07/25

It is normal to ask questions about the implications of facts and events.  Reporters, for example, speculated before the Iraq war what the country might be like after the war, if  infrastructure was destroyed.  The infrastructure was destroyed, and their speculations proved prescient.  Others speculated on what might happen if the Baath party turned to guerilla warfare.  The party has done so, and security problems bedevil American troops. 

Neither of these speculations was removed from reality.  Reporters knew bombing and invasion would destroy infrastructure.  The question was how much.  Reporters knew the Baath party would not give up easily.  The question was the extent of fighting spirit that would be left in its members. 

Speculation is not objective when it is distant from fact.  Futurists constantly predict a better world with fantastic transportation systems and marvelous inventions.  Most have not arrived and never will.  Politicians speculate on a society in which everyone is clothed, fed and cared for.  They refuse to look at the budget it would take to fund that kind of social welfare. Scientists speculate about the spacecraft needed to ferry men to Mars.  It is less fun to realize the cost of such a mission and the little gain from consigning a group of astronauts to two years of danger.

PR practitioners speculate on behalf of clients.  They create visions of a future for those who use their clients products and services.  But, usually such speculation over-promises and underperforms.  It's not credible, and customers become cynical.  Nearly every technology company has been accused of selling vaporware -- promises of performance that have never been and never will be realized.  That's why technology companies have a bad reputation among Information Technology managers and Chief Information Officers.

If you are going to speculate, make conservative guesses.  There is a greater chance of being right and of maintaining your credibility.

Let me tell you one of my speculations right now.  I'm betting the governor of California, Gray Davis, will not be recalled from office  in the Fall.   My guess is that voters will hang back because they are afraid of what might happen -- and of course, Davis will fight hard to survive.   I'm no political analyst, but I observe human nature, and it is on human psychology that I make this bet.  Eighty Days from now, we'll know the answer.  Then, I'll either owe my Dad some money -- or he'll owe me.

07/24

I made that bonehead error this week when I put a new essay on the Web site.  I cited the recent space shuttle accident, but I failed to check, and I named the wrong space shuttle.  I caught the error a day later and corrected the mistake before anyone saw it.  I was lucky.

A more serious error is not discovering what a company does.  By that, I mean boring into the processes and assumptions of an organization and understanding the who, what, when, where, why and how of each step in satisfying customers. 

New ideas and most good publicity ideas come from asking questions of clients.   As a client explains the basics, the story reveals itself.  It is often in polite cross-examination that both the client, and we will say, "We never thought of it that way."  It's not that I thought of it that way.  I didn't.  In the process of peeling back the facts to understand something, the obvious leapt out.  It is a habit of careful listening.  For example, I often use analogies to see if I understood what a client said.  Sometimes analogies become the story. 

Some PR practitioners believe they have to bring creative ideas when meeting a client.  They have a list of things a client can do.  Most of them, the client can't do for various reasons, and if the agency listened objectively, it would know that.   Rather than selling the impossible, it would develop the practical. 

Ideas come from discussion.  Propose, discuss, dismiss, reframe and propose again.  Good PR programs are organic.  They come from the way a client thinks and operates.  This is especially true of service businesses.   We assume, but rarely do we know until we have labored to put the client's worldview into our thought patterns.

Only rarely is a client in such a difficult, boring or unexplainable line of work that one must impose creative ideas.  That is a last resort and not a first.    

The same care that one should use in editing is the same care one should take to learn objectively what a client does.  That's common sense.  So why don't more practitioners do it?
 

07/23

There can be little doubt that much publicity is "spin" with no pretense of accuracy or objectivity.  Nearly everything emanating from Congress and White House offices is information with an agenda. 

So, if most practitioners make no pretense about being objective, how can one say public relations is or should be objective?  The problem is that most PR  is for short-term advantage and not for long-term positioning. 

I am not so naive to think there was more objectivity in the old days.  It was worse.  There was no pretense of objectivity in party politics that divided opinion before Washington stepped down as president.   During the 19th Century with a war over slavery and rise of aggressive capitalism paired with incipient unionism, there was more badmouthing than discussion.  It wasn't until nearly the mid-point of the 20th Century that theorists and practitioners understood the need for credibility and objectivity. 

We can make great strides in building bridges to the media when we are honest with them and take the time to explain our positions objectively.  But it only takes a few jerks in PR to make it bad for all of us.  Pair that with poor training, and there is embarrassing  failure on the part of PR practitioners to practice the relations part of PR.  We're too busy selling and spinning.  

