Public relations and lobbying industry

an overview
By Corporate Watch UK
Completed April 2003
5.0 PR and the Media
5.1 Planting Stories
5.2 Building Relationships
5.3 Stopping the Press
5.4 Dumbing down the media

5.5 PR on the Internet

"News is what someone does not want you to print - the rest is advertising,"
Randolph Hearst
The relationship between the news media and the PR industry is a complex and increasingly
symbiotic one. The media is the central vehicle for much of the PR industry's messages. PR
practitioners want to place their stories in the news or other publications and programmes.
Without being able to do this, PR would lose one of its main avenues for communication with
the public.
The media in turn has become more dependent on PR to supply content to fill air time or
column inches. Whilst newspapers have been steadily shedding staff over the last couple of
decades they have simultaneously managed to produce ever thicker publications, and the ever
growing ranks of PR are happy to help fill the pages.
The power of the big agencies and spin doctor goes beyond this however. As the primary
point of contact between businesses and the media, PR people can control access to
information which journalists want. This gives them tremendous leverage in negotiating with
journalists, as they are in a position to refuse information. Magazine editor, Mark Dowie,
comments "even the most energetic reporters know that they have to be somewhat deferential
in the presence of a powerful publicist. No one on a national beat can afford to get on the
wrong side of a Frank Mackiewicz or a Harold Burson, knowing that their firms [Hill &
nowlton and Burson-Marsteller] together represent a third of the most quotable sources in the
country."[70]
5.1 Planting Stories
Press Releases
One of the primary tools for supplying content to the media is the press release. This was
invented as a PR tool by Ivy Lee [see section 1.3]. Ideally the press release will provide a
publishable article that a over-worked (or lazy) journalist can publish with minimal effort.
Anyone with much experience of press searching will have noticed how the same article can
appear in several different publications under different names, with only minute changes.
Newspapers acquire such content from press agencies such as Reuters or the Press
Association which employ their own journalists, as well as from PR agencies and some
intermediate services such as PR Newswire.
The Press Association
The largest supplier of content to the UK press is the Press Association. The Press
Association, formed in 1868 by a group of newspaper publishers, supplies content to every
national and regional daily newspaper, to major broadcasters, online publishers and to a wide
range of commercial organisations[71]. Customers subscribe to its news and features lists
from which they can take stories to print or broadcast.
Much of the Press Associations content is produced by its network of journalists and
photographers, and the PA is proud of its reputation for impartiality. However the Press
Association's independence is compromised by its relationship with the PR industry.
One of the PA's 27 shareholders is United Business Media, owners of PR Newswire, and
other corporate communications companies. In addition the Press Association now offers
services to PR agencies[72], "PA’s unique position at the centreservices to PR agencies[72],
"PA’s unique osition at the centre of the media industry in the UK enables us to provide
support for many PR and marketing campaigns". Space on PA's newswire service is sold in
bulk, to other more commmercial newswires and PR agencies[73]. PR agencies gain an extra
level of anonymity by having their content supplied by the prestigious Press Association.
Video and Audio News Releases More recent developments include the video news release
(VNR) and the audio news release (ANR) for TV and radio news respectively. These are pre-
edited video or audio news stories sent to broadcast news stations in just the same way that
press releases are sent to the print media. VNRs have become quite ubiquitous on US
television news[74] particularly on the smaller TV stations which lack the resources to fill
airtime with quality news.
In the UK, VNRs have not reached the same penetration into newsrooms but they are gaining
ground. The main national news channels are far more assiduous in applying editorial control
than their American counterparts. According to VNR producer, Grapevine Communications,
" VNRs so far have been most successful with local ITV newsrooms and with satellite and
cable broadcasters; BBC is not in favour, and both BBC and ITN take a fully-independent
editorial line."
VNRs still wield influence however. Medialink, the market leader in VNR and ANR
production, claims to have placed stories on BBC News programs[75]. The BBC was unable
to comment on how often VNRs and ANRs are used[76] In response to inquiries, ITN denied
using any VNRs[77]. When presented with evidence suggesting that they had used VNRs,
ITN declined to comment.
5.2 Building Relationships
Many journalists have a distrustful attitude to PR. They need to have a wariness of
professional story-pitchers. In order to overcome this barrier, the PR agencies aim to build
ongoing relationships with journalists and media sources. The more and better relationships
they can build, the more influence they can exert on the media.
The nature of the relationship is worth probing if we are to understand the modern media/PR
system. Neil Macdonald, editor of 'Business Monthly', the newsletter of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, provides some rare insight into the relationship. He tells of
how, in the summer of 2002, he was
approached by a number of PR practitioners asking him to provide some advance coverage of
the IPRA conference, which was to take place in Cairo that year[78]. Despite feeling
"uneasy" with accepting a story from PR people, he ultimately concluded that he "couldn’t
afford to create a bad relationship with PR agencies" and assigned a freelancer "who I figured
could take the fall if the individuals being written about didn’t like what they read".
"Most journalists will have taken the PR shilling at some point in their career… Most of the
time it is a traightforward love-hate relationship," observes Nic Paton, writing in the Media
Guardian, "To the journalist, the PR is a necessary evil. And the PR is willing to suffer all
that talk about integrity and independence as long as it gets the client those valuable column
inches."[79] A recent report by the International Public Relations Society into 'unethical
media practices' concluded that 'cash for editorial' practices are widespread around the
