Know your role – the fine line between PR and propaganda

There can be few individuals or companies operating in the media, marketing and PR sectors who are not aware that the winds of change are howling through the creative industries.

The seemingly unstoppable rise of digital and mobile content has led to a gradual waning of power within the traditional ‘written press’, with many newspaper and magazine circulations in freefall year on year.

Major publications have tried to cope with the resulting loss of revenue by shedding editorial staff, especially expensive specialists, and outsourcing content provision as much as possible.

That has offered many PR companies a better than ever chance of making their voices – or rather those of their clients - heard as mainstream media outlets scrabble to fill space quickly and cheaply.

However, when does the boundary between offering journalists a helpful and professional service (e.g. quick answer to a question, newsworthy story, interesting quotes) become blurred and step into the realms of puffery and propaganda?

In the latest issue of the quality motorsport e-zine GP Week, legendary motorsport writer Martin Holmes illustrates some of the issues faced by the media in the sport of rallying.

He brindles at the fact that under the pretence of saving media outlets time and money, certain organisations are offering to provide free content to go straight into their pages.

While this kind of service may be offered with the best of intentions, Holmes seems to be of the opinion that these organisations could well be trying to subvert editorial independence by gaining such a foothold.

That is to say, if PR companies were to become both poacher and gamekeeper, in the industry parlance, how could any semblance of objectivity be retained?  Wouldn’t the PR companies simply gloss over any bad news or criticism and dutifully plug their clients’ views?

More to the point, where does it leave journalists?

Holmes’ concerns about the media situation in motorsport are equally applicable across the whole media spectrum, and no-one seems to have come up with any solid answers to these troubling questions yet.

The crux of the matter is that amid the ongoing changes in the media and PR industries a line has to be drawn somewhere, with one group (journalists) on one side and one (PR practitioners) on the other.

Doing so would mean that everyone knows where they stand and can get on with their job - without stepping on the other lot’s toes.