I believe PR has been harmed by communications conglomerates that purchased large PR agencies.  To them, PR is sales and marketing.  There is no pretense of relationships with audiences over time.   PR that believes in objectivity seems to be the province of niche businesses now, and of corporate practitioners who take the time to understand their audiences..  (I hope I have overstated this case.  I would prefer to be wrong.) 

PR can be objective, but we have to work at it -- and we're not working hard.

07/22

• What is it?  No one knows for sure.
   
• How do you know it when you see it?  That's not always clear.  Some observers are so biased there is little difficulty telling who they are.  Others distort subtly either through ignorance or willfulness.  They are the ones to watch out for.
   
• Why don't we just give into partisanship and be done with it?  Ask yourself if you would like to live in a society where you know no one is attempting to see things dispassionately.  Would you like it?  Would you trust any reporter?
   
• Does balance equal objectivity?  Giving both sides of an issue might not be objective if one side overwhelms the other or if there are more sides that are unheard.   For example, there are those who believe creationism is a better explanation for biological life than evolution.   Giving a creationist's point of view without saying the individual is in the minority wouldn't be objective nor would the failure to mention different concepts of evolution that diverge from Darwin's theory.
   
• Is it objective to report only what one has said?  Not if there is context left out of reporting that the observer would need to form a conclusion.  That is how Senator McCarthy was able to conduct Witch Hunts for Communists in the 1950s.  Reporters faithfully recorded what he said without providing the context of what he was doing.
   
• Is it objective to report exactly what an official source has said?  No, it isn't if the official source can't be trusted to report accurately.
   
• Is it objective to express an interpretation of events as you see them?  Yes and no.  Providing context influences interpretation, but not providing context does the same thing.  If one wants to be objective, it is important to provide the context of how an issue or event got to where it is.  On the other hand, it is easy to go too far and to let opinion stand in place of facts.

PR practitioners should reflect on how they communicate.  I personally think far too many of us take what a CEO says without ever questioning whether the CEO is right.  There should be push-back when a CEO is wrong.  Too often there isn't. 

Practitioners too often write exactly as a client tells them to write.  This can be disastrous without investigation.  Sometimes clients exaggerate.  Sometimes they lie.  Sometimes they don't know when they think they do. 

Becoming a passionate advocate for a client without substantial evidence that the client is in the right is a foolish thing to do.  One compromises the client's credibility and oneself.  PR does not assume a loss of objectivity:  It assumes that clients and others need defense against a lack of it.

07/21

Objectivity is a fundamental topic to reporters and public relations practitioners.  We depend on objectivity and fairness of reporters with whom we work, and reporters depend on PR practitioners' objectivity and fairness as well.  Far from being "spinmeisters" who make it up as they go along, honest PR practitioners start with facts.  They use persuasion to help reporters and others see acceptable interpretations of facts that might differ from prevailing views, or that one interpretation of facts is better than another.  But, they don't change facts.

The question of objectivity is an issue in newsrooms and among PR people.  The cynical view is no one can truly be objective so why bother?   That view ends in credibility problems quickly.  An extreme view is that one can be objective like Joe Friday in Dragnet who asked for "Just the facts, Mam."   We know that isn't right either because every human has a set of mental filters built on a wide range of factors -- education, experience, biases, environment and more --, and there is a need to set facts into context so one can understand their relevance.

We know one can work to stand apart from one's filters and to recognize them for what they are.  By recognizing them, one can more impartially evaluate what he or she has gathered as information.  That doesn't make one right, but it does make one self-aware and more alert to mistakes that can be made.  We also know that one can be captive to filters and never see the distortions that one injects into observation.

My plan this week is to focus on objectivity and to consider aspects of it.  First to state my biases.  I believe one must strive to be objective and to accept facts for what they are.   I believe PR practitioners who make things up to fit a view they want to merchandise do themselves and their clients a disservice.    I believe Washington D.C. "spinmeisters," who play to win and use any tactic to give them an edge, harm their clients and the American public. 

Objectivity presumes neutrality in the way facts are handled and examined.  One is not out to get anyone.  One is trying to determine the set of facts that best explains a situation without "fear or favor" to anyone or any belief.   This presumes, of course, that one is able to see sides of an argument and to evaluate them as much as possible without bias.   It's hard work made even more difficult by the short time in which reporters and often, PR practitioners, have to get the job done.  But it's necessary work and credible expression depends on it.