Doing Words

Is there really any difference between PR and journalism any more?

// February 24th, 2010 // Media, Media relations

Good mate Lloyd Shepherd wrote a great post this week about the news that veteran British journalism Richard Sambrook has announced he’s joining PR firm Edelman.

As Lloyd says, PR people and journalists have in the past been on opposite sides of a vast gulf of distrust.

“…Journalists and PRs found themselves locked into a transactional process where “market value” was reflected by the quality (and uniqueness) of the information being traded. Journalists thrived on exclusivity, because that’s how they gained both attention and also self-worth: if they broke a unique story, they were professionally validated.

PRs sometimes thrived on exclusivity (when the story was big enough), but normally craved ubiquity, because that meant more eyeballs. Journalists saw themselves as gatekeepers and purveyors of truth; PRs saw journalists as opportunities and as obstacles. No wonder they rarely got on.”

Not only has the line blurred between news and editorial and public relations in recent years, but the internet has allowed anyone with an interesting story to find their own audience without having to go through the gatekeepers of public relations and journalism.

“Anyone with something interesting to say can get it into the public forum, as the politicians are beginning to discover. But once it’s out there, a new set of skills is needed to get significant attention to it. These are communication skills, and they include such things as optimising for search, incorporating reader input and responding quickly to new information.”

Lloyd asks: what motivates a journalist to move to PR? What might motivate a good PR to move to journalism?

Now, I’m no Richard Sambrook — there would be perhaps 20 people in the world who’d remember my journalism, and still fewer who’d remember my PR, but if I’m truly anything, I’m an early adopter. I first switched from journalism to PR the first time for entirely venal reasons: it was the late 1980s, greed was good, and most PR people earned more than most journalists. I wanted RayBan Wayfarers, Italian suits and a convertible BMW. Everybody I knew did. I could hardly get out of my punk-era lifestyle fast enough. Ugh. It still shames me.

(Now I’ve returned from washing my hands compulsively for an hour, let’s return to our story.)

A few years later, I switched back from journalism to PR because as a journalist, I was sick of people pretending I was a demi-god visionary who knew more about the future of the industry I covered than anyone actually working in it. Like many, I thought the industry really cared about my opinion, when really they only cared if they could influence my opinion.

A few years after that, I left PR once again when I realised I would always be held accountable for the results I achieved for my clients, even though the results I achieved for my clients were so influenced by random factors outside my control that my worst work was often my most successful, and vise-versa.

I could have gone back to journalism but the interwebs beckoned, and with it, the opportunity to create not just new content but a new medium for it to be created in.

However, much of the work I’ve done since has been so close to journalism and public relations, particularly my work in social media. The big difference has been the ability to communicate with an audience both one-to-many (as in a blog post) and one-to-one (as in a messageboard) or both at the same time (as in Twitter).

There’s an ancient distrust of ex-PR people in journalism, and an ancient respect for ex-journalists in PR but that’s the only barrier to switching and it’s legacy code — no longer makes any sense today.

Neither profession is very often able to write or say what they think, both professions have an additional agenda or two in the back of their minds when communicating, both professions are held accountable. Neither is able to define the scope or composition of their audience anymore. And both have experienced a collapse in the centre of the bell curve graphing salary against number of salary earners in their industry.

It’s going to piss some people off, but I say there’s no significant difference between journalism and public relations now. Prove me wrong if you can.