It is a self-regarding conceit of journalism that we are the dogs for whom public relations furnishes the lamp posts, says John Lloyd writing in the Financial Times.
In a jaundiced view of the relationship between journalism and PR in politics, Lloyd’s “The Truth about Spin” in Friday’s FT presents an uncomfortable partnership between two professions where neither appears to have anything other than self-interest as its motive for being:
There is a phrase attributed to, among others, Harold Evans when he was editor of The Sunday Times, which was advice given to his reporters: “Always ask yourself, when interviewing a politician, why is this bastard lying to me?” It’s been denounced as cynical, but it’s from a more innocent age. It was self-servingly innocent to assume that “lying” is a one-sided phenomenon. Today, advice by any government communications adviser to ministers, MPs, civil servants and political aides would be a variation on the Evans advice: “Always ask yourself, when being interviewed by a journalist, how will this bastard distort what I’m saying?”
While Lloyd paints a dark and cynical picture of this journalism/PR niche, he then goes on to highlight a significant point which I believe is the heart of the real symbiosis between journalism and PR:
[…] Public relations and journalism do not inhabit separate worlds; in particular, the relationship between them is not that of sleazy liars seeking to seduce seekers after truth. Truth does not reside on one side only. Standards are not the monopoly of one and unknown to the other. Journalism cannot understand itself unless it understands what public relations has done to it; how murky and grubby the relationship can become, with the connivance of both, and how the relationship might work to the benefit of citizens who should be told something like the truth.
Some might say that if you want the truth, don’t read newspapers.
What Lloyd’s feature indicates to me is the role social media will play (is playing) in evolving that symbiosis where no longer will it be just an inefficient and untrustworthy filtering system. And in the political area, we need more direct-speaking from ministers and MPs without the filtered spin from PRs and journalists.
More like David Miliband, Minister of Communities and Local Government in the UK and a member of the cabinet, who has a blog.
I’ll add my own cynicism to Lloyd’s feature with this view – most PRs and journalists add little value to truth-telling if they’re nothing more than channels or conduits who distort and manipulate the original message. Assuming, of course, that their roles are to do with truth-telling.
If you want to get close to the truth, cut out the middlemen. Let the citizens make up their own minds as to what is truth.
Many journalists and many PRs are trying to do an honest job of finding benefits for readers and checking that they’re not being sold a pup by the originating organisation. Ultimately, win-win, is ideal but, if through fact-checking, one side loses then so be it. That is the job of the professional journalist.
Milliband’s blogging doesn’t prove a thing, except that he’s willing to expose himself slightly. If my memory serves me correctly, he’s filtering comments so he’s still in control of both what he chooses to say and what feedback he chooses to publish.
I think the idea of Joe Public cutting out the middleman is idealistic. It might work in rare cases, when an employee (or a boss) happens to write the absolute truth. It might work if enough knowledgeable people were talking about a particular subject (wisdom of crowds) but you’re putting a huge burden on the public. How much time have they got to properly fact-check everything?
So then we come to bloggers. It’s less about cutting out the middleman and more about inserting a different middleman. Full of their own views, biases and abilities (or not) to conduct appropriate research.
At least PR and journalists are paid to surface what each deems important. Some ‘journalists’ are supine and accept what’s offered. They’re not journalists, they’re message-takers. They’re the people who PR go to when they have dodgy material to push out. Most good journalists avoid PR, or use them as providers of background material which is still checked, and seek the real stories directly, and validate from multiple sources.
Mr Joe Public can’t do this. The average blogger can’t do this.
In the end, to have time for any kind of life, we have to trust the people who have better access to information and the ability to synopsise it appropriately. Some will trust journalists, some will trust bloggers, some will even trust companies and organisations.
The middleman is dead: long live the middleman…
Neville Hobson issues a rallying cry to cut out the middleman:…most PRs and journalists add little value to truth-telling if they’re nothing more than channels or conduits who distort and manipulate the original message. Assuming, of course, that t…
Lloyd’s article has nothing to do with blogging. Not a damn thing.
– Amanda Chapel
The case for spin……
Here’s an interesting perspective:The way in which most of the Anglo-Saxon states get at the truth under the law is by advocacy of particular and often opposing cases. Two views are put, with passion and eloquence, by barristers. Public relations…
Neville,
The idea of cutting out the middleman sounds fine but it disregards two important functions, one of journalism and one of PR.
