PR killed the Journalism Star

Is old school journalism dead? Killed by wire agencies and press releases? Roy Greenslade wrote on the subject in his blog, and how Twitter is used to get these press releases across.

Developments in the new media have led to a greater presence of press releases in the news, and diluted news outlets whose worthiness ranges from exceptional to far below mediocre.

The first of these is the virtually non-existent barrier to entry. To be a producer in the new media after all, all you need is a blog account and to make a few connections to get your message out. Most agree that this is indeed a healthy thing for democracy since it allows greater participation, contributing to the rise of citizen journalism.

This low bar of entry also makes it easier for organisations to get their message out in the form of press releases.

The issue however lies not with the number of news outlets and re-producers, rather the limited sources that are called upon, i.e. recycled news from wire agencies such as Reuters and press releases. Such recycled news contributed heavily to the new media and raises the question as to whether or not traditional journalism, in the sense of journalism that relies on primary sources, is in decline.

Of course, the existence of press agencies secures traditional journalism, else re-producers would have nowhere to get their stories from, but can journalism and PR work hand in hand online?

As far as I can tell, it depends on the type of PR in question. In the case of PR for the public benefit, for instance public health notifications (see my entry about swine flu), PR and journalism have the same agenda, that being to make the public aware of information that will benefit them. There are other cases where this may well conflict. Such cases will often be associated with the term "crisis management"; or, in real people speak, trying to convince the world that everything's fine when it isn't to cover an organisation's back, or block out truths that are of detriment to their objectives. "Selfish PR", if you will.

This darker side of PR is perhaps exemplified by a quote from Frank Mankiewicz, vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton PR:

The big corporations, our clients, are scared shitless of the environmental movement… The corporations are wrong about that. I think the companies will have to give in only at insignificant levels. Because the companies are too strong, they're the establishment. The environmentalists are going to have to be like the mob in the square of Rumania before they prevail.

This of course applies to the Journalism versus PR debate on a general level, not specifically online. The relevance of this quote though, is to demonstrate the communicative power of large corporations. In "old school" media, the only challenges to the booming voice of large corporations were those of investigative journalists working for larger news organisations, and pressure groups/protesters, who did not have so much of a platform to stand on.

Web 2.0 provides this platform, and so perhaps it could in fact play a key role in levelling the playing field between "Selfish PR" practitioners, whose goal is to make people aware of a certain message and journalists, whose goal is to make people aware of the truth.