Tag: journalism

Has the AP Lost its Role as Standard for Writing?

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

It used to be called the “bible” of journalism, and as such was widely respected by those in public relations who wrote news releases and other items sent to reporters.

But the Associated Press Style Guide has gone from an annual spiral bound book to an online subscription site with email updates to something potentially irrelevant. The Associated Press (AP) has gone from covering news and guiding how news should be covered to making news of its own. It has gone from promoting an objective style to pushing subjective and partisan framing.

This came to a head when the Trump administration banned the AP from the White House briefing room after the organization refused to acknowledge a name change from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. However, a variety of sources have reported that there is more to it than that, including the Wall Street Journal, Daily Signal, and Axios. Other reporting revealed that the AP receives funding from the far-left Omidyar Network. It has also been noticed that the AP never covered the fact that more than 400 reporters had their press pass revoked by the Biden administration. 

Apart from the Gulf of America naming issue, criticism of the AP’s drift into leftist partisanship has been growing over time. Examples include their guidance to capitalized Black but not white when referring to a subject’s race. Or their “Transgender Topical Coverage Guide” that warns not to include comments from experts that are contrary to the approved narrative—an example that shows a taking of sides and censorship of voices that is far removed from non-partisan objectivity on which the AP built its reputation.

I have heard that many PR firms and corporate communication offices are eschewing the AP in favor of their own house style. I also see in many actual newspapers a style that is different than that of the AP (this could be negligence more than protest, but the case remains). Of course the emergence of blogs and independent journalism means much writing has gone from 3rd person to first person voice and other deviations from standard AP style. I have decided to not let my AP subscription auto-renew, and will explain all this to future classes and let the adoption of the AP guide be optional.

Meanwhile, since the AP thinks it does not have to respond to formal name changes, I have seen some change the name of the AP from Associated Press to other options. These include American Pravda, Aggregated Propaganda, or Associated Partisanship. Its notable that some of the alternatives seem more accurate and objective.

The business of journalism and the future of PR

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

An annual report from a news outlet says a lot about the business of journalism. For one thing, journalism is a business.

It may also be a nonprofit mission. 

One thing journalism is not is an institution with a unique claim to the first amendment and role in democracy. Oh it certainly has “a” role, but it is not unique to journalism. When “freedom of the press” was inscribed into our First Amendment it was a reference not to an institution or an as-yet unformed profession. It was about people who owned and operated a printing press. 

In other words, business men.

These people were printers, and they printed leaflets, advertisements and many things, including newspapers. All of the above had been restricted under the British Stamp Act, requiring a literal stamp of approval by the government before anything could be published. This was one of many grievances our founders had against King George. 

In our modern era, the “press” includes all forms of means to produce and distribute information. So-called “mainstream” media are part of that. But so are an increasing number of other voices contributing information and perspective to the public sphere.

So, our democracy has become also a cacophony. It is the beautiful mess of freedom. But in this mess traditional journalism has had to adapt, to pivot, just like any other businesses adjusting to technology, market demand and other changes.

My thinking on this was prompted by two publications recently. One was an article in Crain’s Grand Rapids Business about the creative ways journalism is handling it’s current business crisis. Incidentally,  Crains just recently added a paywall, so subscription is required to read this article. Crain’s also has gone from free publication of those personnel and brief company updates to a paid model. Both are signs of the business reality of needing revenue from multiple sources now that the old model of subscriptions and large advertising income alone is not sustainable.

Another item that caught my eye was the Bridge Michigan and Bridge Detroit annual report. It is an interesting read, showcasing their values, coverage areas, awards won, and the annual report requisite numbers about readership and revenue. I found it interesting and well done, as a subscriber and a PR professional. It meets the goal of annual reports of transparency, loyalty building, brand promotion and solicitation. 

Both the article and annual report from media outlets I subscribe to are a reminder to me not to take good reporting for granted. They also are evident that journalism is not taking readers for granted. Nor should they. The competitive landscape has changed:

  • So much of the media marketplace is online, where news is shared not in a branded publication or outlet but a single story at a time, aggregated by third parties like Apple News, Flipboard and others or users’ own forms of curation;
  • News links have been banned in some countries on social media because publishers need to make the profit, not the social platforms. But this also limits distribution;
  • Many other businesses are doing brand journalism that extends beyond their product or service lines and simple brings more content into the overall media mix. Examples include Coke‘s studio and UPS stories. 
  • Traditional media organizations are increasingly seeing competition from independent journalists who start their solo brand on platforms like Substack. Examples include Christopher Rufo, Matt Taibi, and Bari Weiss, all of whom left jobs at prominent media to be journalism entrepreneurs.
  • Then there is the host of alternative media platforms ranging from the Daily Wire and Blaze Media on the Right to Slate and Huffington Post on the left. 
  • To round out the landscape there is a growing number of think-tanks and other similar institutions that put out daily articles. These include the American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, the Cato Institute, and the Brookings Institute.