Journalism aggregrates information from a variety of sources and orders it a way that is interesting and enteraining for the reader; this takes time and skill.
To expect the average reader to go to original sources is akin to suggesting we plant, grow and harvest all our own ingredients before preparing lunch – fine, but most of the time I’d rather pick up a well-made sandwich.
Likewise, one of the most positive roles a PR can play is interpreting and explaining sometimes dry and complex messages for a wider audience (including journalists), and often, certainly in business, on behalf of people who would struggle to express themselves in a lucid and engaging manner.
That’s a good rant, David! Whether what I expressed re cutting out the middlemen is purely a cyncial view or not, what’s happening regardless is that the means are there for anyone to engage directly with ‘Joe Public’ and, thus, bypass the middlemen anyway.
I think the example of David Miliband is a good one in this regard. He may well be filtering his blog comments (to weed out the profane and plain rude), but that’s a characteristic of many blogs, one that’s likely to become more prevalent. And whatever anyone thinks about the content he publishes, he now has a direct channel to talk directly to Joe. Another example from the political arena – Margot Wallstrom, the European commissioner, who started blogging way back in January 2005. She also has a direct channel.
I guess the point really is that while PR and journalism may play a role, undoubtedly along the lines you and Philip talk about, the fact is that what results from PR’s and journalism’s involvement in between the original message and what the consumer of that message (Joe Public in this example) receives is no longer the exclusive communication channel.
So you’ll have an article in a newspaper or a post on some blog that interprets a statement or interview with a politician. Adds some spin, lets say. Then you’ll have the politician him or herself with his or her message on a blog (say), which Joe can read and respond directly to the creator of the message. So Joe has the easy opportunity of developing some kind of relationship directly with the message creator.
And you can bet that Joe will find that appealing as will the message creator (there are already plenty of examples in the business world).
And what of PR and journalism? Well, as I said in my post, if they’re nothing more than channels or conduits who distort and manipulate the original message, they will become irrelevant.
Here’s a prediction that counters your take Neville: There’s a point where the public will be absolutely saturated with, and rail against, inane and undisciplined commentary. Independently vetted content will again reign king.
I am, of course, doing my part to hasten that time. :)
– Amanda
PS If anyone is interested, I also have a review of the Lloyd’s piece. It’s called “On Sleeping with the Enemy.†I hope you find it entertaining.
I’d agree with your prediction, Amanda: there is already so much noise out there that filtering is becoming an art.
Yet who will do the vetting you speak of? PR and/or journalism? Isn’t that part of any public railing aginst inane and undisciplined commentary?
I think of it in terms of pollution. Where are you going to swim when the mercury, etc., etc., etc. is at toxic levels. In the pool, surely. But even then, I am still not drinking the pool water.
Actually, projecting the trends out… either a fundamentalist form of journalism will emerge; or, you see common interest aggregators. PR may participate in the latter but not Rubel blog celebrity gang. PR has yet to even begin to come to terms.
A topic for another day.
– Amanda
Depending on what you mean by ‘fundamentalist,’ I’d say we already have something, and it’s called ‘citizen journalism.’
Take the word ‘citizen’ quite liberally – it should include politicians, oxymoronic though that may sound.
No. By fundamentalist, I mean journalism in its purest form. Strict and sans any PR influence whatsoever. In a polluted ecosystem, pure comes at a premium. Why else do people pay $2 for a bottle of water.
With regard to CJ today, no there, too. In its current form, it implies the newspaper model we have today but written by citizens. That experiment has already failed. I am proposing more smart mobs with a common interest. Think the model of an information “saving and loan.”
It’s coming!
– Amanda
Apologies for the breaking up this debate with some ephemera, but David Miliband isn’t the only Government minister blogging…
A terrific one, Dave. Along the lines of David Cameron the chameleon blog, perhaps?
I don’t think citizen journalism as an experiment has failed at all, Amanda. It’s hardly got into top gear yet. But I like your description, ie, in it’s current form like the newspaper model. It’s where it’s going that is the interesting thing.
I don’t think you can have “journalism in its purest form: strict and sans any PR influence whatsoever.” That’s where I think John Lloyd has a valid point – public relations and journalism do not inhabit separate worlds. So symbiosis is a good descriptor, especially if you look closely at the definition.
