« Berlin, A Crucible for Europe | Main | Some Stereotypes Die Hard »
January 11, 2006
The Slippery Slope
Two articles in the past week indicate a possible trap for the PR business as we consider the opportunity to respond to or even circumvent "traditional" media by going right to audiences through the Internet.
Story #1 was about the football team in Washington, the Redskins. In a story on Jan. 4 titled "Redskins Try to Become the Messenger", Lorne Manly in the NY Times says that the Redskins' PR department informed the news media that one of its coaches did not want to do interviews before a game with Tampa Bay. But later that day, Williams was interviewed on Redskins.comTV, "which streamed it live on the team's web site...journalists who deal with and observe the Redskins see Tuesday's events as a piece of a media strategy that seeks to control the message and harness technology to speak directly to the fans, while freezing out or even publicly chastising news organizations they believe have strayed from fair reporting."
Story #2 was also in the NY Times, by Katharine Seelye, titled "Answering Back to the News Media, Using the Internet". The reporter says that "Unhappy subjects (of stories) discovered a decade ago that they could use their Web sites to correct the record or deconstruct articles to expose what they perceived as a journalist's bias or wrongheaded narration. But now they are going a step further. Subjects of newspaper articles and news broadcasts now fight back with the same methods reporters use to generate articles and broadcasts, taping interviews, gathering email exchanges, taking notes on phone conversations and publish them on their own Web sites." PR people are quoted as saying that posting raw material is "another tool in the tool chest" or "you'll certainly want to get something out that's Google-able."
I wanted your view on the responsibilities of PR, and to make a few points:
One, because we can does not mean we should. While the technology exists to go direct to the end user of information does not mean it is smart to make it the exclusive means of news dissemination. The Redskins are engaging in excessive control of the message. Team owner Dan Snyder is quoted as saying, "the world is changing. Let's be more modern thinking. Let's give them more of an a la carte menu of information so they can get what they want." Talking to the traditional media is also part of what fans deserve. If the key paper in town is the Washington Post, then the team must talk to the beat reporter. There is a dialectic between control and credibility. There is higher degree of trust in unfiltered content than in pre-packaged messages. There needs to be some opportunity for critical observers, whether reporters or bloggers, to ask questions of those in charge, whether in government, business or sports. If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Second, let the facts speak for themselves. Post the raw material in the spirit of the Web. Let everybody see the full interview copy. They can draw their own conclusions.
Third, allow a discussion rather than unleashing overheated oratory sure to turn off the reader. The communications director of the Redskins is quoted on the team's web site Redskins.com, "The Washington Post, apparently more interested in stirring false controversy where there is none than in reporting fact..." This ad hominid attack is just not smart. Correct the record where necessary, avoid the body slams.
Jay Rosen, professor at New York University and blogger extraordinaire, said it well in his NY Times interview. "In this world, the audience and sources are publishers...and producers too. The interview lies midpoint between us." But to really respect the consumer as co-creator, teams, companies and governments must provide both the unmediated view (the raw material) and opportunity for a mediated view through the lens of the journalist.
Technorati Tags:
pr, public relations, edelman
Posted by Edelman at January 11, 2006 11:05 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.edelman.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/57
Comments
Richard,
You are right on target. I believe that fundamental to the decision to bypass traditional media is a distrust in the ability of publics to see bias and distortion in communication. These practitioners think that people in fact will believe everything they see and hear. They believe in a hypodermic model of media effects.
If you treat publics as reasonably intelligent adults, who when they are interested will pay attention to multiple messages, then there is little to fear from a "biased" media. The keys to eing effective in such conditions have already been discussed: transparency in action and decsion making, and dialogue- availability to openly address questions and issues.
Abraham Lincoln was right. You can fool some of the people all of the time. And you can fool all of the people some of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Posted by: Vince Hazleton at January 11, 2006 12:21 PM
I don't think I agree with the last point that corporate PR counsel to our executives should be to provide "unmediated" material to the consumer because journalism is not practices today. PR pros must compensate for the unbalanced perspectives that show up in the work of today's journalist. It think your view was true in our past. But, it is no longer the smartest thing to let the consumer take the "raw material" and let them balance that with how journalist will position the information. The outcome is something farther from an appropirate consideration of the information than if PR pros conditioned the information before releasing it.
Posted by: Dan at January 13, 2006 2:49 PM
DG ok I generally buy into your argument on raw material. But if there are transcripts of discussions or other such supporting data, this should be made available to consumers.
Posted by: Richard Edelman at January 17, 2006 4:37 PM
Interesting point on self selection of audiences. I am concerned about it--there is less a town square effect from network TV than a echo chamber of watching and reading only what is reflective of your own ideology.
Posted by: Richard Edelman at January 17, 2006 4:38 PM
I think your post is a valuable one, and I applaud the fact that you make the difference between "can" and "should" do.
I think that if "Redskins TV" wants to exist, it should not provide 'exclusives' and shut mainstream media out; it needs to think of this as an "and", not an "or".
The concept of disintermediation is a wonderful thing. But getting directly to consumers isn't the only thing we should do; we should also value the fact that even if the media sometimes get things wrong, they sometimes shed new light on subjects and provide new perspectives that we 'insiders' wouldn't have seen.
Posted by: Bob LeDrew at February 10, 2006 3:45 PM