Public Relations

June 2, 2008 2:41 PM

Show me a PR person who is "accurate" and "truthful," and I'll show you a PR person who is unemployed.In The Wake Of Scott McClellan's New Book, CBS Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen Says PR People Are Aghast At The Truth. Includes a follow-up to the mountain of reactions he received.
posted by thisisdrew (71 comments total)

I'm a moron. ...scroll UP. Used the link to comments.
posted by thisisdrew at 2:45 PM on June 2, 2008

The spin is active right outta the gate, huh?
posted by SaintCynr at 2:50 PM on June 2, 2008

One can say McClellan should have resigned early on.One can say he has become bitter. What actually is the most important issue now: Is what McClellan says True or False? We are really interested in history of what has taken place in this administration and not in the personal life of McClellan.
posted by Postroad at 2:51 PM on June 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

"Lie" is such a tawdry term. One can tell the truth without revealing the truth.
posted by caddis at 2:54 PM on June 2, 2008

Why can''''t the commenters use apostrophes correctly?
posted by desjardins at 2:55 PM on June 2, 2008

Is what McClellan says True or False or true or false? Or green froth?
posted by Mblue at 2:58 PM on June 2, 2008

Removing most of the capital letters from "In The Wake Of..." Might Also Be A Good Idea.
posted by ersatz at 3:00 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Related: PR people now outnumber journalists in the UK - do they deserve their reputation for evil?
posted by WPW at 3:04 PM on June 2, 2008

Truth? You can't handle the truth!
posted by R. Mutt at 3:07 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

What's amazing to me is how so many PR people are coming out of the woodwork to claim that not all PR people are frauds and con artists. He already addressed that possibility:

Show me a PR person who is "accurate" and "truthful," and I'll show you a PR person who is unemployed.

See, it's not that all PR people are liars, it's just that the good ones aren't. Any PR person who acts like Public Relations is about some manner of respect for the truth is either outright lying or so far buried in his own delusional nonsense that he's lost all touch with himself and the effects his actions have on the world. They can jump up and down and talk about all the honest things they've said to the public in their career, but the straight up no joke truth of the matter is that those are anomalies. If I'm rich and I crash into an orphanage, I don't have to hire a PR firm to go "I fucked up. I deserve whatever legal repercussions are enacted against me and I'm truly sorry." I have to hire a PR firm to make people believe the god damn orphanage jumped in front of my car.
posted by shmegegge at 3:11 PM on June 2, 2008 [15 favorites]

also, I thought this link was going to go to The Onion.
posted by shmegegge at 3:12 PM on June 2, 2008

Apparently the converse is to some extent true as well: a PR person who is unemployed, may develop a sudden new interest in being accurate and truthful. Wherever the money is, I guess.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:17 PM on June 2, 2008 [3 favorites]

One can say McClellan should have resigned early on. One can say he has become bitter. What actually is the most important issue now: Is what McClellan says True or False? We are really interested in history of what has taken place in this administration and not in the personal life of McClellan.

McClellan Responds To Attacks: Critics ‘Trying to Shift The Focus’ Away From The Book’s ‘Key Themes’

"McCLELLAN: These are some unpleasant truths and hard realities that I’m trying to address in the book. And no one is really refuting the key themes and perspectives in the book. What they are doing is taking some of these personal attacks and misrepresentations and trying to shift this focus away from what this book talks about. I think it’s important to get it back on the larger message in the book."

posted by ericb at 3:27 PM on June 2, 2008

previous (still open) McClellan Book thread.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:30 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Quick PR story: As a young programmer at a small software development company I was asked to work with an in-house PR person on a release. It was my first time and I admit I was a little excited at the prospect. After a phone call and email exchange, the flak sent me the first draft of the release. I was pleased and a little embarrassed to see my name in print, being quoted like important people are. I was less thrilled to see things I'd never said attributed to me -- in quotes. I learned a bit about PR that day.

But that was nothing compared to the email the flak sent me the next day. For the final draft of the release, every one of my quotes was instead attributed to my boss. My name didn't appear anywhere. That's when I popped my PR cherry. Never looked at a press release the same way ever again.
posted by sdodd at 3:34 PM on June 2, 2008 [4 favorites]

From one of the comments, (Hint for old media: years ago, the rest of the internet figured out how to enable links to individual comments. You've got commentids in there, use them. This is why no one takes you seriously.) "Good PR people":

take great pains to tell their clients that lying or skirting the truth is not an option in communications with the media.

and work for fairness in accordance with the idea that, emphasis mine:

every "side" in a debate deserves a chance to be heard and have their position explained in a manner that is rationale (sic) and supported by the facts.

