Why Do Journalists Hate PR Practitioners?
Simply put, they hate us because they must. I know this will upset everyone who claims that symbiosis between the journalists and the PROs must be revealed and respected publicly, but I can’t help it. I don’t mean to slam the media in any way – the journalist is doing his job as a PRO does. I’m not hating the player, I am hating the game.
The essence of PR
What are we the PR practitioners trading with? Our currency is credibility and trust. We are reliable sources for the journalists, although we are biased. Before you start criticising the nature and purpose of PR, tell me who is not biased. We need the journalists to trust us. If they didn’t, PR narratives would end up implicitly discarded.
Fact-finding journalists: a convenient myth
The journalist’s job is to present facts and provide space for discussion of all parties involved in a current issue about which the reporter is informing its audience. That’s it for the theory. What about the reporters’ day-to-day reality?
- Do they have enough time to check the facts? No.
- Are they encouraged by their editors to seek information from other sources, thereby prolonging date of publication? No.
- Are they willing to get their hands dirty in pursuit of what they think is truth? Some of them are, most of them aren’t.
- Do they have enough of information to write in-depth articles? Some of them do, but since the editorial offices keep cutting down staff, the number of generalists greatly increases.
- Do they have enough of resources to seek out the good sources and critically evaluate their credibility? No.
As you can see, conditions for good journalism are deteriorating, even though the checklist isn’t extensive or complete. How have the journalists responded to the situation? They produce more content, more facts, more sensations. How do they do it? They source a lot of their reports from PR agencies and their clients.
The journalists trade with credibility as well – they need it to keep up their circulation. More credible news equals more subscribers and advertisers.
Necessary hatred
Since the media business positions itself as unbiased, it must by definition reject all biased information, otherwise nobody would believe the journalist is objective. In reality, the journalists happily copy and paste the content of the news releases they receive and move on to another topic.
Imagine they would admit it. “Oh yeah, we do almost zero fact-checking because it’s expensive and time-consuming. Instead of that, we just publish information that looks right to us.
That’s where necessity kicks in. The journalists need to state publicly that they resent PR practitioners and they need to say it aloud in order to preserve the aura of their own credibility.
In reality, they don’t hate or desipise us; they just can’t proclaim this sentiment in public.
