Passion, People and Principles

What reporters hate about PR people

post # 184 — September 7, 2006 — a Client Relations post

I just received a copy (thanks Steve Rubell) of a speech given by Tommy Fernandez, the journalist who covered the legal beat at Crain’s New York Business , at the July meeting of Law Firm Media Professionals

Taking no prisoners, Fernandez aims fairly and squarely at his audience of the Public Relations professionals who work for law firms – those who are always trying to get his attention and press coverage for their firms. Here are his “reasons why reporters hate you”

There are too damned many of you. (He gets more than 100 calls involving law firm pitches per day. Do the math.)

It’s getting nearly impossible to tell your pitches apart. There is no trend you can imagine that I have heard several times today.

You don’t listen (or keep promises about when you’re going to get back with a quote or supporting evidence for a story.)

You treat reporters like your social worker (“you’ve got to help me out of this situation”.) I am not here to help you. I am not your social case worker. I am not here to protect your job, make you feel good or help your clients. The sooner you accept that reality, the better of you’ll be.

You treat reporters like a social trophy (Come to lunch and meet our top execeutives and discuss the latest developments in document flow management software.” “What do you mean you don’t want to spend three hours with our management committee to educate us on ….)

Your clients are dumbasses and you don’t tell us: “Is that really the right question to be asking? Is this really the right story to be writing? I’ll tell you a story you should be working on, although it won’t really be a story until the winter, but that’s beyond your deadline, isn’t it?”

Reporters hate you (PR) becaude you act like used car salesmen. ‘A study in nausea’ he calls it. -Drop your fantasy. There is no spiel, no gimmick you can use to compel me to abandon my common sense. The attitude of reaching (PR) goals is actually one of the easiest ways you can shoot yourself in the foot.

There’s more, lot’s more, but you get the idea. Not surprisingly, this was Mr. Fernandez’ farewell speech – he’s moving on to cover other journalistic beats.

All of which goes to show.. What exactly? That PR people don’t understand journalists?

You don’t have to be in PR or the law to get a lot out of Mr. Fernadez’ rant.

The real lesson is that all of us get so wrapped up in what we want FROM the other person that we fail to understand what would make them want to give it to us.

It’s beneficial, if painful, to have the other side tell us, in uncertain terms, what it has been like working with us!

5 Comments

Dennis Howlett said:

You’re in my back yard now David as I’ve worked as a hack for 13 years. However harsh Mr Fernandez may sound, he’s pretty much on the money. Here’s the reason. PR was invented in the US to combat negative government pressure on Ford. It was all about influence. It quickly developed into an industry where the mantra is ‘control the message.’ By the early 1990s, spin had become endemic and whenever I travelled to the US, I could guarantee that an army of PR drones would be in attendance. All booted and suited in the same clothes, often looking like downbeat market traders. The problem is they have never understood that they cannot control the message – never have. Why else do you think there are so many marketers and PR flacks in the blogosphere. They’re terrified of losing control of that all important message. Yet they’ve never had it. At present, many are talking a good game but in reality they’re clueless. They’re trying to sound as though they know how to handle press, customers and so on but have progressed very little. US flacks struggle with UK hacks because we won’t be controlled. One of the great benefits of the blog revolution is that it has freed up a lot of American hacks from having to reprint press releases. That was the flip side in pre-blog days – especially in high tech – where too many hacks really didn’t have much idea what they were doing. Now, the market is sorting the wheat from the chaff and it is turning PR into a completely different discipline. The one you talk about where they’ve got to listen and respond or they’ll be flayed in electronic print. These issues are not as pronounced in the UK where there has been a strong tradition of independence. Thank goodness.

posted on September 7, 2006

Andrew Smith said:

I should start by saying that these arguments about PR people are as old as the hills.

But to take one specific point – is that PR people don’t understand journalists?

No. On the whole, I’d say PR people do understand what journalists want – the real issue is that their clients or the people they represent don’t understand what journalists want.

However, PRs seem to suffer from an endemic inferiority complex ie not being confident enough in their own judgement and experience to tell their clients that their expectations are too high or unrealistic. The stereotype view of the PR is to be relentlessly upbeat and positive – saying No is viewed as a sign of weakness. Yet any other business advisor would surely counsel their clients to temper their expectations if they knew the outcome was likely to end in failure.

Why is this? The old cliché about PR is that you can tell how important PR is to the firm by how far the communications director’s office is from the CEO. Generally, PRs – either in-house or agency side – are viewed with at best suspicion or worse contempt. Which is curious given that most senior execs in any business will usually say that PR (or the firms reputation) is of paramount importance. Yet in terms of overall marketing spend, PR never gets anything like the investment received by other marketing disciplines. If you take the tech industry as an example, according to IDC, for every $100K spent on marketing by tech companies, only $7.1K of that will be spent on PR. The figures don’t lie.