It's like they think if they keep blatantly spewing obvious lies people will start buying them, but, oh shit, they're right often enough for a lot of the people.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:39 PM on June 2, 2008

I think it’s important to get it back on the larger message in the book.

Scott McClellan: Still trying to keep everybody on message.
posted by No Robots at 3:41 PM on June 2, 2008 [4 favorites]

It's always funny to me to hear US government reps talking about other cultures' propensities towards lying or misdirection. The degree to which we've come to accept that government representatives will never, ever tell any of us the unvarnished truth really is staggering to me. We have an entire culture where no one - the people who make our laws, who sell us things we rely on to live, who we get our information from and who help us form opinions about any and everything - ever speaks honestly or accurately. I'm just astounded and disgusted.
posted by nevercalm at 3:45 PM on June 2, 2008 [10 favorites]

It's interesting that presidential administrations tend to burn through press secretaries faster than other visible positions, like cabinet secretaries. I've always assumed this was because the stress of standing in front of a room of reporters and baldly lying to them, day in and day out, has got to be incredibly wearying. Mike McCurry lasted four years. That must be some kind of record.

Bush has burned through four press secretaries so far. In some ways, Fleischer was the ideal press secretary for Bush—combative, unmovable, no matter how ridiculous the things he was saying. In a deeper way, McClellan is the ideal: he was just a bumbling hack who couldn't even manage to lie convincingly, or at least bluster. Putting him in front of the press corps sent a message to the press and to the public in general: "we don't care what you think." Much the same now with Dana Perino.

Real PR guys should be appalled that McClellan was ever compared to them, not for his lying, but for his complete inability to lie well.
posted by adamrice at 3:53 PM on June 2, 2008

All of this concerning McClellan's integrity as a person, whether or not he should have quit, or whatever the true nature of PR is, is all completely beside the point of whether or not even half of what he says is true. If the mainstream media had even an ounce of integrity themselves, which they don't, these CBS analysts (and Bob Dole and whomever else) would be met with a blunt, "yes, but that's irrelevant. What are the implications of what McClellan says?"

The lack of denials is quite telling, given the gravity of his accusations. Ad hominems and non sequitors ahoy. McClellan has expressed a willingness to testify under oath. I hope someone takes him up on that offer, especially long before November.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:58 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

A salient point is being missed, and that's the fact that McClellan's task to "stand on the podium and spin" is only a very, very small part of the White House's communications efforts. And the interesting story there is how all presidential administrations use the bludgeon of selective access to control the media -- in other words, "if you aren't asking the right questions and writing the right stories, well, we'll just never speak to you again, and your own media outlet will replace you for us, because you simply won't be able to do your job without that access."

Which raises the question, why don't we have a mainstream media with the cojones to take those kinds of risks and ask the right questions (meaning, the kinds of questions that bring out the truth)?

Trust me, the reporters are smart people. They know exactly when, why and how they're being spun and lied to. They just don't seem to care terribly much, not as much as you and I would like.

Some of you may think, well, it's corporate control of the media -- Disney, GE, TimeWarner, Fox, etc -- that deliberately stifles their own reporters and spikes stories simply out of mendacious profit motive. I actually think you'd be wrong on that point.

I think it's simply because we have a small group of media types -- and it truly is a small group ... I mean, maybe 100 reporters, editors and producers in the country really matter in this country -- we have a small group of people that simply suck at their jobs. Seriously. They suck and don't know when to fight and when to bide their time, so they choose the path of least resistance ("Hey, Karl Rove returned my call!") and we all end up here.

Thanks, ya' mangy bastards.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:15 PM on June 2, 2008 [5 favorites]

They suck and don't know when to fight and when to bide their time, so they choose the path of least resistance ("Hey, Karl Rove returned my call!") and we all end up here.

Quite salient a point, though corporations do guide what their media reports. I always keep pointing people to James Fallows' Breaking the News. It's a non-fiction tragedy, the way that the press has utterly failed to manage its watchdog responsibilities.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:35 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Some of you may think, well, it's corporate control of the media -- Disney, GE, TimeWarner, Fox, etc -- that deliberately stifles their own reporters and spikes stories simply out of mendacious profit motive. I actually think you'd be wrong on that point.

Or maybe it's you who are mistaken.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:35 PM on June 2, 2008 [4 favorites]

What actually is the most important issue now: Is what McClellan says True or False?