All of this relates to public relations in several ways. Obviously, the media relations aspect of public relations is affected—if people don’t read or believe the media en masse, it has less credibility and reach and is therefore less useful as a public relations channel. Secondly, public relations professionals have increasing outlets to reach, and can also be very successful representing organizations with branded journalism and other channels they can control as part of a growing mix of tactical options.

One of the key questions going forward has to be if journalism in competition will see objectivity as a unique selling proposition or a competitive liability. Will news outlets brand themselves by ideology or neutrality. This will also affect the decisions of which media PR professionals pitch and where media planners buy advertising. 

There are examples of both with new online outlets in Michigan. Bridge, which I mentioned earlier, promotes objectivity and bi-partisan reporting in its annual report. Meanwhile, the Michigan Advance sells its “top notch progressive commentary”.

While each journalism outlet will make its own editorial policy and market-driven decisions, there is also an issue of journalism damaging its “institutional brand.’ For example, public relations professionals hate the expression “just PR” which takes a single episode of bad practice and smears the whole profession. I wrote about the notion of “just journalism” previously due to the growing lack of objectivity in reporting, with even some editors speaking of it with disdain as something old-fashioned. 

Since writing that I have seen more examples of waning objectivity not just at the national level but in local media. My local paper refused to cover a story about a teacher quitting over mandated critical race theory lessons because the editor’s wife was a teacher and became the managing editor is “against book banning,’ even though that was not the issue in this case. It was news, regardless of editors’ personal opinions. A local TV station refused to cover people who were concerned about the appropriateness of public drag queen performances because they “did not want to give platform to hate.” Again, that is a pre-judgment and subjective value decision, not one of objective journalism to tell the story and represent all views.

I don’t know if the market—i.e. readers, listeners, viewers and in turn advertisers—will restore journalism to a sustainable business with a unique identity as professional purveyors of objective truth. It could be we have enjoyed a period of time in which news media was central to communication and a revered societal institution that will one day be seen as quaint, as different groups settle into their partisan echo chambers to be fed red herrings and propaganda. But, change happened before in the media.

A little less than 80 years ago, in 1947, prominent media formed the Hutchins Commission, chaired by Robert Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, in an impressive act of professional self regulation. They asserted a need for freedom of the press but also a need for journalists to resist sensationalism and give society what it needs.

And so, once again perhaps journalism may need a business retreat. As a profession, it needs to consider what it offers of unique value to society. It is not enough to assert its “importance to democracy” when readers are tired of its flaws and many others as I mentioned above are doing their own reporting, ranging from objective to perspective. 

100 Years On, Journalism Starting to Learn What PR Is

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

One area of my scholarship in public relations is history. About 15 years ago I published an article about how the media portrayed the merging profession of “public relations” in the 1920s. Early practitioners had gone from calling themselves press agents, to publicity men (even though women were engaged in the craft early on), to counselor on public relations.

Historical figures like Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee and Arthur Page were pointing out that they actually rarely did press releases, and instead focused their attention on counseling organizational leaders on how to achieve and maintain positive relationships with customers and other “publics.” It was 100 years ago this year, in 1923, that Edward Bernays published one of his books in this effort to advance and brand the profession: “Crystallizing Pubic Opinion.”

The media was largely fair, although there were some real zingers in calling the practitioners of the new profession everything from flappers (those 1920s young women debutantes all about image) to less savory affectations. In sum, they characterized the profession as deceptive image crafting as opposed to honest communication.

Things haven’t changed much.

I recently read a headline in an online publication in Michigan where I live. It was about the governor starting a new parents council to give input on education policy. The story was a good deep dive into this effort and whether it would accomplish anything or was just part of a re-election strategy. But it was the headline that bothered me: “Public Service or Public Relations?”

The juxtaposition implies that public relations is the antithesis of public service, in other words, not an honest attempt at listening to the public, just a stunt. But of course, any public relations professional with a degree would know that PR is the epitome of public service–building mutual relationships, dialogic communications, two-way symmetry and all the terms you learn in PR 101.

I wrote the reporter, and then offered a commentary.. I heard nothing back. It was when this nonprofit donation-based publication emailed me a renewal reminder that I responded with a pledge and a concern that I got a response from the editor.

