PR’s PR problem – all substance and no image

I think the real problems are going to start when the PRs outnumber the journalists.

There’s a classic adage – “the best PR is invisible.” And it’s true.

There is so much that PR people can’t tell journalists to protect client confidentiality and to ensure the client or company they work for gets the credit.

Seasoned PR’s have the ear of top management and can often be involved in redirecting entire company or product direction in certain areas. They are also deeply involved in customer and stakeholder relations – arguing the case for the “public” behind closed doors, ensuring that public sentiment is taken into account. This is all invisible to a journalist – why would anyone tell the media that it was a PR person who convinced an organisation to do an about face…

PR is the antithesis of journalism.

Getting those ‘Did you get my release?’ phone calls makes my skin crawl and guarantees no coverage unless ordered by the COS.

Well said Tim. Much of PRs problem stems for the “Communications and PR degrees’ that combine false expectations and poor skills.

well said and balanced, Tim, thank you

the PR industry can’t PR itself anywhere near as well as the ad industry because it’s obviously anathema to the average journo to admit the influence that a good PR source can have AND (as usually goes unsaid), the ad industry wields unspoken financial power in the form of directing funds to journo’s employer

working in a senior level across both industries, my observation is that good PRs are of the same calibre as the journos they serve (fact that they chose the higher-paying growth profession, aside), it’s just that the proportion of good to dud PRs is lower because journalism has a lower tolerance for duds because it’s a contracting industry

i totally echo your comments around ad agencies being essentially clueless about how to influence editorial, which is why savvy PR agencies are making a name in content marketing

ad agencies are just clueing on to the fact that it’s better to communicate what people want to hear/read/see than what your client wants to say

this two-way approach to comms strategy lies at the heart of PR and is also why media relations/PR/corporate affairs is the natural home of social media activities, the failures of which are often sheeted home to inability of the marketing department to not use social as a 1 way marcoms channel, but a conversation in which a company can learn something and potentially change itself in response to the prevailing community attitudes

As an arts publicist (books, theatre) and sport it certainly does help to know who you’re talking to, but not essential. You must know what you’re talking to a journalist about,. It’s also important to know when to quit the flog and leave the conversation with both parties feeling they’ve done the best they can. But there are an awful lot of contacts out there that don’t reply or answer calls or messages. As the media opportunities gets smaller the PRs will obviously find the competition more fierce and journalists will only answer those people with subjects that interest them at that time.

One of the problems here is that for many journalists their only contact with PR is people, often quite junior, pitching stories. Media relations is only one aspect of a very wide ranging profession, and one of the least strategic. To judge the whole industry by its media relations face is unhelpful, both to reporters and to PR as a whole.

Absolutely spot on about the junior’s having to make the calls. I would say this is a problem across the entire media/communications umbrella (if you will allow me to reference this site’s way of putting it) – if not a problem in almost every industry.

See, when you get contact from a junior person its breathing down the phone at you proof that most organisations are stupid. What does almost every organisation do? Make sure that it’s public face is an 18yo who hasn’t had time to know what they are doing. From the receptionist just about anywhere – to the customer complaints line, to the person who answers the number on your business card, to that PR kid calling out….

Almost everyone gets to a point in their career where they feel they have earned the right to not have to deal with people anymore. And so they hire some part-time uni-student to do that for them, typically some polite sort without the backbone to stick up for themselves. Forgetting of course that they have just downtrodden part-timer the most visible/audible public face of their organistation….bravo genius.

I’ve seen this not just with PR as well but NGO/Charities trying to get a story. I won’t name names but there were times a well meaning NGO would put out and interesting press-release. We’d call the contact person on the bottom of the page who was supposedly the “talent” to interview and get some quotes for the story. Inevitably the talent is not the wittiest, cleverest, most charismatic and well-informed person at the NGO – but rather the chump who got dumped with the job because no-one else wanted it.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. But definitely not limited to PR – and definitely something News organisations do themselves.

I’ll add that the fact PR is presented as the “Dark side of the force” in journalism degrees probably doesn’t help.

