PR and the press: it’s over, but let’s still be friends

Tala al Ramahi

• Last Updated: May 05. 2009 9:18PM UAE / May 5. 2009 5:18PM GMT

Public relations practitioners can make or break (usually they prefer the former) a political candidate, a product or an entire company. We journalists have a reputation for doing the latter. We can be the bane of many people’s lives – company executives, politicians and ordinary citizens alike – just as the PR industry can be the bane of ours.

Anyone who has seen the new movie thriller State of Play will surely understand the attraction of journalism as a profession, with its opportunities for uncovering truth and exposing wrongdoing. Many journalists have assumed the self-appointed duty of maintaining moral righteousness in their societies, reporting on corruption and disease, political and legislative failures and cultural shortcomings. But we are human beings, and just like the people we report on, we are not immune to making mistakes. That is just the nature of human fallibility.

Some of us try to seek the “truth” by reporting several versions of it. We spend endless hours on the phone trying to contact officials who are willing (most are not) to comment on an issue, and then spend more time trying to weave all the information into a story that is both objective and fair. Of course, being fair is about scrutinising what we are told just as much as it is about publishing what we are told without question – and that rarely makes public relations people happy.

For starters, they are usually hired to burnish a client’s reputation, to enhance the client’s image, to “make them look good” – while our loyalties are to the public and the truth. Public relations generally entails drawing attention to and emphasising the positive information they have. Most PR people will disclose shortcomings only when pushed, and even then information that might damage a client will be revealed by drip-feed, or padded out in a way that makes it difficult to see the whole picture. And why not? That’s what they’re paid for.

The trouble is, if public relations people were a newspaper’s only sources, it would read more like a marketing campaign than a genuine source of news. And many PR people in the United States have earned a reputation for being manipulative, the nature of public relations in the UAE is somewhat different. I believe the incessant calls and e-mails we journalists receive from PR people are based on their fundamental misunderstanding of our role as journalists. There is a misconception that our job is to publish their press releases as “news”, and at a time that is convenient for their clients.

No serious journalists will do that, and those of us who don’t are then flooded with more phone calls asking us why not.

Such “reporting” serves no one. It is our civic responsibility as journalists to point out shortcomings in proposed legislation, or in a new public campaign, and to report on uncomfortable issues – sometimes to correct misconceptions, just as much as to present the positive side of issues. It is also our duty to listen to voices that sometimes go unheard – those who cannot afford to hire public relations people to tell their version of the truth.

It is also our responsibility to contact those who have hired public relations representatives, because if we want to get as close to the truth as possible we need to cut out the middle men. It reminds me of a childhood game we used to play: Chinese whispers. By the time you got to the final player, the “whispered” message relayed from one person to another is sometimes so far from the original message, the “truth”, that it is laughable.

There is a relationship between we Arab journalists and the PR industry, but I think it has run its course and the time has come for us to break up: they are too demanding, too clingy (they call too much), and think it is all about them. Just like all break-ups, this one won’t be easy. We have to work harder to find our bearings again. Such is the case for anyone coming out of a “too comfortable” relationship, where we lose sense of ourselves and our worth. After all, there is a space in our newspapers especially reserved for relaying clients’ demands and campaigns: it’s called advertising space.

But I wouldn’t want anyone in PR to take this rejection too badly: it doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends …



talramahi@thenational.ae