George Orwell said it best: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." Even with the explosion of social media and the ever-changing landscape of traditional journalism in George Orwell's time, this definition still stands as clearest and most poignant one I've come across. When I read a newspaper or news website, I can't help thinking about "the source" of the news. It's especially interesting to pick up a copy of a small-town, local paper to really see the impact of public relations on the stories we are fed as news.
The front-page story in this week's local paper highlighted a boy that gave his life savings (of $100) to support a cancer organization. Worthy cause? Yes. Wonderful story? Yes. Worthy of front page news? Probably not.
If you have your own local business, do you ever ask yourself why Tony's pizza is featured with a nice article about Tony's Sicilian mother who immigrated to this country with nothing but $5 in her pocket (and her great aunt Sophie's pizza dough recipe), the dry cleaner that found and returned an heirloom watch to one of its customers, or the seemingly impressive new Math teacher at Woodbridge Academy?
Are these stories examples of journalism, or are they as George Orwell asserted, public relations? These stories are examples of public relations. Public relations often receives a bad rap with terms like "spinning" or even "creating" the news. As someone who as worked on both sides of the journalism-public relations fence, public relations does often deserve a bit of cynicism. Often I've sat around the table with clients or corporate executives and brainstormed of what we could do to "create" news.
Journalists generally don't follow around corporate executives, small business owners or directors of charity organizations to report on their business dealings or operations. Journalists depend on obtaining entire stories or leads by public relations professionals -- some studies indicate as much as 75% of all editorial content is based on public relations.
While this statistic may seem depressing at its face, it doesn't mean that most of all news is not newsworthy and that it's just fabricated stories being pushed out by pr flacks. A corporate communications officer or public relations manager at a company is an integral part of the news process. I think most people in the industry come to accept the fact that journalism and public relations professionals both need one another, and it would be hard in this uber-competitive, instant-access kind of society for either to exist without the other.
What does this mean for both parties? In short, journalists should not rely solely on information they are being fed and take it at face value. Hopefully, most journalists do not rely solely on a single angle story they are fed through a press release (such as Tony's pizza). Journalists should look at a news release and expand on it to include a larger, more meaningful context.As a public relations professional, one needs to carefully balance the role he or she may be playing in the creation or shaping of news. Will this story be of value to the consumer beyond how it may serve your company or organization's bottom line? If not, how can I better position this story for a larger appeal?
Journalists should be working in a way that blurs the line so that readers aren't able to come to such quick conclusions about whether a story is news or whether it's just good public relations. Is this even possible? I'm not sure if I've ever come across such a piece. Most stories seem to provide nice examples using George Orwell's categorization: where they are actual news stories because they are things that someone doesn't want printed (political scandal, bank bailouts, etc.) or public relations, which simply includes everything else.
