How PR is entwined with the stumble of Journalism

ABOUT INTEREST, CREDIBILITY AND GATEKEEPERS

At the very beginning of Public Relations, when it was called propaganda, things looked different.  Good propaganda knows exactly what people want or what they want to believe. It does not persuade against their will, but both sides gain something. That’s why good propaganda is so effective. It tells those parts of its own interest directly to the public of which it knows that they will flourish.

Nowadays, most Public Relations does not tell its intentions and interest to the public directly like propaganda did. It is not holding speeches to crowds of people, or distributing pamphlets. Public Relations claims to talk to the public, to the stakeholders of its company, in order to establish and maintain trustful relationships. But it is actually the Journalists that it has got the relationship with and who it is talking to.

Instead of propaganda speeches, there are press conferences.

Instead of pamphlets there are press releases.

This system of PR people who send out their messages to Journalists and them deciding which information will be published has been working for decades. It was sufficient, too: PR people that actually gained news coverage could claim high credibility for their content, because, what was in the news was supposed to be well researched, and therefore, true.
Of course it was always the aim of PR to communicate the clients intention unfiltered and unaltered to the public. Therefore, good relationships to Journalists and valuable information in press releases were crucial.

News coverage had to be earned.
THE DOWNTURN OF JOURNALISM

For the last few years and especially recently in the ages of recession, journalism is struggling for survival. This is because less people buy actual copies of newspapers and magazines. Also, due to the financial crisis, advertisers spend less money on print advertisements and on banner adverts in online issues. This is all leading to the constraint to save money. For example the New York Times had to cut several sections, axed off 100 jobs and dramatically cuts freelance spending. Also, they cut wages by 5% in order to make savings of 4,5m $. Other newspapers have already lost, e.g. the Chicago-based The Ann Arbor News will be closed in July 2009 others are bankrupt- like the San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphian The Inquirer (BrandRepublic).
It is obvious, therefore, that fewer journalists try to fill the online and offline spaces of issues with valuable content. Since it takes time and therefore workforce to research articles like the “investigative veterans”, PR with its never-ending flow of press releases has become a convenient way to fill the extra space.

But this is not necessarily a good thing.

In the model described above, the journalist is the one who earns the credibility. He spends a lot of time researching the trustworthiness of sources and finds proof for e.g. statements that are in press releases. Without the money and time, there is less research and, therefore, less credibility. This is not only reducing the quality of editorial content and reliability, it is also making journalists less attractive for PR people. Because what they are striving at is not only getting news coverage, but also being most credible.

NEW WAYS TO ENHANCE CREDIBILITY

Besides classic journalism that publishes in print media and in the online issues of magazines and newspapers, there are new ways to enhance credibility in the Social Web.
In 2005 there was a conference in the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School, attended by both bloggers and journalists that dealt with “Blooging, Journalism & Credibility” (official title of the conference). The most definite ‘take-aways’ out of the discussions were the following:
Firstly, both in journalism and in blogging, ethics and credibility is key. Even though it is hard to define how credibility, really, can be achieved. In the case of bloggers this is foremost achieved by building a reputation. If readers find that a blogger is only writing valuable, well-researched posts, he will be claimed as highly credible for his field of interest. Also, ‘ethical standards’ that apply to Journalists can also serve as a good framework for bloggers.
Secondly, blogging and journalism are different disciplines, even though they intersect. For example, some journalists who are experts in their field (i.e. politics, tech, economy) are also well-known bloggers (McKinnon 2005).

It can only be concluded that there are two ways for PR to achieve credibility without the use of Journalists:

-    It can cut out the gatekeeper and freely tell its interests, like propaganda did- but of course in an ethical manner
Or
-    It can use tools like blogging i.e. viral activities in the Social Web for a new form of third-party-enhancement
Or
-    Maybe those two go well together.