We already KNOW what McClellan said is true. We knew nearly four years ago. He wasn't the first supposed belt way "insider" to say any of things said in his book. Most of the others were fired or forced to resign before the press corps stopped getting high off the vapors exiting Karl Roves ass and sobered up.
posted by tkchrist at 4:37 PM on June 2, 2008

I like turtles.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:49 PM on June 2, 2008

No. You "knew " it because....the left of center people told you? Ok. Right. But when someone that is in on what actually has taken place, then the doubts, the lies, the misleading statement, the refusal to be summoned by Congress--and a large voting part of the American people are given what is clearly a look at what has taken place. If we all knew it, then why bother with reading the book and why hope as a crime prosecutor for a confession?
posted by Postroad at 4:57 PM on June 2, 2008

I like turtles all the way down.
posted by caddis at 5:03 PM on June 2, 2008

The degree to which we've come to accept that government representatives will never, ever tell any of us the unvarnished truth really is staggering to me.

Once can make a solid argument that distrust of Governments and of anyone with Power is a core value of the American republic, and one of its most important. Further, that what's wrong today is not that they lie to us, but that we have come to expect anything else. If noone had trusted the Administration - if in general everyone assumed politicians were liars and checked out what they did rather than what they said - wouldn't we be in a better situation?
posted by freebird at 5:09 PM on June 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dude didn't exactly sound penitent on Fresh Air this afternoon, "this is how the game is played in DC," "this is what DC has become," "Washington culture," "Beltway blah, blah, blah." No, YOU were the machinery, Scott, the broken machine you keep referring to is YOU, holy shit on a shingle, bend a knee already.

Though I did learn a new piece of corporate speak, "message discipline," which is just so totally gross and awesome.
posted by The Straightener at 5:10 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

It bugs the crap out of me how poorly people think. This author is committing an error I see over and over again: saying that things aren't changing. He makes an observation about the present and extrapolates that into a Graven Truth Of All History. The way it is now is the way it has always been.

This is blatantly untrue, but people really seem to believe it.

NO, government hasn't always been this untruthful. YES, Scott McClellan is unusual in that regard. The lying and spinning didn't really start to get bad until the Clinton years. Earlier governments lied, but they were red-faced when caught; modern politicians don't even care.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this author is correct. He isn't. We've slid a long, long way down a very steep slope, and climbing back up will be hard. But it can be done. It hasn't always been this bad, and it doesn't have to continue this way.
posted by Malor at 5:25 PM on June 2, 2008 [3 favorites]

CPB - You make a great point but I think you're only half right. It's not that the small pool of reporters suck more that they are suck-ups. The reporters are human and are tempted by power. Look at how the DC press corps make nice at events like the White House Correspondents dinner. Any reporter who shows up for that event ought to be stripped of their press badge. Democracy only works when there is a hostile and skeptical press.

I've worked for several different media outlets over the years - some great, some good and one very bad and I can honestly say that there is no meeting, there is no memo, there is no great mass media conspiracy. Just people trying to get a leg up on each other and occasionally giving a damn enough to do the job they were hired to do.

Unfortunately, there's so few good journalists and so many great PR flaks that doing a good job and digging deep for the truth is nearly impossible.
posted by photoslob at 5:30 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wait, what? McClellan lied? The Bush admin is rotten to the core? What I don't get is how no matter who says what about them, no actions are ever taken, and never will be.

Also, spend five minutes talking to any PR flack and it's apparent that not only will they tell you anything that suits the client's best interest, no matter how untruthful, but they also rarely even know what the fuck they are talking about. "I'll have to get back to you on that" is a phrase they must say or type dozens of times a day.
posted by Camofrog at 5:36 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

"No, YOU were the machinery, Scott, the broken machine you keep referring to is YOU"

That's so cute!

Let's say your car isn't running. I can't help but notice your headlights aren't working. Well, there's your problem!

...

Scott was a broken cog on a broken wheel in a broken flange of a broken manifold of a broken general processing unit on a broken dynamic combine of a broken whatchamacallit housed inside some broken dealamajiggers that connect to a broken pneumonic compensator that is part of a broken radiated catalyzer attached to the engine of a ship that ain't goin' nowhere.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:36 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

The origin of modern PR can be traced back to Edward Bernays - Sigmund Freud's cousin.
posted by any major dude at 5:38 PM on June 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

As someone who was on the floor of the national news room of one of the big three networks the entire broadcast night of super-Tuesday, these people really and truly don't speak truth to power. They know the game, they know how it's played, and they just.......submit. It's easier that way. Disgusting, but easier.