It was a good exhange, but at first he defended the headline and said “while I understand the point you’re making, I don’t see how the words used in the headline cast your profession in a pejorative light. I didn’t view the juxtaposition of public service and public relations as being polar opposites, but rather alternative explanations.” He went on to say “In short: Was this about policy or election politics?”

Of course I said “exactly.” This was about policy vs politics, not public relations.

I further explained in our email exchange what may be interesting to readers of this blog:

“Using the conjunction “or” between public service and public relations sets them up as contrasted concepts, with the connotation that public service is good and public relations is bad.

The media and public at large have a stereotype of public relations as just publicity or things done merely for image and not with honest intent. That stereotype is perpetuated by your headline.

I understand what the headline writer was going for, and it is a good article and important to address. But a better headline would have been “public service or just image” or “public service or politics.” As you say, the issue has to do with policy or politics.

Another way to look at this is to consider who are the actors in question. Were they actual public relations professionals, were they politicians? Journalism is about accurate attribution, right? Let’s not attribute deeds to people—or a profession—who did not do them.

Granted, public relations is also an activity, like communications, often done by non-professionals. But it would be honest, objective and a service to readers to make that clear. Some time ago a business editor in Grand Rapids asked me to lunch and complained about the bad behavior and judgment of “all these PR people.” I helped her realize there were a lot of CEOs, marketers, politicians and others doing the “bad behavior” and that the actual PR people she worked with were honest, timely, fair and professional.

For the record, public relations is defined by the industry itself as “the management function that seeks to identify, build, and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and all the publics on whom its success or failure depends.” Nothing in there about deceptive image crafting.

If I see a grocery store rag or a blog that’s extreme and misinformed I don’t call it “journalism.” I would ask you make the same distinction and courtesy toward the public relations profession.”

The editor responded by saying he saw the point and realized framing it as a ‘political gambit’ would have been more accurate. He thanked me for expanding his perspective and said he would share it with his staff..

So, 100 years on, at least one journalist has expressed a better understanding of public relations. I would hope more would make a distinction between the negative stereotype of a common activity and the actual description of an honest profession. I would encourage other public relations professionals to call out “misinformation” about our profession when you see it in the media. Just this morning I heard twice on cable TV news the term “public relations” used to describe ingenue and deceptive communication. We still have work to do to make the distinction between practitioners and professionals, and between poor communication and the honorable public service known as public relations.

Why the Return of Paid Content Will Be Good for PR

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

For years I have been watching the economic decline of journalism. The cycle has gone like this:

  • new media emerge in droves because of the digital and social media opportunities;
  • in a rush to keep up with digital and social expansion and competition, legacy print media put their content online for free;
  • subscribers, preferring free to paid, and being overwhelmed with choices, drop subscriptions and use social platforms, RSS feeds, news aggregators and so on to access news;
  • the competition intensifies and to stay economically viable (i.e. more clicks) journalism quality suffers and goes solid reporting of important news is edged by click-bait, market-driven, entertainment value;
  • good journalists accept buy-outs and publishers seek “cheaper content” by aggregating, leveraging content from broader sources (witness MLive consolidating newsrooms and its universal desk so the content is very similar in Muskegon, Detroit, Grand Rapids, or how similar Detroit Free Press and USA Today look ) and gaining free content from bloggers, user-generated content and other “innovations” (witness the GVSU student who was paid in swag for her popular Buzzfeed quizzes);
  • smaller newsrooms put out less serious news, people keep getting it for free, favoring a stream of articles from multiple sources vs a deep read of select single sources;
  • with lower subscription and readership numbers, advertising dollars continue to decline, offering even less revenue to put into the “product” of must-read news.

There have been some alternative models. The New York Times offers 5 free reads per month and then a given IP address will have to subscribe. Others, like the Wall Street Journal and the Economist, offer some article free but premium articles are dangled out there with a notice that they are for subscribers only.

Other publications have emerged in a non-profit or donation model. In Michigan, many quality journalists from legacy media have moved to such publications such as the Bridge (“If you care about Michigan, please support our work”) or more recently Michigan Advance (heads up–I’ve invited editor Susan Demas to speak at GVSU and my colleagues are putting together an event for March 29 that will include a panel of journalism, advertising, public relations, and communications faculty including myself).

There is also a trend of nonprofits, businesses, and government offices becoming their own media outlet in the form of a news bureau or online newsroom that goes direct to public. A former student of mine who works for a state-wide association just asked me about this. I have written about this pointing to some examples on my blog previously–here’s a collection of prior posts on the subject.