First, with regard to the future of CJ, many of the funded pioneers have already thrown in the towel. Dan Gilmore just announced last week that Bayosphere was done.
As to journalism living without PR… excuse me but the “can’t live without me” idea is exactly what my arrogant simpleminded narcissistic ex husband thought. Nonsense. Journalism got into bed with PR; it can get out of bed, too. It might cost more but there is an audience definitely willing to pay for it.
– Amanda
Ok, fair enough – journalism and PR are in bed together and either one can leave. I just don’t see that happening any time soon.
As for CJ and Dan Gillmor, has he really thrown in the towel? I don’t think so. He may have ditched one experiment but I would be very surprised indeed if he didn’t emerge with another.
I was going to stay out of this having said my piece but I have to point out that real journalists can do without PR people. The same doesn’t apply the other way round.
David
I, too, was going to stay out of this, also having had my say. But I think it is important to retain some perspective on what PR is and what PR does.
Yes, that strand of PR usually referred to as ‘meda relations’ is, almost by definition, predicated on its ability to influence media (or more precisely, journalistic) discourse. But – and it is a big but that is often not appreciated by journalists – a great deal of PR activity has little or nothing to do with media relations.
As I have discussed on Mediations, my own interests in the study (and teaching) of PR are framed with rather diffrent emphases, but it is useful to consider that by far the best book on PR practice available to undergraduates, Exploring PR by Ralph Tench and Liz Yeomans, devotes one butchapter out of 32 to Media Relations (it is, by the way, a pretty good chapter, contributed by Richard (PR Studies) Bailey).
So if I understand your points of view correctly, David and Philip, nothing will change?
My feeling is that things will – and are – changing. My problem is that I am struggling to find empirical evidence to support this feeling.
PR is not changing. The noise about blogs and such is just that, noise. It is a new new thing Richard Edelman and others are using as news business bait to sell services. But, it is only an extension of the tradition business model.
When will change come? When it hurts financially the industry consider a real alternative. How thin are the margins now? That day may come sooner than you think.
– Amanda
“So if I understand your points of view correctly, David and Philip, nothing will change?”
That’s a bit of a leap.
The blogosphere exists, Google exists, other things will come to exist, so of course things will change. People have new reference points if they want them and if they want to put some effort into validating them.
Others, apart from me, have commented on the journalist’s attitude to PR. I can’t see that changing.
Wow, where to jump in. Thanks to corporate blogs, journalists soon won’t need PR professionals, but guess what? Thanks to corporate blogs PR people won’t need journalists. The general public already doesn’t believe that the news is unbiased nor do they believe PR professionals. Who do they believe? Themselves. Ya from a blog you sometimes get imperfect information, and you are getting someones opinion, but at least I know that going into it. And the more people out there blogging about something the more likely we are to get to the “truth” what ever that is. Like in anything else those who do the best job of getting the truth we want to hear will be the ones that get elevated to the top. Blogs have already proved the adage, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” That’s the true power of ‘Citizen Journalism’.
[…] And, if that’s not enough reading suggestions for you … here is Neville Hobson’s The real symbiosis between PR and journalism. It relates because promising transparency is the latest politically correct phrase to spew in PR and journalism. In a jaundiced view of the relationship between journalism and PR in politics, (John) Lloyd’s “The Truth about Spin†in Friday’s FT presents an uncomfortable partnership between two professions where neither appears to have anything other than self-interest as its motive for being… […]
There are clear signals that PR is changing, Amanda. One of the drivers of that change is social media, particularly blogs which challenge the traditional command-and-control metaphor. Just about every PR blogger has posted about this at some time during the past year.
You mention Richard Edelman. He’s one of the pioneers of that change in the profession. I’m sure you must have read the 2006 Annual Edelman Trust Barometer (PDF). Clear signals there for PR.
Where the signals aren’t so clear, in my view, is whether journalism is changing as well. Or rather, changing at the required pace. David says journalism can do without PR. Tac says vice versa. I think neither can do without the other although if both do nothing more than continue a symbiosis where both are purely value-less channels or conduits, then who cares.
Yet isn’t all of this – my post, everyone’s comments – too focused on the here and now rather than on what’s coming next? Get hold of this week’s Economist which has a 15-page survey of new media. Only the first two pages are openly available online; to see the whole thing, you need to be a subscriber or buy a copy of the print edition.
