The Ethical Optimist

A friend sent me a frightening statistic today. 

Layoffs in the media industry, which includes film and TV companies, amounted to 28,083 last year, the highest since 43,420 staffers were let go in 2001 following the bursting of the dot-com bubble.

It’s painful. One reporter at the Ledger told me, “We can’t even pretend anymore,” referring to their level of coverage.

According to another buddy of mine from NBC, they’re letting go of all the seasoned pros and hiring kids to save money.

On the public relations side, we see it everyday.  Just a few weeks ago, I called New York Magazine to see if they’d like to meet the incoming head of the U.S.O.  She responded, “I’ve never heard of the USO, what do they do?” 

Okay, I’m not exactly a dinosaur and we’ve got two wars going on right now…if you’re in the media business and you’ve never heard of the USO, that scares me a bit.

It’s more frightening if you consider the fact that media filters the information that flows to the consumer.  Let’s face it, it is far easier to manipulate a 21 year old with a journalism degree than a grizzled 50 year old who’s been there and done that sitting on the news desk. 

It’s another reason I’m so hell bent on promoting ethics in the public relations profession. If we’re not delivering accurate, transparent info, we’re part of the misinformation chain.  That chain is growing ever stronger with the lack of experience on the filtering side.

This has a direct influence on the type of info the public receives and how they frame their opinions as a result.

I can’t help but wonder where it will all lead, but it’s not looking good.

If you walk into the offices of Utopia, you’ll likely meet our two mascots, Peanut Butter and Frank. I’m a big dog fan, and I love having them around. Our staff loves the fact that they stop by each desk in the morning to say hello and offer themselves up for a quick cuddle between projects during the day. They are our instant “stress relievers.”

Like the Obama family, our choice was made due to allergies. I have a son that is asthmatic and our vet recommended the breed. They’re well mannered, loyal and very smart. So, my vote for the new Presidential Pooch is clearly for the Standard Poodle.

Ann & Elliott Pick Frank Up from Poodle Rescue & Introduce Him to Peanut

While the news about the Presidential Pooch is a bit of fluff, it’s helping to bring the story of breed rescue organizations into the media spotlight. This is the type of story that is often a very tough sell, but will run when it fits into the news cycle as it does now. So, fluff or not, I’m delighted by the coverage and hope more folks will be encouraged to adopt from rescue programs and shelters.

Lest you think the Ethical Optimist would buy a Standard Poodle and ignore the plight of these rescue animals, you should note that we got our buddy Frank from Poodle Rescue via a wonderful organization called Flora’s Pet Project in Connecticut.

Our shop tends to be a heavy media relations shop. I’m not sure why we’ve come to fill this niche, but we have. In addition to our own clients, we’re often tapped by other, larger agencies, to handle national media outreach for their clients.

As much as we like to talk about our profession in all encompassing terms, the measure of many a program is results. Clients have a clear expectation: “Did you get my message out there?”

In fact, I’m seeing a distinct trend in more and more large agencies outsourcing the media relations function. Why? First and foremost, they need results or they’ll lose their accounts. Well, from what I can see, many of the younger people coming out of college with a PR degree were never told that speaking to media would be part of the job.

Are we so ashamed of this necessary function that we’ve decided to ignore it altogether? We’ve tried so hard to elevate our profession and put a disclaimer on press agentry, that the schools who feed us our workers now chose to brush it aside.

In fact, several young folks I’ve hired recently told me they did not have a single course in school regarding how to work with the media. They were taught how to communicate (in theory), and they were taught how to write a press release…period.

Ah, hello out there, didn’t anyone tell them that writing a release is only half the battle…you actually have to place the information somewhere? In my world, that usually requires a phone call, email, follow up, another phone call, another email, more follow up, etc.

In reality, some of my better media people have a sales background. I’m not as focused at choosing those with a PR degree anymore. Those who’ve done time in the sales trenches don’t flinch when it comes to picking up the phone and selling a message. The downside is that they may not have the “news” background they need to understand which messages will play well.

I see this becoming even more of an issue as the media fragments, downsizes, and original source reporting becomes a thing of the past. How can we counsel clients on developing messages and getting them out to their audiences if we don’t work with and understand the changing dynamics of today’s complex media landscape?

The PR academic community needs to do a better job of preparing students for the challenging job market they are about to face. These young people (and their parents) are paying a great deal of money to learn how to write a press release, but few are being prepared to handle the complexities of the job.

I read a great story that appeared in Editor & Publisher titled, “Ethical Warning Issued on Healthcare Coverage.”

What struck me most was the following quote:

“The ethics codes of the Association of Health Care Journalists [AHCJ] and the Society of Professional Journalists [SPJ] call for fair and accurate reporting and editorial independence. But editorial cutbacks, along with pressure on hospitals to market profitable services, may be eroding these standards.”

As many of you know, I’ve blogged on the ethical dilemmas created by shrinking newsrooms many times. As newsrooms continue to cut staff, someone will still need to provide content, and that someone is most likely a PR person or department. Newspapers are doing what many other companies are doing: outsourcing.

The problem, according to the AHCJ is that,

“In several recently reported cases, local hospitals have exerted editorial control by supplying pre-packaged stories and other content to news organizations. In some but not all cases, hospitals paid for this special influence.

“Earlier this year, a Maryland newspaper sold its weekly health page to a local hospital and put the hospital in charge of providing content,” the notice said, but did not name the newspaper. “The arrangement was halted amid community protest after just one published issue. Broadcast examples include airing of hospital-produced segments with hazy branding or no branding at all, leading viewers to believe the local station reported the story. In some cases, the hospital-created material is even transmitted to a station through an affiliated news network.”

What they don’t tell us is whether or not the health page was marked as “advertorial”. I tend to think it might have been, or why would readers complain? They’d have no way of knowing the content wasn’t generated by the paper.

On another note, the AHCJ and SPJ cited a list of news guidelines, one of which was:

News organizations should not run prepackaged stories produced by hospitals unless they are clearly and continuously labeled as advertisements.

I’m not sure I agree with this. I’ll tell you why. I do agree that the source of the content must be disclosed, but if the information is informative in nature, for example a doctor writing a piece on the early warning signs of heart disease, it shouldn’t be considered advertising. If, however, the article is about a new piece of equipment that only that hospital has, it would be a different scenario.

There is no reason why newspapers can’t outsource content to local experts, as long as they clearly disclose it. More importantly, the editors must ensure that the content is helpful to the reader and similar to what a beat reporter might cover.

This goes back to a point I’ve made many times in the past. As news organizations continue to downsize, hospitals and other organizations are going to become their own newsrooms, supplying needed content to those news outlets. Subsequently, as the gatekeepers of this information, PR professionals need to hold their organizations to the highest ethical standards to ensure that the information they provide is both newsworthy and accurate.