And in many ways, "easier" is "the American way," and definitely the corporate way. I agree with photoslob, in that "Democracy only works when there is a hostile and skeptical press."
posted by nevercalm at 5:47 PM on June 2, 2008

If you want a take on PR with a smile, I'd recommend Absolute Power.

Giving Alan a Disease is classic.

The Bush administration does not, a good PR firm, have. They conceal shit by putting it in a transparent plastic bag with a Hugo Boss logo on it and smile. It's been like a real life episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm for years on end.
posted by juiceCake at 5:50 PM on June 2, 2008

Didn't we all learn this back in 1995?

However, that article was a pile of crap, and so was the response. It's hard to believe that guy gets paid to write.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:53 PM on June 2, 2008

Video about the book.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:55 PM on June 2, 2008

NO, government hasn't always been this untruthful.

Really? From the Classical era through modern times, I see very little to support this statement. It may well be that, as you say, it was better hidden. Fine. Is that what you want to go back to?
posted by freebird at 5:59 PM on June 2, 2008

Cool Papa Bell says it well. Cohen may be right, but sometimes I don't know the difference between journalists and PR, so his smugness is really annoying me. Show me a journalist who will criticize his own profession in print as readily as Cohen goes after flacks. Some people still actually believe what they read in the newspaper.
posted by Edgewise at 6:00 PM on June 2, 2008

I've worked as a speechwriter for government, and I've also written corporate communications for the world's second largest automaker. I've worked other PR-related jobs as well, and I've never felt like a liar (even when I worked for government). Good PR is all about getting the message out. It's not about lying or distorting the facts. Just because I wrote for one point of view doesn't mean the truth has been erased. Others are free to debate whatever I wrote. Unfortunately, the media, where this debate should occur, is often biased, often lazy, and often wrong.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:25 PM on June 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

Why is this thread still here? Why do we need two threads to discuss this clown and his new book?

"government hasn't always been this untruthful"

Caesar did not invent lying, and that was thousands of years ago.

Any civil service that seeks to discuss issues or commit acts out of the spotlight is not serving its civilians. A truthful government would never need to do things behind closed doors. The rebuttal to that is they do not want their potential enemies to see their plans, but it is the very behavior of hiding and lying that generates animosity and creates enemies.

I don't trust any PR person further than any one of them could throw me - and I am a heavy guy.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:36 PM on June 2, 2008

That's so cute!

Let's say your car isn't running. I can't help but notice your headlights aren't working. Well, there's your problem!

...

Scott was a broken cog on a broken wheel in a broken flange of a broken manifold of a broken general processing unit on a broken dynamic combine of a broken whatchamacallit housed inside some broken dealamajiggers that connect to a broken pneumonic compensator that is part of a broken radiated catalyzer attached to the engine of a ship that ain't goin' nowhere.

Thanks for clearing that up, dude, I totally wasn't aware that Scott McClellan was part of a larger machinery that is also totally fucked, you're like bringing some serious water to the unwashed, here.
posted by The Straightener at 7:11 PM on June 2, 2008

Scott was a broken cog on a broken wheel in a broken etceteras.

And he chose to participate, which makes him as culpable as anyone else in the administration. If the asshole had had any morals whatsoever, he'd have told them to take their lying and shove it. But he didn't: he happily took part in it all.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:31 PM on June 2, 2008

So what you're saying is that there's no such thing as the possibility of redemption, reformation, or even a person changing their mind?
posted by Dave Faris at 7:34 PM on June 2, 2008

You don't have to lie to do PR. You can be honest, and apologize for your mistakes, and your bosses can be sincere about the apologies you're uttering on their behalf, and they can make appropriate changes, all in good faith, and the people can respect your organization for that.

Bush -- and, by extension, his administration -- doesn't ever admit to mistakes. Authentic PR -- one in which the truth may be presented in the best possible light, but it's still nonetheless the truth (e.g., when we smile in pictures, we're doing personal PR; the fact that we smile, even if we don't feel like smiling at the moment, doesn't change the fact that the picture is a picture of us) -- is impossible when you're forbidden from admitting mistakes. That's when PR becomes propaganda in service of ideology.
posted by treepour at 7:41 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

So what you're saying is that there's no such thing as the possibility of redemption, reformation, or even a person changing their mind?