That survey gives some very clear signals of the changes required of PR and journalism, and the relationships between the two.
I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I agree with a lot of what AC is saying re: future publishing models. Economics will drive new directions; that is a given.
More PRs must understand that journalists are their real clients. By serving these professionals well, and meeting their needs, we will, in turn, serve the needs of those we invoice.
This doesn’t disregard blogs as a channel. It’s all part and parcel of media outreach.
Economics isn’t the only thing driving new directions, Sherrilynne. The push is also coming from the shift in power/control away from the traditional messengers and to the consumers of those messages, who are also becoming creators.
Isn’t what you’re talking about a traditional model? What I think we’re seeing is a new model, one that isn’t replacing a traditional model (not yet, anyway) but is a catalyst for changing that model. But that change will happen only when the participants are willing to accept the need to change. And that doesn’t have real impetus yet.
TAC
-> “Thanks to corporate blogs, journalists soon won’t need PR professionals, but guess what? Thanks to corporate blogs PR people won’t need journalists.”
Crack induced nonsense.
First, corporate blogs are now maybe in 3 percent in the Fortune 500… for a reason!
Also, you lose sight of the fact that journalists gave your client an endorsement. Without that, you’re well… a PR guy whose credibility is just above real-estate salesmen.
-> “The general public already doesn’t believe that the news is unbiased nor do they believe PR professionals.”
The general public is tired of all the crap.
-> “And the more people out there blogging about something the more likely we are to get to the “truth” what ever that is.”
PR newbie geek evangelist fiction #7. An online lynching sure is a good time and the participants go home pretty cheery. It’s not necessarily the best for an organized marketplace. See, the marketplace needs a modicum of PR to smooth the edges of painful reality. The couple has a baby because they believe he/she could be the next savior. Tell them that he’s in all likelihood going to be a loser and burden on society… they probably would abort the kid. Bloggers have triumphantly aborted a lot of business babies in the name of “truth.”
-> “That’s the true power of ‘Citizen Journalism’.”
The true power of CJ has yet to be realized. Period.
NEVILLE
-> “There are clear signals that PR is changing.”
There are clear signs that PR is giving lip service to a changing market.
-> “One of the drivers of that change is social media, particularly blogs which challenge the traditional command-and-control metaphor.”
They sure do. However, corporation will always be command and control. You want to lower a stock, go tell Wall Street that you “flattened the pyramid” and that you’re doing away with titles.
-> “Just about every PR blogger has posted about this at some time during the past year.”
Just about every PR blogger has nothing else to write about. Just about every PR blogger absolutely has no clue about business and/or marketplace dynamics.
-> “I’m sure you must have read 2006 Annual Edelman Trust Barometer.”
First, I NEVER put stock in studies sponsored by the organization that wants to use it to sell me.
As to its primary conclusion, “Person like me most trusted,” okay. Then what is the PR person’s role? Describe the ecosystem? How are PR people going to provide value in that ecosystem?
Bottom line: PR is still applying its tradition model. It is still trying to get “hits” but now in a fragmented market. Silly.
-> “Get hold of this week’s Economist which has a 15-page survey of new media. That survey gives some very clear signals of the changes required of PR and journalism, and the relationships between the two.”
Okay, fine enough. Let’s just put it in terms of cable TV. I’ll give you 500 no 5,000 stations. No, I’ll let you/everyone create your/their own station. Sound good. Not necessarily. COM-munications disintegrates in a totally marginalized marketplace. What’s your job? To build and leverage COM-munities.
Economist new media survey – round up…
Richard Bailey beat me to it… but The Economist’s new media survey is still a great concise history of new media. There’s nothing too ground-breaking in there, but nevertheless it reassuringly provided me with a few tit-bits about new media’s…
Isn’t the role of media be it journalism, pr, social media, politics just to get the dialogue going so that people can discuss the issues. Through the dialogue the truth emerges the majority of the time…and indeed the truth is potentially different to different people depending on their circumstances. Yes there is a difference between good and bad journalism etc but that is the case in any profession?
No. The dialogue of a mob doesn’t produce truth. It sure feels that way. It definitely seemed like a good idea when we hung the guy, too. Oh, well.