world[80], especially in central and southern Europe and Latin America, in both print
ancentral and southern Europe and Latin America, in both print and broadcast media.
Although the bribing of journalists and or editors to run certain stories is held to be quite rare
in Western Europe and North America (the PR industry's own PR continually stresses its
strict adherence to honesty and integrity) some questionable traditions have developed. One
relationship-building practice is known as 'selling in'. Journalists are employed as freelancers
by a PR agency to write up stories on behalf of a client and to then
sell them on to the press. The newspaper then never knows that it is carrying PR and the
practice saves a lot of effort for the PR agency[81]. Admitting to 'selling in' is not good for a
journalist's reputation and is rarely discussed, so it is virtually impossible to determine how
widespread this tactic has become. In spite of qualms of conscience, many journalists end up
taking fees from both the PR agency and the publisher. Like many journalists, Wall Street
Journal reporter, Dean Rotbart went on to work for the PR industry. He set up a company
TJFR Group to provide intelligence and background information on journalists for PR
agencies. "The exclusive subscriber site contains stories, bios, columns, photos and streaming
video that are useful to those dealing with and who have an interest in the business media."
Such information is doubtless invaluable for
media manipulation, enabling them to match the stories they want to place with the
journalists most likely to be sympathetic. Rotbart's client list includes the biggest PR
companies in the world and some of the largest corporations from every industry
sector[82].Back to top
5.3 Stopping the Press
In addition to planting stories in the press, PR agencies may also need to prevent stories from
getting published. Naturally the PR industry has developed a number of ways of doing this.
There is always the threat of legal action as a last resort but this may endanger a carefully
cultivated relationship with a journalist or media source, so PR pros prefer more subtle
methods first. However, "arm-twisting is used all the time," writes New York Post columnist,
John Crudele in O'Dwyer's[83]. A PR department may threaten not to cooperate with an
unfriendly journalist, but that is a tactic which may backfire by further arousing the
journalist's suspicions. One tactic is for the PR practitioner to contend that a story is old
news, at the very
least this should plant a seed of doubt in a journalist's mind. Convincing the journalist's editor
may be more useful in stopping the story. Another more
effective option is to feed the journalist a more interesting story. By the time he has finished
with that, the first story may well be old news.
Mark Hollingsworth writes of Sir Tim Bell (of Bell Pottinger), "Bell… is a dealer in
information. He establishes close relationships with journalists and editors as a way of
ensuring that his client's message is conveyed to his liking. He is Mephistopheles to the
reporter's Faust. Favours are offered and received: if the story about the client is spiked, the
journalist is handed an even better exclusive about someone else. If the article is published,
future cooperation is withdrawn."[84]
PR people may go to far greater extremes than this to censor public debate, however. When
David Steinman's book, "Diet for a Poisoned Planet" threatened to bring revelations of
pesticide and chemical contamination on raisins
(amongst other poisons and foodstuffs) to the public's attention, the California Raisin
Advisory Board hired PR company, Ketchum, to conduct damage
control. Ketchum obtained details of the book tour and TV and radio appearances that
Steinman had planned. They called each media outlet and
hassled them to drop the interview or to allow an industry spokesman on the show to present
a balanced case. Through the American Council on Science and Health, an industry front
group and client of Ketchum, they lobbied the US government to work against the book. Dr
William Marcus, a senior science advisor for the Environmental Protection Agency, who had
written the book's foreword was pressured to withdraw it. He refused and was later fired from
the EPA[85].
5.4 Dumbing down the media
One of the most alarming effects of the burgeoning PR industry's relationship with the media,
is that it leads to a steady dumbing down of most news outlets. Today the media is dominated
by big corporations. Few newspapers in Britain or America are not owned by a media
corporation. And as the press has become more corporate so its emphasis has shifted from
traditional news values - investigation and reporting - to market driven values - profitability,
and maximising readership. Noam Chomsky suggests that the most important value for the
modern press is to deliver audiences for their advertisers[86], who supply the bulk of
revenue. Fewer journalists are employed and less and less time is available for investigation.
Instead content is supplied ever more directly from the press release. Investigative journalism
becomes rarer and is supplanted by source journalism. In this environment the PR companies
have become a necessary crutch for the media, but not one that the media is keen to
investigate and expose to the public, "like an alcoholic who can't believe he has a drinking
problem, members of the press are too close to their own addiction to PR to realise there is
anything wrong."[87]
5.5 PR on the Internet
The PR has not been quick in recognising the importance of the internet, but it is beginnning
to develop strategies for dealing with the new medium. Some of the key practices with which
PR agencies aim to tackle the internet include, monitoring and intelligence of relevant
internet sites and communications, and through 'viral marketing'.[88] The Bivings Group is a
PR company that specialises in internet PR. Working out of offices in Washington D.C.,
Brussels and Tokyo, Bivings conducts its PR services for clients including Monsanto, Phillip
Morris, and BP[89]. In 2001, when Californian scientists published a report in Nature,
showing that Mexican maize had been contaminated by GM pollen that must have travelled
over huge distances, it was a potential disaster for the biotech industry. However the two
scientists were roundly and falsely condemned in their methods and political sympathies by
correspondents to a biotech listserver, and in the resulting scandal Nature published a
retraction of the article. Research revealed however that emails sent in by the two scientists'
detractors originated on Bivings Group's servers. Bivings denied all knowledge[90].