But recently I noticed more media, from individual outlets to group conglomerates, drawing a line in the media economics sand and announcing a return to paywalls and subscriptions for their content. The latest example of this is a decision by Conde Nast for its fleet of publications. Some see the move as a bad one, but it is a trend to watch nonetheless.

Here’s why this is good for advertising and public relations.

  1. Survival of media. This will reverse the downward cycle I posed above. I heard a billionaire say once that if something is free, it has no perceived value. If people have to pay, publishers will have to put out quality reporting–meat, not candy. There is a hunger among the intelligent public for a less frantic media landscape, for news that is credible and quality. This will help good media–whether old or new–to survive.
  2. Communication environment. We should want good journalism to survive, first as citizens, and secondly as advertising and public relations professionals. Programmatic and targeted advertising made some economic sense, but it can lack qualitative intuition, creativity, and ethics. A recent study shows that most people don’t want tailored or targeted ads. Audiences who pay for content are more attentive to both paid and earned media (or ads and editorial content). And our ads and article pitches will exist next to good and not questionable content, which other studies shows matters to readers.
  3. Dedicated and aggregated audience. Digital media has been about both reach (quantity) and targeting small audiences of like minds and relevant interests. But returning to paywalls changes the equation. It may result in lower reach as not all current readers will subscribe. But those who do subscribe will be in one place, read each issue and multiple articles, have a natural interest in content and likely a net disposable income enabling them to respond to ads.

There are some considerations to work out as journalism returns to paywalls. One is whether subscribers–and maybe only subscribers–will be allowed to share content. Another is whether publishers will offer headlines and article summaries, or a handful of free articles each issue as a loss leader to draw subscribers. We’ll see. We are in what economist Joseph Schumpeter would call a “gale of creative destruction” in the media industry. What looks dire could emerge as a very good move forward.

I for one am eager to see what good things paywalls do for journalism, content, citizens and the ad and PR industry.

A Humble Proposal to Make Social Media Useful, and Journalism Better

~ penningink ~ 1 Comment

Initially, when it was new, social media was supposed to be a great equalizer. But it hasimages not worked out so well. What was supposed to hasten in an “Arab Spring” in some parts of the world has led instead to regime crackdown on technology. In China the government is using technology to act more like Big Brother to monitor every area of private life rather than to respond to citizen voices.

Here in the U.S., what was supposed to be “media democracy” has instead become more of a media cacophony, with multiple screaming voices and outright misinformation or actual “fake” news.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times asserts that social networks need to address this problem as a system error, and not react in real-time on a case by case basis. The article frets–as you might suspect from the NYT–that journalists should not have to do the job of policing the content on social networks. The social networks have that responsibility, and they are failing at it.

I’m not a tech guru by any stretch, but I have a humble suggestion to address the problem, to fix the “signal to noise” ratio, to return to quality vs quantity of posts, and to realize that on matters of truth and democracy, in our modern era the “marketplace if ideas” has become a third-world bazaar and we might appreciate a row of simple boutiques.

OK, maybe that’s a bad metaphor. But here is my thinking:

Social networks should start a separate channel just for news. This returns us to the old days when “bonafide” journalism was obvious to recognize by publication or network or program. Participants in this channel should be vetted as professional news organization, and this may include new media, but they must prove themselves to be legitimate in coverage of facts and to clearly label opinion where that is the nature of content (as the old op-ed pages in actual print do). They should ensure a non-partisan tone and focus on informing the public of facts, policy proposals, and straightforward information from business, sports, entertainment and other beats also. They could even hire journalists to do this.

Another channel should be set aside for brands. This would be where users could choose to see the content originally associated with pages. If people actually want to have a relationship and stay informed about a company, its products and services, or even its cause-related activity, this is the place for it.

Still another channel could be dedicated to causes. This is where nonprofits could shine, engaging users in fundraising, education, volunteer recruitment, and activism campaigns.

The government would have its own channel called civics. The White House, the state house, city hall, government agencies and office holders at all levels could communicate to constituents directly here.

Finally there would be a channel called, wait for it, social. This is where people could engage with their friends and family in a social nature.

If individuals wanted to share news, brands, causes or civics information, they could. But links back would take users to those channels to view the original content and engage in any discussion.

I don’t know if Facebook wants to try this and roll out the new feature for Christmas. Or, maybe there is an enterprising start-up out there reading this who can enter the market competitively by offering sanity with their social network. I don’t have the time, finances, or tech chops to roll this out myself. But if anyone wants to compensate me for the idea, I’m listening.
I’m also listening to what anyone else has to say about this issue.