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Paul Graham on PR
ralejs writes "Paul Graham takes on PR. From the article:'Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to. One of the most surprising things I discovered during my brief business career was the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.'
As always, it's an interesting, surprising and slightly provoking read."
Well, I didn't read the whole article, but its amazing how true this guy is. I have tons of friends that work in PR who tell me all the time how the influence the media and people's perceptions of the world. The ironic part is how the "business" world has had the tendency to shut them out of their exclusive, black suit wearing clique. People often underestimate the fact that quite a few PR firms take on a lot of pro-bono work as well. So many start ups could not have well, started up, without their help. its a double edged sword.
The implication being that at some point they left. But outside the "geek community and high-tech development" as you put it, suits have always been their. Lawyers and businessmen and most non-uniformed male professionals have been wearing essentially the same clothes for the last 80 years or so. Pretty much only hats disappeared and maybe suspenders. Male business fashion doesn't change much.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I think the geek community is a good indicator of how business *should* allow they're employees to dress, short of the old concert t-shirts and torn jeans. Geeks usually tend to not bother with fashion, opting for comfort instead. But in business, especially the marketing peons and others who think appearance is everything, clothes make the man. A suit just makes you a better person. I think it's BS, but unfortunately people like that run the business world. Funny how they think that clothing, rather then actions, make a person. Hell, mobsters and contract killers always dress pretty nicely in movies, but that doesn't make them good people. They still go around killing people...
Paul Graham's right-on about this phenomenon of PR firms feeding stories to various press outlets. But...
Frankly, we're going to have to come up with a good name for this phenomenon (I could go into all the reasons why putting a name to something is a Good Thing, but life is short and I'll take it as a given).
"The Submarine" doesn't cut it.
Thoughts?
As a reporter for a technology publication, I find Graham's points to be rather overwrought. He makes it sounds as if every story in the mainstream press was ghostwritten by a PR agency.
No doubt the PR agencies have a hand in launching many stories, but far more of their pitches fail than get picked up. I get anywhere from 50 to 100 pitches a day via E-mail (not to mention phone calls). I write maybe one or two stories a day. Sometimes the story begins with a pitch, sometimes not.
And when a story does arise from a PR pitch, there's no guarantee the agency will be pleased with the results. Reporters generally do talk to a range of sources and not all say things PR reps like.
No doubt there are a lot of rewritten press releases that get published as news. That's true of mainstream press sites and of blogs. Sometimes the press release says it all. And sometimes time or resource or editorial ambition constraints prevent a more substantive analysis.
Graham cites fashion stories as an example of the mainstream press's lack of initiative. Please. Is he expecting a Pulitzer from the fashion and lifestyle pages? Is that much worse than the gear-porn stories so common in the tech industry? (He should have condemned those who covered Enron...that's a case where the spin really did some damage.)
Sure, there's lots of feel-good or sensationalist fluff out there. But that's what people prefer to read. How else to explain the popularity of titles like People?
Every journalist dreams of getting a hold of a great story, but they're rare. Not everyone is approached by an inside source with nation-shaking revelations. And it's hard to find such people by cold-calling. Nor do most publications have the reources to fund a thorough investigation of a particular practice or industry. Be grateful we still see some from time to time.
Graham writes, "Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese. It's people writing what they think."
Well, I think it's a stretch to condemn the entire mainstream press as inauthentic based on a few stories born of PR. I'd also venture to say that much of the writing I find online is suspect. Is someone's review of some book or CD on Amazon somehow more worthy of trust than one penned by a reviewer for the NY Times (who got the book for free from a PR agency)?
Graham talks about people writing what they think. Usually, their thoughts begin with a link to a story in the mainstream press.
The best bloggers are good reporters. If reporters happen to use facts that originated with a PR agency, that shouldn't be a problem as long as efforts are made to consider the reliability of the data.
Back in the days when I was filing 2-3 stories a week on open source software, I made a pretty quick realization that there were only so many stories you could write about people writing and rewriting each others' software. Once that realization set it, I was on the slippery slope to PR addiction as I struggled to a) fill the news hole while b) covering stories with any type of efficiency.
I can't think of too many examples where a PR pitch shaped my story, but Graham's comments about "mystery meat" covered in a coating of "journalese" sent a shiver down my back. Good PR people influence reporting by packaging ideas in the same glib, half-chewed fashion a reporter uses to package it for an editor. It's sort of like a virus slipping its DNA into the host cell's DNA. Since the number of clever ideas a reporter can process in a given week is finite, if you can slip one clever idea into his thoughtstream, it becomes a sit back and wait for the payoff process.
What Graham neglects to mention, however, is access. What makes PR so addicting to the reporter isn't the minimization of workload: It's the guarantee of face-to-face access when you need an interesting person or group to drive your story. Aside from seeking out buzz-quotes, another way to test for existence of a PR company is to look for all the subtle cues of an arranged meeting -- Hollywood journalism clues such as the way the interviewee attacked a salad during a 15 minute lunch or they way their eyes crinkled briefly in a 20 minute walk-and-talk. Good PR people know that every reporter is trying to make a mink coat out of a single pelt, so they make sure to keep the pelts on limited supply.
Anyway, I can say all this because, thanks to the economy, my career has veered away from relying heavily on PR folks. I now can afford to pitch only the story ideas I know are unique and that precludes talking to too many intermediaries. When I do convince PR people to have their clients talk to me, I wind up feeling guilty when the pitches bomb.
As for the future of the PR/news writer relationship, I've said it before and I'll say it again: A person should read the news the same way they buy fruit at the market. Sniff it, inspect it, clean it, and then eat it knowing that you still need a few more courses if you want a balanced meal. Blogs may expand the buffet table, but I find the fare the journalistic equivalent of an all candy diet. Something tells me the PR folks have already figured out how to package that candy.