Week 1: The dangerous relationship between Journalism and PR

This post is part of my 'Journalism, PR and The Media' theory module online portfolio.

One would think that Journalism and Public Relations go hand-in-hand; they both write stories and they both aim to get published. However, there are many differing issues between the two professions also thrown into the mix, which makes the relationship that little bit more complicated.

Maloney, Jackson and McQueen show concern for the future of journalism in the set reading. The general thought is that the growth of the PR industry is a serious threat to the quality and independence of contemporary journalism through Churnalism and the PR-isation of news; which is where press releases and pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers.

Interestingly, 80% of published news stories in 'top end' news outlets are produced by PR (Lewis et al, 2008). Julia Hobsbawm would argue this is news being made to happen. Even when there is 'no news' there is always a newspaper, always stories - PR helps to do this. Here is an example of a press release as a news story. This is one of a number of factors which is making the PR industry bloom and the journalism industry decrease.

Another issue highlighted in the reading is that the news is therefore not factual and reliable due to this PR-isation and churnalism. As stated above, a large amount of news we read is produced by PR, who try to sway public opinion. The reading suggests that PR does not give informed, factual and reliable information but instead gives the information they want you to believe, as part of their job is to influence opinion and behaviour (CIPR, 2012).

Journalists write with the aim of informing the public of current affairs, contemporary events and circumstances of public significance or interest (Kovach & Rosenstiel 2003). But now journalists are publishing press releases more and more. Thus leading us to ask if the information is fact or if it is actually favourable reporting promoting a product or client?

One could argue that some people want to be part of ‘good news’ agenda promoting their town rather than being aware that a local authority might have something to hide (Slattery, 2009) and therefore not producing the facts.

The set reading has enhanced my knowledge of the issues surrounding PR and journalism, as I wasn't aware such a high content of PR was used in news outlets. But in my opinion it isn't fair to attack the PR industry as they are just doing their job for their client. Journalists have the option to use the press release, and they have the option to do their own research rather than just copy and pasting the material sent to them.

Bibliography

1) Davies, F. (2008) Public Relations and Journalism: Truth, Trust, Transparency and Integrity. University of Lincoln. pp 1-2, 17.

2) Jackson, D., McQueen, D. and Moloney, K. (2013) ‘News Journalism and Public Relations: A Dangerous Relationship’ in Journalism: New Challenges, Allan, S. and Watt-Fowler, K., (eds). Centre for Journalism & Communication Research, Bournemouth University. pp 261,262 and 275.

3) J.Hobsbawm, (2006), Where The Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in PR and Journalism (2nd ed), London: Atlantic Books

4) Lewis, J., Williams, A., Franklin, B., Thomas, J. and Mosdell, N. (no date) The Quality and Independence of British Journalism. Available at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/resources/QualityIndependenceofBritishJournalism.pdf (Accessed: 10 February 2015).