This sassy and mildly obnoxious character appears time and time again on popular television shows like The Spin Crowd – destroying the credibility of our profession with every hair flick and under considered sentence.
Every publicity agency has been approached by many a young graduate like this who wonders why they aren’t a director in week one, but the good PR agencies look for substance, experience, runs on the board and the right chat.
Now for the first time – Australian TV will have its own crack at the flacks.
Andrew Denton’s Gruen Planet (a spin off from the Gruen Transfer) set to launch later this year will focus on the world of PR looking at “the news of the week through the prism of spin, branding and image control”.
It’s hard to know how to feel about this kind of audit on PR activities. It will be interesting to see what type of impact this kind of unveiling analysis has on an industry that relies on a seamless production of smoke and mirrors.
While consumer PR and mainstream journalism go together like a morning coffee and bagel, the new show will have plenty of material to un-pack. But what is the aim of this kind of program? Will it disable or encourage the work of Publicity Agencies?
As an account manager at a leading lifestyle PR agency, Red PR I for one celebrate this kind of exposure. A good publicist follows all of the rules and has the same appreciation of news values as a trained journalist. We frequently interview outside sources and contextualize our content. We have learnt the process of creating news and function as a legitimate arm of the media – well the good PR’s do.
Stories in mainstream media will never be immune from commercial interests. Every source that is interviewed has an interest, and more often than not is affiliated with a commercial entity of some kind. Every journalist who commences an interview has an editorial brief to fill and whether they like it or not relies on their own set of learnt experiences to deduct logic.
Consumer PR is no different. In my opinion, it’s just journalism that admits its partiality.
So I am hoping that this behind the news look into PR efforts will at least represent, the way that other programs have not, the real face of PR in Australia, with the vacant sour faced publicist no-where to be seen. I just hope it doesn’t make a mockery of what an important service we do provide to brands.
Watch out sloppy flacks and hacks – soon there will be no-where to hide!