It was pretty evident from Scott's interview this afternoon that he's not reformed, his talk with Terry Gross was an exercise in verbal contortionism, of constant shifting of culpability from himself personally to the Washington political apparatus, from specifics about his lying to the public to generalities about how public relations works. Basically he was talking out of both sides of his neck the entire time, trying to stress how dysfunctional the Bush administration is while trying at all costs to minimize his own participation in the dysfunction. I was left with the impression that he's as slimy and gross as he ever was, but now he's trying to sell books instead of wars.
posted by The Straightener at 7:57 PM on June 2, 2008

So what you're saying is that there's no such thing as the possibility of redemption, reformation, or even a person changing their mind?
posted by Dave Faris at 7:34 PM on June 2 [+] [!]

Not when it involves millions of people and death.
posted by Balisong at 8:14 PM on June 2, 2008

Oh wait, that was China. I'ts hard to tell us apart anymore. Except they have honor and civil responsibility.
posted by Balisong at 8:30 PM on June 2, 2008

there's no such thing as the possibility of redemption, reformation, or even a person changing their mind?

Trust, but verify.
posted by me & my monkey at 8:43 PM on June 2, 2008

The Public Relations Society of America states: "We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent..." This clause strikes me as if the Burglars Association of America had as its creed "Thou Shalt Not Steal."

It's only PR, dude. Dontcha get it?
posted by sour cream at 12:03 AM on June 3, 2008

PR is where one goes to train to be in Marketing. It's generally filled with a lot of young, wide-eyed neophytes, fresh out of school, eager to please, and excited to be here.

It's a special level of hell to have to work with someone from PR because they all seems so single-minded about whatever their task is. And so enthusiastic about it! You hate to inject any little bit of reality into their world because it seems a lot like kicking puppies.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:12 AM on June 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Scott was a broken cog on a broken wheel in a broken flange of a broken manifold of a broken general processing unit on a broken dynamic combine of a broken whatchamacallit housed inside some broken dealamajiggers that connect to a broken pneumonic compensator that is part of a broken radiated catalyzer attached to the engine of a ship that ain't goin' nowhere.

I was going to say your metaphor was broken, but further analysis shows that it never would have worked as designed anyway. Throwing the names of a bunch of mechanical items together does not produce a powerful, smooth-running argument.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:04 AM on June 3, 2008

Good PR is all about getting the message out. It's not about lying or distorting the facts.

Not unless the message is a lie or a distortion of the facts, eh?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:08 AM on June 3, 2008

The metaphor is broken because the Rove/Cheney/Bush machine worked flawlessly: they and their friends have made out like bandits, stealing billions and trillions of dollars from the citizenry.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:14 AM on June 3, 2008

That, too.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:15 AM on June 3, 2008

PR people typically aren't very intelligent. Look at Dana Perino, who didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was until her husband explained it to her. They aren't as well-versed in what they're shilling about as straight salespeople, but that's important and out of necessity. I sincerely believe that McClellan was only told so much. And journalists aren't very interested in being great investigative journalists as much as they are in having a book deal and access to important people. Everyone is building their brand to make as much money as possible.

It's the same as Enron. It takes one person to ask obvious questions and get blackballed from insider information. Also, citizens aren't very smart and the people representing citizens aren't very aggressive either. They grumble lightly in the background and go about their business.
posted by onepapertiger at 9:04 AM on June 3, 2008

I've worked in public relations (medical/scientific clients) for over a decade. I've never lied to an editor, producer writer or anyone else in the media. Not once. Neither has anyone else I've worked with. I've also made a concerted effort to never misrepresent my clients to the press, even when that has meant they lose a placement. A key element of building any brand in the public eye is ensuring that it maintains integrity in the minds of both journalists and consumers. Lying about results, negatives or expertise is *always* counterproductive.

So we're open about whether or not a client has any conflicts of interests when called upon to be an expert in a television segment. We discuss benefits and disadvantages of products with journalists. We research our clients and their industries to confirm they're not making false claims, or fudging the facts in their favor.

That's our job. This is what a publicist and/or PIO or press secretary is supposed to do. Because in my (extensive) experience, many journalists don't have the time or inclination to make the effort to do such research themselves. We have an ethical obligation to the public and personally, I take that quite seriously. I'd like to think my clients appreciate that. The journalists I work with certainly seem to.
posted by zarq at 10:52 AM on June 3, 2008

We discuss benefits and disadvantages of products with journalists.

So, in essence, you represent yourself as a kind of authority on the product and control the terms of the entire discourse surrounding the product. You see this as a service, I see it as part of controlling how discussions of a product, service, whatever are framed in a way that creates a false impression of balance.