No. We have a judicial system to avoid just that. The fifth estate was the system we had in place to vet common interest stories. Now that is broken. Relying on the mob to be the instrument of just communication (so to speak) is NOT the solution.
– Amanda
Come and join us spinning in the middle. The water’s lovely…
Neville Hobson is something of a latecomer in his declaration of war on the middlemen of the media. Curiously titled the “real symbiosis between PR and journalism” rather than “hacks, get your tanks off my lawn”, Hobson takes as his……
How cynical, Amanda! With so many sweeping generalizations in your comments, I’d almost begin to think that you are deeply afraid of change.
(Mind you, who am I to talk about cynical?)
Anna, an interesting point: “Truth is potentially different to different people depending on their circumstances.”
Doesn’t that sit alongside “Let the citizens make up their own minds as to what is truth”?
Mass access to the Internet in the West and the richer bits of the Far East has been available for some years now. It has never been easier for citizens to obtain legislative and other government information direct. Yet most political blog posts point to items created by the mass media. And the bulk of those blog posts are deliberately partisan. If anything, the rise of political blogging in the US has polarised opinion rather than uncovering any fundamental truth that, apparently, journalists have been spinning out of the picture. Instead of truth, the public in the US now has two versions of truthiness. Or, what we used to call in the old days, belief and opinions.
I may have missed something, but I have seen no fundamental change in the structure of the Internet in the last two years that might reverse that trend. And, frankly, the idea that standards such as TCP/IP or XML might lead to a greater truth is bizarrely absurd. Human nature is the key to all this and human nature is what leads to spin. That was the bit of Lloyd’s column you conveniently left out, Neville.
An American tale…
I recently applied for and received my complimentary copy of CorpComms, the magazine for the corporate communicator, and found it to be a great read. I had seen it billed as a great alternative to PR Week, but I wouldn’t agree. It’s m…
Oh dear. Does that mean Neville spun?
Neville
I think it does a little, I am not sure that truth is a constant. Depending on the subject does the truth not change depending on your values, your circumstances. I think people have to determine the truth from themselves not necessarily from papers etc. Thats why I love podcasting, blogs etc because you can get different points of view and then make your own mind up. In PR/Communications, for me it is about giving out a message that can appeal to many from an emotional point of view. In business comms tend to be what is important from a senior perspective not what is important to the receivors of the message. In terms of papers – your choice of paper says something about the truth you are looking for? The Sun vs Telegraph! FIR – great show by the way in stimulating the debate….
In my own words…
I thought this piece about journalism and PR on Neville Hobson’s blog (which in turn refers back to a……
Anna,
Truth has to be a constant or it isn’t truth. The problem with a lot of these debates is that people use the word ‘truth’ casually as though it has a mutable meaning. It doesn’t. What we are really talking about here is belief. People choose what they want to believe. Groups of them can join in one belief. It is only when practically everybody accepts one version of events that we can start using the word truth to describe it.
People choose newspapers based on the beliefs and opinions that they already hold. You can frame stories for those beliefs using exactly the same facts. But the people select the newspaper that will frame those facts in the way the reader likes to see them: that’s where the spin comes in. This is why this whole argument about the press ‘betraying’ the reader because of spin is arrant nonsense. People who don’t like what they read tend to stop reading those papers and find somewhere else to go. Readers’ views change, so the media will change with them. That provides opportunities for new media to rise up and elbow their way in. But, at the same time, the Times of today is a very different animal to the one you would see 20, 50, 100 years ago.
Chris – great comment and wouldn’t argue against that. But one example that is current in the UK is the state of the National Health Service. From one side with facts to back it up says it has had the best year ever…with the vast increase in funding, shorter waiting times, more elective surgery. Then the other side say it is in disarray – wards closing, layoffs etc and again facts to back it up. Where I get stuck with the belief vs truth is with a situation like this? Both sets of facts are correct…so is the truth different to individuals whether you are a nurse being laid off, or a nurse that has had the payrise?
This is fun. What is truth other than the agreed perceived reality among persons with an interest in the topic at hand at a moment in time? Which means that most of what anyone writes is inevitably opinion.
I don’t think we’ve even begun to scratch the surface of what social media *will* become. One thong’s for sure – most of what I’m seeing coming out of companies is pretty dire stuff leading me to the conclusion that corporations really have very little idea about either social medi or more important – customers.
