I wrote a post the other day titled The Rise, Rise (and Rise) of the Opinion Cycle.
It was based around a presentation the former senior press secretary to PM Kevin Rudd, Lachlan Harris gave at the Public Relations Institute of Australia's PR Directions conference.
The presentation proved to be quite controversial, and sparked much debate during the conference.
I received a few comments on the post, one of which was from Geoff Barbaro (below), co-founder of Corporate Growing Pains. He is the author of The Leader’s Beacon: The 55-minute guide to Leadership Communication.
Traditional media organisations have been cutting expenses in traditional management style and have failed to maintain their values and standards.
As a result, they have spent the last couple of decades throwing away their Unique Selling Proposition.
They have also spent that time diversifying their business interests into entertainment and gaming, which now provides the lifeblood for many of these organisations.
It is no coincidence that traditional media sales have fallen in real terms, almost in inverse proportion to the rise and rise (and rise) of opinion. We can get opinions at the local pub.
What we want from traditional media organisations are the credible facts we can use to back-up our views and fuel our debates.
As an industry, PR has been extremely remiss in not strongly supporting journalists in their role as the fourth estate. Opinions have nothing to do with the role of the fourth estate. We are partially responsible for allowing this problem to occur.
We need to challenge traditional media to return to values-based journalism that meets standards, but we won’t take on that challenge because it is not seen as being good to challenge media proprietors and some see it as against the interests of clients.
People like traditional media. Despite predictions for the last 40 years or so that it was dying, we continue to keep it alive. We still like reading papers in the mornings, however they are delivered.
Many of the young journalists entering the industry still want to achieve the same things as their predecessors. But our will to fight to keep alive traditional media is continuing to drain.
Soon, someone will come up with the new way to deliver credible, properly checked and appropriately sourced news. When they do, the disruptive innovation for the traditional media companies may be complete.
In the meantime, I'm not sure that being proactive in the media is that effective.
By all means, respond fully and openly when they ask questions, but I'm not sure that the effectiveness of traditional media is so high that we should continue to respond or drive proactive campaigns when there are so many avenues available for direct conversations, discussions and debates between organisations and their stakeholders.
Traditional media tend to be picking up and reporting these conversations anyway, so do we keep going to journalists, given we will be lucky to get any news reporting and the majority of coverage for any reasonable issue will be reporting of opinions?
I agree with your approach about open conversations with stakeholders and not relying on the media filter. Stakeholder conversations are much more credible than our media releases.
Why not let the journalists have good access to these conversations? After all, the pressure to report them fairly becomes far greater when a) the whole conversation is public and b) the stakeholders being reported can respond to any element of comment about them.
However, if we go down this path, we also need to be more accountable for what we publish, more accountable for ensuring our information is presented accurately and fairly and that stakeholders have the clear right to respond in their own ways just as openly, without threat or much in the way of censorship (censorship for standards only, not messages or themes).
And hopefully keeping us accountable will see journalists back in their true role as the fourth estate.
Cheers.
Geoff Barbaro
The 55-minute guide to Leadership Communication available on Amazon
Corporate Growing Pains Pty Ltd
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