What do you if, as a PR firm, you're hired to represent the tobacco industry? Do you call press conferences to warn people against using the product because you really want them to stop using the product, or do you stage public events where participants are invited to examine the issues surrounding the dangers of tobacco use in a more balanced way? (Even though the science is clear: There is no weight on the other side of the scale to bring the issue into balance.)

It seems to me that a PR person has to believe, at some level, that for every particular aspect of a potentially controversial issue, there's another equally legitimate opposing viewpoint deserving to be aired (or alternatively, they have to learn not to care about how their work impacts the public interest).

But history tells us otherwise. The earth's surface simply is not flat. There is no legitimate opposing viewpoint that merits discussion. In reality, this is very often the case. Reality is not necessarily fair, and some messages really are much more valid than others, whether that suits a company who's hired a PR firm to argue otherwise or not. Hell, even today, some new Global Warming skepticism BS is making the rounds, yet another example of crappy pseudo-journalism that offers almost no factual evidence to support its sweepingly broad claims and analysis, and I virtually guarantee this "news" piece can ultimately be traced back to someone, somewhere engaged in a PR push.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:34 AM on June 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

What do you if, as a PR firm, you're hired to represent the tobacco industry?

You choose not to take them on as a client?

How is this different from criticizing all lawyers, just because some lawyers represent the tobacco industry?
posted by me & my monkey at 12:23 PM on June 3, 2008

So, in essence, you represent yourself as a kind of authority on the product and control the terms of the entire discourse surrounding the product. You see this as a service, I see it as part of controlling how discussions of a product, service, whatever are framed in a way that creates a false impression of balance.

*chuckles* I'm merely a liaison to the press for my clients. If you'd ever tried to pitch a complex story to anyone in the media, you'd realize how ridiculous the idea is that I could possibly "control all discourse" surrounding my clients. Do you think that I sit in reporters' offices and rap their hands with a ruler if they attempt to obtain information or confirmations from other sources? The truth is that we have little to no control over what a reporter may or may not say about our clients. However, we can supply them with as much information as we possibly can so that they can draw their own conclusions.

What do you if, as a PR firm, you're hired to represent the tobacco industry?

This is a non sequitur, since we have free will. My company has refused to take on less controversial clients because the higher-ups feel that representing them in a positive light would be unethical. I expect that they will continue to do so.

If I were personally ordered to work on such an account 'or else', I'd resign my position and find work with another company. It would be a rather easy choice to make.

As I said, I work with medical and scientific organizations, experts and private companies. This sort of PR is rather different than that done in the political or product-related realms. Claims must be substantiated, rather than simply hyped. It's simply a different mindset.

Speaking of free will, you make it sound as if journalists have none. Personally, I think that's a rather insulting assessment.

It seems to me that a PR person has to believe, at some level, that for every particular aspect of a potentially controversial issue, there's another equally legitimate opposing viewpoint deserving to be aired (or alternatively, they have to learn not to care about how their work impacts the public interest).

I'm not entirely sure how you've drawn this conclusion. How does representing a specific perspective give greater validation to others? If I were to present the results of a study on behalf of a research group to the media that indicates a commonly used prescription drug may cause a higher incidence of heart valve failure in the general population, what exactly would be the up side of the opposite view? That by thinning the herd, the pharmaceutical company had done the planet a service? Please. (Just an example, by the way. I haven't actually done that.)

To answer your other question (somewhat obliquely,) I have represented organizations (and in at least a couple of cases, individuals,) who were considered whistleblowers in their respective industries. That is to say that when one group was working to deceive the public, they chose instead to draw public attention to what I suppose might be termed 'the bigger picture'.

I virtually guarantee this "news" piece can ultimately be traced back to someone, somewhere engaged in a PR push.

If that were the case, I completely agree that they would be acting unethically for their clients, who are pushing a dishonest agenda. Vilifying my entire industry on their behalf isn't particularly constructive. Nor does it fix the problem.
posted by zarq at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2008

I've been hanging out with a lot of PR folks lately, and this journalist's lazy article isn't even close to being accurate. There is a lot of discussion about ethics in the business, and although there are lots of "spin doctors" and "flacks" out there, there are also a lot of honest people who get paid to help businesses communicate with their customers. There is always going to be a need for that. PR people are aware of the public's skewed reputation but just like the old saying "the shoemaker's children have no shoes," they are too busy helping their clients to spend much time worrying about their own profession's image.

