The Ethical Optimist

ARGH! I have to vent a bit today. Bear with me. For two weeks now, we’ve been working a number of large media projects and pitching some of the majors. As many of you know, we’ve gotten a number of comments along the lines of, “I can’t deal with that now, I’ve got to line up my convention coverage.”

Leading me to believe (I still have my blond moments), that they were working on some serious news stories. Ha! Right up there today with convention coverage, was a male model from the 1970’s touting his tell all book. Yeah, too busy for soft news this week? I don’t think so.

Then, I almost lost my mind when they spent a good 10 minutes on what Michelle Obama will be wearing. Geeze, no wonder we can’t get a woman in the White House! Here is a woman with an amazing education and career behind her, who is about to give a major address to the nation…but let’s not worry about content folks, let’s spend part of your morning with a fashion expert to discuss whether or not she should wear a dress, a suit, pants, etc.

So THIS is what you’ve been working on for two weeks? This is why you have no time to speak to anyone?

You know, I’ve been seeing an inverse trend lately. Once the pariahs of the news biz, public relations people are working very hard to become more professional and to raise the bar for clients and their messages. We spend more time training our staff people, worrying about what’s credible and newsworthy, etc., and on the other side of the fence, we’re dealing with a media landscape that’s moved from information to infotainment, where research has become a dirty word, and content is no longer king.

As a woman in business, it’s also distressing to see how women continue to be portrayed in the media vs. their male counterparts. With more female producers, etc., I would think we’d have come a bit further. Apparently, I would be wrong.