I’ve worked in PR agencies where I’ve been directed to make such “follow up” calls such as, “Did you get the press release?” and I have flat-out said to senior managers, “I’m not comfortable doing this. Everything I ever read from our journalists on the topic says these are the calls that irritate them the most.” I have then been instructed that people at my level aren’t hard to find and I should either make the calls, or consider my future at the agency. This has happened more than once and, at least on one occasion, led to a very poor third-month review which saw me leave the agency the month after. You see, while PR people are nice as pie to you, Tim, you have to keep in the back of your mind that they are still PR people and have made a profession of saying the right things to the right people at the right time. Behind closed doors, no matter how often their “public face” is saying that they’d never make follow up calls, their private face is a lot, lot, lot different.

With 20 years + in PR I make all the follow up calls myself as does each senior member here. It is part of the gig – done properly. It’s never ever a junior’s job. Our clients are too important and often issues are sensitive. This is where relationships are nurtured and developed. While not every journo has been thrilled to hear from me – I usually get a good hearing. I do my research, know what the journo writes about in general and in detail as i’ve read their copy and social media. Usually i’ve met them or worked with them in the past. I know what times and what days to call. Yes it’s time consuming – but more than often, journos will have a laugh with me if it’s not their cup of chai and direct me to someone else. But above all – this still one of the parts of the job I enjoy and has led some coffee meetings, some fun drinks and ……coverage. More #journo love

I’d say that PR’s reputation is held in higher and higher esteem by the marketing industry as it’s value is increasingly recognised by insightful decision makers in that space. That’s a really positive thing and a definite trend I’ve seen emerging on my frequent visits to Australia over the last 5 years. But I’m afraid that this will probably never be the case within the media. On the whole, journalists and PR people have a really good relationship – pointless and ignorant follow-up calls aside! But I’ve never expected the media to say too many nice things about the role of PR as, in a way, that could be construed as meaning that PR has too much of an influence on editorial output, which obviously the media does not want its readers/viewers/listeners to think. So, putting PR in its place every now and then is often the way to manage that. But even with this sporadic knocking down to size, I firmly believe now is PR’s time and events like CommsCon, which I’m really upset that I’m unable to make as I had planned to, go to show that.

Disclaimer – I work in PR

More than half of the follow-up calls I’ve made to journalists have resulted in coverage, because more often than not, the journalist has not actually seen the release. It’s been buried among their many many emails. I can understand that, as journalists are inundated by PR people pushing consumer products (let’s be honest, those PR guys are the annoying ones), but to generalise across the whole industry is a bit much.

In my 10+ years in marketing I’ve found PR professionals to be absolutely outstanding.

Every PR professional I’ve met has worked hard to foster relationships internally and externally. In addition they work hard to understand the industry and our products and services. Asking relevant questions etc.

As for creative agencies – well they’re mostly dreadful.

Hey Tim –
what’s with the incredibly bland, boring & generic photo library images rudely interrupting your fine prose?
They add absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, as long as there are all the so-called “social” publicists out there, going to parties, tweeting about their fluffy dog, posting reams of photos of themselves standing next to celebrities, and generally giving the more professional companies a bad name, then PR is going to have an image problem.

To those journalists like JD, who say they loathe the ‘did you get my release?’ phone call …

Did it never occur to you that a quick ‘thank but no thanks’ reply to the release would save us all the trouble?

One of my favourite media contacts has earned his place in my heart for just this reason – simply because he would always reply. Even it was a brief three-word response. Even if it was to say no!

Conversely, my personal PR horror story is of a well-known journalist who called me to lambast me for not inviting him to a key event. When I cautiously explained that I’d sent him three emails (and left him three voicemail messages), his response – I kid you not – was, ‘well, I can’t be expected to check my emails!’.

Just so you know what it’s like from the other side … and why it’s not unreasonable to worry you haven’t seen the release, when you haven’t told us otherwise ..

TDMJ

What TDMJ says is true. Journalists seem to think nothing is ever their fault. I’ve had a similar call from a journalist, whining about something that, in the weeks previous, I had tried multiple times to get them interested in to no avail. Yet, when they suddenly became interested in it, they were cranky as a bag of cats about how “slow” things were moving. Well, duh, if they’d paid attention the first three or four times, they would have had the information and the interview set up already…