As to the PR/hack debate – I’ve long held the view that much of what passes as ‘journalism’ is little more than less well paid PR. Or as I once said: ‘We’re all whores, PR is like the high class escort service, hacks are more akin to streetwalkers.’ Cynical I know.
To David Tebbutt’s point, it’s true – hacks don’t need PR (by and large) and certainly not in a world where blogging is (relatively) untamed.
As to moderation – if it’s my site, it’s my attention and my rules. You don’t like it – go elsewhere. You want to criticise that – do it at your place.
On the issue of lynch mobs – do I hear hear Kryptonite all over again? The lunatics are running the farm in some places. No wonder Scoble introduced comment moderation. The level of personal attack was becoming insane and devaluing the contribution the man tries to make.
All of the facts marry up in those stories. More money is being being spent on the NHS. Waiting times are shorter. Nurses are getting laid off. Wards are closing. The belief lies in the framing of those facts – “never had it so good” versus “disarray”.
More money – demonstrable, but that is only relevant if the money in is growing faster than the money out.
Waiting times are shorter – on average. But how is that average computed? Are we lumping in hip replacements with spinal manipulation and tooth extractions? Easy operations may have displaced the difficult to get the numbers ‘right’.
Nurses are getting laid off – but are they expensive agency nurses or nurses employed by the hospital? Do efficiencies obtained elsewhere mean that we just don’t need as many nurses?
Wards are closing – is through lack of money or lack of demand.
I haven’t researched those areas – they are just random examples to demonstrate that bare facts can be given a gloss in either direction. None of the facts are mutually exclusive.
I know the conversation has now moved on a bit, but I wanted to comment on something you said, Chris, in your first comment here.
You mentioned that you’ve seen no fundamental change in the structure of the internet in the last two years that might reverse the trend of partisan/polarized opinion (if I’ve understood correctly the connection between the two paras of your comment).
Why would you expect a reversal when the internet provides the means for anyone and everyone to instantly and spontaneously express their opinions and connect those opinions to others’ via the mechanism of blogs (in particular)? That is human nature.
I’m not entirely clear on what you think I conveniently left out in my commentary about John Lloyd’s article (or practiced a bit of spin, as David says). And anyway, how does human nature lead to spin?
Not me guv’.
Chris said “Human nature is the key to all this and human nature is what leads to spin. That was the bit of Lloyd’s column you conveniently left out, Neville.”
I merely asked, “Oh dear. Does that mean Neville spun?”
(He says, spinning furiously.)
Neville,
I didn’t say I was expecting a reversal. That was my point – no technology is going to change the way that humans behave in large groups. You’re seeing more spin now because more people are contributing. The nature of crowd behaviour means you tend to get extreme positions forming within large groups. And, through the medium of instant communication, you can form large groups incredibly quickly.
On the second point about spin and human nature, from Lloyd’s column: “Most individuals spin themselves – representing themselves as attractive, intelligent, diligent and trustworthy, especially at critical times such as job interviews or seduction opportunities. Spinning would seem to be a necessary attribute of intelligent humanity. And since humans are intelligent, they don’t believe institutions, political parties and other individuals – fully.”
If I can add to that, people tend to spin what they read to fit their own beliefs. They often see deliberate bias where none exists and filter out deliberate bias – telling themselves that it is fact – because they happen to believe in that position. We have seen that for years in readers’ letters. It was hardly a surprise to see that in blogging.
Thanks for the clarity, Chris (and David).
I didn’t ‘conveniently’ leave out that part of John Lloyd’s article. That implies I deliberately chose to omit something, which omission could therefore mislead the reader. If I had wanted to include that bit, I may as well have simply repeated all of Lloyd’s article.
What my post does is focus on one part as the catalyst for the opinion piece I wrote (which, if this were a newspaper, would no doubt be called op/ed). I could have instead talked about some other element of Lloyd’s article, eg, the Hobsbawm thing. No interest to me at all. Or the legal metaphor. That was actually an interesting point, one I’ve seen focused on in other blog posts.
But I expect you’d just call all this ‘spin.’
It seems to me that you’ve simply reinforced the validity of the point in the final sentence of my post: “Let the citizens make up their own minds as to what is truth.”