THE FORD CASE:
ENHANCE CREDIBILITY BY CUTTING OUT THE GATEKEEPER

There is a terrific case study on the Ford Motor Company called “The Ranger Station Fire- How Ford Motor Company Used Social Media to Extinguish a PR fire in less than 24 hours” by Ron Ploof, to be found on ronamok.com/ebooks.
The real-time report starts at the events origin that could eventually have led to a big PR scandal for Ford: The owner of a Ford fan site, called “The Ranger Station Fire”, received a cease and desist letter from Ford, asking him to change his URL and also pay a fee to Ford of the amount of  $5000. Clueless what to do, the dedicated Ford fan wrote a post into the forum of his website reading “TRS is being attacked by the Ford Motor Company” (Jim Oakes, as cited in Ploof, 2008). Of course, this post was combustible material, as it seemed like Ford was attacking one of his brand’s evangelists without further explanation. Therefore, the original message from Oakes was reposted into several other forums, where angry comments on Ford flourished. Also, the more the message of ‘Ford attacking a fan’ spread around the web, the more visible it became to a wider public. In short: the perfect material for a PR scandal.
But then Scott Monty, heads up Social Media at Ford, managed to prevent the PR snafu using the microblogging service Twitter.
In the weeks before this ‘The Ranger Station Fire’ incident, Monty had used Twitter in order to directly explain to people about the ‘Big Three Bailout Plan’ in the course of the financial crisis.
This already shows how a company can trustworthily talk to its public about its own intentions by skipping gatekeepers: Ford wanted to make sure people understood that their financial situation was not as bad as from the other two big American car manufacturers and didn’t plan on taking money from the government. Therewith, Ford showed exactly what it probably intended: strength and superiority. They managed that using direct contact instead of relying on the press.
Coming back to ‘The Ranger Station Fire’, Scott Monty received all the complaining emails of Ford fans from customer service so that he could deal with the problem. Now the most important thing about microblogging is that it is adding humanity to a company: Monty was first writing tweets (that’s what short updates on Twitter are called) about that he was after exploring the origin, dissemination and severity code of the problem. After that, the basic thing was keeping people up to date with what he was doing, so that they knew that the problem was being looked at and not just ignored: he tweeted about being in discussion with the legal department, about finding out that there must have been a deeper issue with the homepage of Jim Oakes, etc. In the end, he just called the site owner and made an agreement with him, so that the PR scandal really was prevented.
It can be concluded that the unaltered, direct communication to the public of Ford paid off: In this case it prevented Ford from a PR scandal- especially in the times of an economic crisis.

-    Microblogging is working perfect here for preventing the scandal in real time because of its immediacy…

-    …this would not have been given if press releases and conferences would have been the means of choice against an upcoming scandal

-    Addressing the public directly ensures that the entire message, including the whole intention, will approach the recipients unaltered…

-    …it is not in the hands of journalists to decide if they will include Ford’s site of the story into their editorial content or not

WORD-OF-MOUTH PROPAGANDA USING THE SOCIAL WEB

If online word-of-mouth is being used for promotional means, it is referred to as Viral Marketing. One early, prominent example of how people pass along marketing messages voluntarily is the Blair Witch Project. Prior the movie release, there were rumours on the web that almost made it seem like a real story (Roscoe, 2000).
Another more recent example is that of a mysterious BMW gadget that morphed its form. There were wild rumours along the web what that ‘thing’ might be- even with coverage in decent online issues of magazines about a “BMW PDA” or else. It all started with a high-quality video on YouTube and took its way from there. In the end, it turned out that it had just been clever viral Marketing for the new BMW (interone.de/de/cases).

The special thing about viral Marketing is that, if it works, it doesn’t need a single press release. It is visible in the Social Web of blogs and commentary functions.

The problem is: it is not really possible to force viral Marketing.  If PR professionals are not waiting for people to start their own word-of-mouth and instead fake the whole thing, things can go really bad. Jeremiah Owyang sums up brands that tried but failed triggering the benefits of Social Media in a well-researched blog post (web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/02/).
One of many examples is that of a Belkin employee who offered money to an Amazon customer to create a favourable review.

Another example is from a Calvin Klein fragrance and has been unveiled in the blog post “Fakeblogging and the smell of Technosexual” (DieCalvinisten). To cut a long story short, the five protagonists are all faked bloggers who write about the ‘technosexual generation’ in forums, blogs and communities, using them to jump on the bandwagon- it is supposed to be the next big thing. The new fragrance “CKin2u” was supposed not only to be marketed, but to be a whole new generation- artificially built by a foe web community. When the fake was unveiled, the reaction was disastrous (as can be seen here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzz/Technosexuals).
Yet, the PR scandal remained with the harassed bloggers. Maybe that was because of the CK print advertisements from 1998 that apparently included the model’s email addresses, so consumers were already aware that online Marketing by CK is more like “a game on a meta level”.

As can be seen, the biggest problem in Social Media comes from uncertainty. Meaning, if the content that people retrieve is original or faked by PR professionals.