Also, in any industry sector, certain firms are always likely to get the lion’s share of attention by journalists – however, all companies seem to behave as though they have a right to a similar level of exposure – but if their PR advisors don’t provide realistic expectations of outcome, then you end up with the situation outlined by Tommy Fernandez – and I realise he was referring to law PRs, but his arguments could be applied to any industry – and have been for years.

Let’s take his points in turn:

TF: There are too damned many of you. (He gets more than 100 calls involving law firm pitches per day. Do the math.)

A: As he says, do the maths – it is impossible for all companies to get the same level of high, positive press exposure – yet PRs act as if they can. I don’t doubt that many ring up journalists like Fernandez knowing full well that the pitch will fall on deaf ears – but at least they can say: “We tried.” Which is somehow supposed to justify the investment in time and money.

TF: It’s getting nearly impossible to tell your pitches apart. There is no trend you can imagine that I have heard several times today.

A: Again – it requires serious effort to create a compelling and differentiated story – and this isn’t just lack of elbow grease on the part of the PRs. This is related to the firm’s own readiness to truly formulate a proposition and story that really stands out. It’s not just the PRs, but senior management that must also share responsibility for this. Or indeed the whole firm.

TF: You don’t listen (or keep promises about when you’re going to get back with a quote or supporting evidence for a story.)

A: OK, maybe there are some slack PRs out there who are just plain unprofessional – but I bet most of the time, they have acted in good faith but are let down by someone else within the business who doesn’t keep to their promises.

TF: You treat reporters like your social worker (“you’ve got to help me out of this situation”.) I am not here to help you. I am not your social case worker. I am not here to protect your job, make you feel good or help your clients. The sooner you accept that reality, the better of you’ll be.

A: Very true – but you can see how PRs are driven to act like this if they are being forced to execute a PR campaign they don’t fundamentally believe in.

TF: You treat reporters like a social trophy (Come to lunch and meet our top execeutives and discuss the latest developments in document flow management software.” “What do you mean you don’t want to spend three hours with our management committee to educate us on ….)

A: Again – if the PR reminded senior management that what they consider important is not necessarily what the reporter considers important, Tommy might not have had so many wasted calls like this.

TF: Your clients are dumbasses and you don’t tell us: “Is that really the right question to be asking? Is this really the right story to be writing? I’ll tell you a story you should be working on, although it won’t really be a story until the winter, but that’s beyond your deadline, isn’t it?”

A: Again – PR people need to be more robust in explaining to their clients about what is a realistic expectation – if they have a better story that can be told at a later date, then give up on trying to get coverage now based on a non-story. And yes, everyone needs to be seen generating results – but the other danger is that by pursuing the journalist now with a poor story, he will be less inclined to consider the better story further down the track – a lose-lose situation.

TF: Reporters hate you (PR) becaude you act like used car salesmen. ‘A study in nausea’ he calls it. -Drop your fantasy. There is no spiel, no gimmick you can use to compel me to abandon my common sense. The attitude of reaching (PR) goals is actually one of the easiest ways you can shoot yourself in the foot.

A: PRs have to have goals – the trouble is, the goals are too often unachieveable – either because senior management haven’t been told, or refuse to listen. The come across as car salesmen because they are attempting to modify demand to meet supply – rather than modifying supply to meet demand.

In short, Fernadez’s arguments are as old as the hills – however, I suspect nothing much will change until PRs have more belief in their counsel and experience – and their clients are prepared to be more realistic in their view of what can be achieved by PR.

posted on September 7, 2006

Larry Bodine said:

As a former news reporter, I regarded PR people like parasites or mercenaries. They were something to be tolerated and avoided. They got in the way of news sources I wanted to talk to. If you want to get your name in the paper, it’s much better to call up the reporter yourself.

Larry Bodine http://www.LarryBodine.com

posted on September 7, 2006

David Phillips said:

Then there is the other side.

Why not converse with people without using the press?

Soon.. soon.

posted on September 13, 2006

Chris Martin said:

all of this is tired old stuff we’ve heard from reporters forever…it will never change..I just wonder if Hernandez has such a nose for news, why he wrote this at all..it’s boring…it reminds me of the Publicity Club of Chicago events where four reporters get up in front of PR people and tell them why they hate the people in the audience…life’s too short to put up with this abuse…

posted on November 13, 2007