Hancock to you PR types and I'm already won over.

jon crowley said...

to be fair, if Jason Bateman is my representative, I can't complain.

But I didn't end up seeing Hancock, because I read the leaked ending on a blog and wasn't impressed.

I don't think that being paid to do something precludes doing it well, or doing it 'ethically'. Then again, I'm still an idealist.