As the German documentation researcher Gernot Wersig once said: “Information is the reduction of uncertainty.” It is astounding though that in the information age, the uncertainty does not decrease as it could be expected. Especially where there are professional communicators today, suspense is more appropriate than trust.
This is due to the misuse of blogging for the sake of PR. Or in other words, PR in some cases flourishes at the expense of credibility.

HOW TO MAKE MEDIA WORK FOR PR: ADD THE SOCIAL

As could be seen from the Ford and the CK example: Especially in the online sphere, problems arise when it comes to credibility and the authenticity of content.
PR should not try to hide behind fake blogs or any fake content whatsoever.

Referring to Breakenridge (2008), the notion for communication directly to the consumer through online media is called PR 2.0. It means engaging “citizen journalists” and influencers (bloggers and all people who are active on the web). The speciality about PR 2.0 is that it does not push information to the target audience anymore.

“There are many strategies on the Internet that have worked for years and now, coupled with new social media applications, the result is powerful and meaningful communication with consumers who demand information and want to gather, organize, and share content within their online communities.”
Breakenridge (2008)

Still, this model of communication directly to the consumer might be frightening to communications professionals. They might argue that not following the usual rule of third-party endorsement via Journalists could finally lead to a loss of control.
In order to avoid the loss and still apply this direct form of intention-driven communication with consumers, there are web-based applications and functional tools. Amongst many others they include:

•    Online media kits or Cyber newsrooms with easily accessible company news and information are favourable, because they sum up all the important news from a credible source- therefore bloggers and other influencers are less likely to fall for rumours

•    By exposing company information and news releases like that, there are many more opportunities to get brand coverage in online publications, by being found from the editors and not pushing information at them

•    Monitoring services like Radian6 (radian6.com) track promotional and word-of mouth coverage in the Social Web with the capability to analyze how intended messages are received

Especially the last point is what makes PR 2.0 favourable: by using tracking- or monitoring services, it is much easier for communications professionals to really gather how a brand is being perceived. This is much less expensive than doing market research in the offline world.
Also, there is information on the brand’s market and its competitors on the web. With all that knowledge at hand it is much easier to learn about the audiences of a company and customize communication to suit a variety of their needs.

All of this communication is not in desperate need of gatekeepers to endorse credibility. Even though it is still a well-wanted opportunity to get promotional coverage in relevant publications, there are new ways of engaging with the customer in the long-lasting and honest relationship that PR has always been craving.

REFERENCES

Online:

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

www.cim.co.uk

http://www.dprg.de/ : German Public Relations Association

http://www.cipr.co.uk/

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/02/a-chonology-of-brands-that-got-punkd-by-social-media/

http://www.interone.de/de/cases/page/bmw-1series-gadget.html?q=BMW

BrandRepublic:
BR’s full coverage of the downturn of the US newspaper industry from 30-Apr-09: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/MostRead/866278/BRs-full-coverage-downturn-US-newspaper-industry/

DieCalvinisten:

http://www.wortfeld.de/2007/04/die_calvinisten_1/:

Fakeblogger und der Technosexuellen-Duft (Fakebloggers and the smell of Technosexual)

Books:

Alby, Tom (2007): Web 2.0, Konzepte, Anwendungen, Technologien, 2nd edition, Carl Hanser Verlag

Breakenridge, Deirdre (2008): PR 2.0 New Media, New Tools, New Audiences, 1. Title, Pearson Education, New Jersey

Dahnert, Kerstin (2008): Die Praktikertheorie der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit nach Albert Oeckl, Grin Verlag

Dibb, S., Simkin, S., Pride, W., and Ferrell, O. (2001): Marketing Concepts and Strategies, 4th European Edition, Houghton Mifflin, New York

Haller, Michael (2000): Recherchieren, Ein Handbuch für Journalisten (PRaktischer Journalismus, Bd 7), Konstanz: UVK Medien, 5. Auflage

Bentele, Günter; Fröhlich, Romy; Szyszka (2005): Handbuch der Public Relations (Handbook of Public Relations)

Fitzpatrick, Kathy; Bronstein, Carolyn (2006): Ethics in public relations: responsible advocacy, SAGE

Report:

MacKinnon, Rebecca (2005):  Blogging, Journalism & Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground. A conference. January 21-22, 2005 at Harvard University

Roscoe Jane (2000): “The Blair Witch Project Mock-documentary goes mainstream” http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC43folder/BlairWitch.html

eBook:

ronamok.com/ebooks/the_ranger_station_fire_final.pdf