PR Week, 9th September, 2005
THE ACCUSERS AND THE ACCUSED
A recent report suggests a trust crisis between in-house PROs and journalists. 
Stephen Hoare quizzes both camps to find out what is wrong.

Trust between heads of comms and journalists is what oils the wheels of a good story.  While journalists rarely admit it, the symbiotic relationship is a gentleman’s agreement both parties respect and seldom break.

Yet according to a recent survey by selection agency Watson Helsby, which questioned the heads of comms at 20 FTSE100 companies, the faith between senior PROs and journalists is in serious danger of breaking down.

In the survey, internal heads of comms revealed a long list of discontentment with journalists.  They accused them of having an ‘increasingly tabloid style of reporting’, of trivialising weighty stories by going for the sensationalist angle and approaching stories with a ‘preconceived opinion about a company’.  This, said PROs, leaves them with little ability to influence the tone of articles.  Worse still, they say many journalists are willing to break the confidentiality of off-the-record briefings to rush lurid and factually incorrect stories into print.

The report is a pretty damning.  ‘Like any research, it started off as exploratory, but when these general themes clearly revealed themselves, we started to look into them more deeply,’ says report author Nick Helsby.  He adds: ‘It’s a dispassionate, rational response from PROs rather than an emotive, reactive one, but nevertheless, they do think things have changed; that they are having to deal with younger, more cynical journalists, who are spreading themselves more thinly, but still need that story.’

That the rules of the game are different is supported by journalists themselves.  As The Times business editor Patience Wheatcroft says: ‘We’ve seen the end of the “Friday night drop”, where you could tell when you opened your Sunday paper which journalist had been given inside information.  Journalists now have to work harder to get stories.’

However, as Helsby says, it is PROs who seem to be feeling the pressure.  ‘One told me “you just have to be smarter now”.  Trust has not disappeared, but it is diminishing.’

So what are the accusers (PROs) really saying about their relationship with journalists and how do the accused feel about this?  We asked three pairs to go head-to-head for their honest opinions on the matter.

ON THE HUNT FOR SCOOPS…
Peter Morgan, director of group communications, BT: the main priority is to ‘protect reputation’

The British press do not see it as their job to be supportive of British industry, and I understand that the workload of journalists is increasing.

I’m sympathetic to journalists’ demands, but my job is also to protect and improve the reputation of the business I represent.  There are issues where I can’t be as open as I want, but while I won’t always tell everything, I won’t tell untruths.

It’s my view that it is incumbent on journalists to keep coming up with good ideas for talking to us as everyone gets the same regulatory press releases.  Journalists who repeatedly take a hostile view of us and don’t report fairly are known to me and other heads of comms and there is remarkable consensus between us about who are the more reputable and thorough.  Fact-checking is a casualty of journalists being too busy, but the newer crop are much, much younger and with less experience than the ones they have replaced.