Perhaps I would amend that to the longer phrase of: “Let the citizens do their own filtering as they make up their own minds as to what is truth.”
Mind you, the first para of Dennis’ comment is probably closer to reality. The truth, if you will.
Totally agree. The internet allows people to show their individuality – and in a less visible way. Most day people are communicated to – whether it is spin or the truth! – and where the internet is powerful is letting each person have a voice for their own individual truth or beliefs, and at the same time feeling part of a community. On the internet you don’t fail, you don’t get it wrong, you just have a differing opinion. This conversation is a good example….
Interesting points Comrade Hobson. The debate is moving towards very deep waters indeed. Is this world indeed flat because I happen to choose that truth?
And is there any real difference between the inclusivity of the blogosphere and the broader political public sphere, both of which are dominated by the articulate and engaged, and who have the economic and social skills needed to gain admittance? Time to revisit Habermas…
Philip, I was talkng with a PR friend the other day about this post and the ensuing conversation. His view is that all of this “is a curb that’s approximately one inch high.”
My reply was that those little curbs (kerbs?) are often the most troublesome as you don’t see them and so it’s easy to trip up on them.
Still, I don’t see any deep waters here.
When I wrote the post, I was specifically thinking of communication in politics, as the focus of John Lloyd’s FT piece was politics. Yet all of this applies to every aspect of communication between people.
By the way, I’m assuming your use of the word ‘comrade’ is meant in its traditional friendly sense, rather than the usurped Soviet sense. :)
It was fraternal and benign, Citizen Hobson, a very gentle dig at the Utopian interpretation one could put on your earlier posts.
I suggested deep waters because there is an inherent tension between the democratic ideal of encouraging all voices to be heard and allowing a consensus to emerge and the possibility that a consensus so achieved will be plain wrong. The rather tedious debates around A-listers etc are very easily fitted into a critique based in concepts of hegemony and elites.
I had been thinking about this after hearing a paper at Stuttgart by a Danish academic who filmed newcomers struggling to come to terms with blogs and arguing that they could not be ‘democratic’ until the technology was simpler. At the time I strongly disagreed, suggesting that one of the great virtues of easy to use templates like Typepad was that they lowered the entry barriers. I have since rather softened my line…
‘Citizen’ is fine with me, Philip! Perhaps more Citizen Smith than Winston Smith – a better Utopia, I think.
I don’t know if you’ve read the Economist’s new media survey which appeared this week. I’m going to quote some views from that which I think illustrate those deep waters you speak of.
The pessimistic view, by Paul Saffo, a futurologist:
It’s a very good point. Perhaps one of journalism’s value roles is to point out such things.
Then the optimistic view by Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life project:
That view makes total sense to me. Further optimisim from Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail:
The Economist writer adds to that: Liquidity is exactly what participatory media provide.
And to your point about the Danish academic: the fact is that technology is becoming simpler and the barriers to entry are becoming lower.
People will figure this out.
Comment moderation: open or closed?…
In an earlier post, I said this:Milliband’s blogging doesn’t prove a thing, except that he’s willing to expose himself slightly. If my memory serves me correctly, he’s filtering comments so he’s still in control of both what he chooses to…
[…] Last week, I posted commentary about an article by John Lloyd in the Financial Times on the relationship – I used the word symbiosis: check the definition – between journalism and PR in politics. The concluding point in my post was this: […]
[…] PR bloke-turned-communications guru Neville Hobson weighs in. Why not cut out that whole middle layer, he says, and let public figures/corporate types speak for themselves? Most PRs and journalists add little value to truth-telling if they’re nothing more than channels or conduits who distort and manipulate the original message. Assuming, of course, that their roles are to do with truth-telling. If you want to get close to the truth, cut out the middlemen. Let the citizens make up their own minds as to what is truth. […]
[…] The real symbiosis between PR and journalism (in this blog) […]
In my own words…
I thought this piece about journalism and PR on Neville Hobson’s blog (which in turn refers back to a……
[…] A question about politics from a reader in the UK has given me pause for thought. He emailed me to suggest that political bias influences some of what I write in this blog, pointing out the style of my commentary the other day criticizing the Number Ten podcast and my commentaries in the conversation about PR/journalism symbiosis a couple of months ago as examples. […]
[…] The real symbiosis between PR and journalism […]