My take is that because McLellan skewered journalists in particular for "going along with" the administration's lies, this guy is just knee-jerking back at the PR field. Lazy and sensational.
posted by jmcnally at 1:08 PM on June 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Vilifying my entire industry

Your defense of your industry is a commendable one, but the issue here is whether or not unethical behavior has become widespread in the industry, not whether the industry has a legitimate right to exist.

If you'd ever tried to pitch a complex story to anyone in the media, you'd realize how ridiculous the idea is that I could possibly "control all discourse" surrounding my clients.

Well, I may have overstated the point a bit--really "shaping the framing of the discussion" or "controlling the focus" on the issue might have been a better way to put it.

I'm aware that reporters are free to look for other sources of information, but I also know that if it's easier just to write a report based on a press release or news conference, then that's what the press will do. It's just human nature to take the easiest option when one's available. And when a press release originates from a PR firm with a reputation for integrity (real or merely apparent) a reporter might even feel quite justified in passing along the information without giving it any real critical scrutiny.

I would argue that the fact that a firm has an excellent reputation for integrity should make anyone in the press more, not less, suspicious of any information it provides them. Why work so hard to build and defend a PR company's reputation for integrity if the information that it trades in stands up to further scrutiny on its own? As a reporter, I'd think it might be wise to be especially wary of PR companies with good reputations.

I've been on both sides of press coverage. I've seen press releases that I've written for personal projects transcribed almost verbatim in local newspapers. I'd venture to guess that a much larger percentage of news coverage than most people realize is derived almost exclusively from press release content.

Strictly speaking, there isn't necessarily a problem with many of the communication related aspects of the PR industry. Hiring someone to help you get an honest message out is perfectly respectable. But there's a much murkier territory that involves intentional deception--like for instance, when a PR firm arranges for what appears to be an independent study about the efficacy of a product or service to be written and published in a seemingly independent publication, when in fact, the study was conducted by researchers with undisclosed ties to the PR firm. I've seen that kind of practice on the small-scale. You can't tell me it doesn't happen. It does--on small scales and large scales alike.

Ken Silverstein took a look at how some of DC's powerful lobbying firms do their business here. It's not about the PR industry in the narrow sense in which I think zarq is using it, but it's relevant.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:11 PM on June 3, 2008

A-ha! I found the culprit for that new PR campaign I was speculating about upthread. Apparently, it's the US Army's own Public Relations Division taking the lead on stirring up the latest round of Global Warming skepticism.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:23 PM on June 3, 2008

What do you if, as a PR firm, you're hired to represent the tobacco industry?

Thank you for smoking.
posted by ersatz at 2:09 PM on June 3, 2008

The Bush administration has been pulling this crap since they took office.

That said, what in the name of all that is holy is anyone from the US Army doing weighing in global warming? Their PAS should have refused to write it. (Although judging from how poorly that note was written, it sounds as if she didn't have the brain cells to know any better. Not that her own idiocy should excuse anything. And of course, I'm assuming that a member of our armed forces had a choice in the matter, which is perhaps unlikely.)

That is infuriating on so many levels. Infuriating because the Army truly has no business pushing a political agenda on the environment with the press. Heck, our government has no business pushing an anti-science propaganda campaign! Plus, that PAS is an incompetent moron.
posted by zarq at 2:12 PM on June 3, 2008

Your defense of your industry is a commendable one, but the issue here is whether or not unethical behavior has become widespread in the industry, not whether the industry has a legitimate right to exist.

Actually, the point I was making was simply that not all publicists are unethical shills. We are a rather diverse group of professionals working across a wide swath of industries and don't all deserve to be stereotyped based on the behavior of a group of unscrupulous partisan flacks who are doing their best to push propaganda campaigns for a political party. Some of us do have ethical standards and are willing to stick by them.

I never intended my comments to be a blanket defense of PR. Frankly, there are members whose acts are indefensible. As you pointed out, lobbying groups are a glaring example of this. But I did think a more "holistic" overview/perspective was appropriate. Folks on this thread (yourself included,) seem quite happy to assume that every publicist is a dishonest villain. As I said, stereotypes are rarely constructive or accurate.

I'm aware that reporters are free to look for other sources of information, but I also know that if it's easier just to write a report based on a press release or news conference, then that's what the press will do. It's just human nature to take the easiest option when one's available.

