Attack of the Flak Saying what you think
Saying what you think
Wednesday, 10 December 2008 15:30
I could file this under any category, but with the recent point-tipping in the print media world, let's examine it from the PR perspective.
My older sister did PR for a long time (My younger sister did, too. My sister-in-law still does. Make your own inferences), and she tells this story about walking out of an interview with an executive. She'd brokered this meeting between her client and a reporter who covered the market in which her client's products fit.
Standard operating procedure. Anyone who's been in PR for awhile has done this walk scores of times. You hold your tongue until you get out of the building, maybe until you're in the car if someone's in the parking lot; and then you say what you've been thinking.
So, my sister's client asks how much money she thinks that reporter makes. Some paltry sum. The exec is baffled. The reporter seemed like a fairly smart guy. Why would he waste his time writing about stuff when he could sell stuff and make more money. In the exec's opinion, the reporter was being stupid.
I've often thought about this story. I used to think, well, the reporter has the freedom to say what he thinks. He doesn't have to spout the company line or make one box sound better than another box with pretty words and deft arguments. He can rely on facts, he can report what he finds, he is unbiased. As such, his job had benefits no corporate gig could offer.
This was naive thinking on my part.
It's nearly impossible to have the freedom to say what you really think.
Kids do it, but they don't have to pay a mortgage.
In 2000, I started going to Asia, managing PR agencies there that were marketing the companies for whom I was working. I was surprised to find that in China it was common practice to pay reporters to come to a press conference. A travel stipend. The reporters would dutifully come, listen, eat the food, drink the drink, then return to their offices and print our press releases verbatim.
Wherefore art thou journalistic integrity. This was nothing like our American free press.
I'm not going to go into the details of what happened to the mainstream media over the course of the last eight years. It's been chronicled ad nauseum.
Today, when I read something, I simply ask, is this person saying what they think. Then it all comes down to a name and whether or not I trust that name. This holds true from deodorant to politician. You're saying something, why should I believe you.
My simplistic summation: The people who say what they think make the least amount of money.
My cynical PR tip: Pay attention to those people saying what they think. They are now your most important influencers.