Yes. But it also depends on the type of media being pitched and their field of focus. I work in NYC, but my primary focus is national press outreach with larger outlets. I generally try to work with the media on nuanced, thoughtful stories that aren't one-sided. Editors at say, BusinessWeek or the Wall Street Journal, don't lift their stories solely from a press release, the way that perhaps the lifestyle editor at the Podunk Times might. If a medical writer attends a press conference, they generally don't take what they're given and mindlessly regurgitate it back to their readers. For one thing, they've typically been around the block enough to know when they're being fed a line of b-s. That's not to say it doesn't happen in other departments or fields. I know it does.

And when a press release originates from a PR firm with a reputation for integrity (real or merely apparent) a reporter might even feel quite justified in passing along the information without giving it any real critical scrutiny.

Yes, that's perfectly possible. But do you not see the inherent paradox in faulting an entire profession for being honest and having integrity while also condemning them for being dishonest and acting unethically?

I would argue that the fact that a firm has an excellent reputation for integrity should make anyone in the press more, not less, suspicious of any information it provides them. Why work so hard to build and defend a PR company's reputation for integrity if the information that it trades in stands up to further scrutiny on its own? As a reporter, I'd think it might be wise to be especially wary of PR companies with good reputations.

Reporters worth their salt don't take the easy path and they actually do check their sources and the information they're given.

If they have a problem with reporters who phone it in, folks on this thread should be honest and say so. But blaming all publicists for enabling such behavior is folly.

PR companies and their employees who are do their jobs and don't lie to the media aren't "working hard to build and defend their reputation." We get those reputations within media circles by doing the best job we can, and by being honest about our clients. Your characterization here is biased. In your eyes, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

I've been on both sides of press coverage. I've seen press releases that I've written for personal projects transcribed almost verbatim in local newspapers. I'd venture to guess that a much larger percentage of news coverage than most people realize is derived almost exclusively from press release content.

That's a common practice with non-news sections at small papers, especially weeklies. Generally speaking, the smaller the staff at a newspaper, the more likely it is that will happen. At newspapers with circulations over 100,000 or so, it's much more rare. And it almost never happens at those papers in the news division -- at least at the newspapers that don't rely on a syndicate for their news reporting.

Have you had similar experiences with, say, CNN or any other national news outlet? The vast majority of Americans get their news from either a national outlet or from the largest newspaper covering their region -- groups less likely to phone it in.

Strictly speaking, there isn't necessarily a problem with many of the communication related aspects of the PR industry. Hiring someone to help you get an honest message out is perfectly respectable. But there's a much murkier territory that involves intentional deception--like for instance, when a PR firm arranges for what appears to be an independent study about the efficacy of a product or service to be written and published in a seemingly independent publication, when in fact, the study was conducted by researchers with undisclosed ties to the PR firm. I've seen that kind of practice on the small-scale. You can't tell me it doesn't happen. It does--on small scales and large scales alike.

I completely agree. I never said those things don't happen. They've happened large-scale as well.

However, there are plenty of us who aren't ethically-challenged. Which was my point in the first place.

Ken Silverstein took a look at how some of DC's powerful lobbying firms do their business here.

Thanks for this. Fascinating and disheartening.
posted by zarq at 3:30 PM on June 3, 2008

That said, what in the name of all that is holy is anyone from the US Army doing weighing in global warming?

The US military is the single biggest consumer of petroleum on the planet. You can bet they're deeply interested in making sure they can continue to pollute freely.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:18 PM on June 3, 2008

But I did think a more "holistic" overview/perspective was appropriate. Folks on this thread (yourself included,) seem quite happy to assume that every publicist is a dishonest villain.

Zarq, your point is well taken. I don't think it's at all fair to tar all publicists with the same brush (in fact, I have friends who work in PR, and I would never call them dishonest villains).

Yes, that's perfectly possible. But do you not see the inherent paradox in faulting an entire profession for being honest and having integrity while also condemning them for being dishonest and acting unethically?

Let me be clear, I personally don't fault the PR industry as a whole, just certain unethical actors in it. But if I were a reporter, I would want to do my own fact-checking on any topical or controversial matter presented to me by a PR professional, no matter how seemingly spotless the reputation of the source. In fact, if a PR professional I trusted approached me with a particular story on an issue, I would double and triple-check the facts, just to prevent any personal bias I might have from shading the coverage. That's the only point I was trying to make.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:30 PM on June 3, 2008

The US military is the single biggest consumer of petroleum on the planet.

Damn. I didn't know that, but it makes perfect sense. Thanks for pointing that out.
posted by zarq at 11:08 AM on June 4, 2008

Fair enough saulgoodman. I appreciate the clarifications. :)
posted by zarq at 8:14 AM on June 9, 2008