“On background”
Earlier this week, Nilay Patel published new editorial guidelines for The Verge around the use of background conversations by company executives and PR staff. This issue has been a cause for concern from media for a large portion of my career, and likely even earlier. The concern is understandable, as Nilay points out - it makes quality, accurate reporting harder; the largest firms in the world use it to shield themselves from accountability; and more broadly, as Nilay astutely writes, "journalists have to act like they magically know things, and readers have to guess who is trustworthy and who is not."
The PR practitioner in me applauds this. I (hopefully) speak for many colleagues who, for years, have pled with executives to comment on an issue, put their name on a comment, or explain why it's weak to provide a quote without attribution. Attribution to quotes makes for more quality journalism, more quality information, and reduces the amount of inside baseball/"unspoken rules" that make stories inaccessible except by those who "understand the system". That The Verge has the journalistic ethics and the position of strength to paint a clear line is appreciated.
But the way the issue is presented, the decision is binary, and easy: accountability. Who among media readers don't want accountability of powerful companies?
That causes some of this behavior, but less than you'd think. IMO, it's more complicated. It's about mistrust.
Some of the examples from Nilay illustrate that: they're absurd almost to the point of parody, because they're driven by fear and mistrust and rather than a strategic move.
At more tech companies than I like to admit, distrust of media runs deep, and it stems from the senior levels. Patrick Ward is right; many tech companies incorrectly consider media either extensions of the corporate narrative, or, for the media who dare to not write 100% positive articles, they are "out to get us," "hold us back," or "are the enemy". This creates a binary choice of their own: either completely control the narrative, or, engage as little as possible, outside of product launches.
To that point: the culture of product launch PR is deeply embedded in many tech companies. Launch PR tends to be positive, or at worst, factual. Company-created content or carefully curated briefings drive the narrative. Spokespeople get plenty of training time. Questions come on topics on which they are the expert, with little gray area.
Many companies have less tolerance for, and understanding of, participating when they don't drive the narrative. I can't speak for everyone, but many of my colleagues have fought for decades to get their executives to speak up on issues, or to attach a spokesperson's name to a quote. Many times, it's not the PR person's choice that they're the ones speaking about the topic in question. They'd likely also rather have the executive speak!
Helpfully, The Information’s recent look at some of the inner workings of the PR department at Amazon demonstrates almost all of these points (subscription required).
As an aside: for many of those PR staffs, there's a culture of embarrassment, fear and internal reproach of being mentioned in an article. Any number of reasons: looking like you're "glory hunting" or taking credit, "collaborating with the enemy," and executives blaming the PR person named if the article doesn't turn out to their liking when, in reality, such an outcome is 99% out of their hands. Right or wrong, "on background" gives many of these folks a way to share information without reproach, real or imagined.
More often, this mistrust is driven by misunderstanding of how media works, and inability to differentiate sources of varying quality. We've seen plenty of great writing about ways to bring more clarity, differentiation and depth to quality reporting. Recently, Jay Rosen et al are doing interesting research on the end of "view from nowhere" journalism as a means to give reporters a stronger foothold to begin, and pursue, detailed reporting..
The efforts to create more viewpoint-driven, ethically-emboldened journalism relate directly to the mistrust and misunderstanding of the media at senior executive levels in tech companies. Sure, accountability is part of it, but more deeply and more emotionally, this style of journalism serves as evidence of the fears of executives: viewpoint journalism, seen (really) skeptically, means a journalist brings an existing opinion - a bias - into their writing.
We've heard a lot of rhetoric over the last 5+ years about the evils of "biased journalists" - and the conflation of bias and corruptness - that those in power use to discredit independent journalists. You can bet that as viewpoint journalism becomes more popular, such hand-waving about bias and corruptness will intensify. On the flipside, as media seek to strengthen their ability to tell meaningful, well-reported stories that hold people accountable, these viewpoints will fill in crucial contextual gaps, both for the reporters and the readers, that allow them to go deeper into topics than has typically happened in the mainstream digital media era.
Without some kind of additional remedying efforts to bridge this trust gap, I worry about an era of increased scrutiny of technology companies, whereby the efforts to conduct this reporting only enflame mistrust and misunderstanding. It will make quality reporting even tougher - especially in a pandemic era of technology tools maintaining distance and making traditional means of relationship development/repair unavailable.
I, and my colleagues, have countless times counseled executives that relations with media does not need to be either-or (either they're always positive or mortal enemies). Relating to media, like business partners, investors, or any other stakeholder audience, can be more nuanced, back-and-forth, and even rewarding. But like it or not, the fear and mistrust are real, and like all emotions/emotional resistance, it's never enough to combat it with just facts and logic about how the media works and why, nor can we fear or intimidate distrusting executives into doing things differently.
How do we solve this mistrust? Sure, super easy, let’s just…hmm…
As long as an independent, free press holds the powerful accountable, and brings to light unwanted but important information, an opposing force will always exist that wishes to distance the institution from the information. Some will openly discredit the work; some will attack the people; some will obfuscate, hide or omit information, and sometimes, the people that do these things will be people we know, trust and love. Just like anyone who acts out of fear or misunderstanding, the action alone doesn’t make people terrible.
For PR people, introduce more nuanced perspectives on “the media”. Educating your executive team about how journalism works should be a core function of your role. When possible, go deeper than just sharing coverage; how did the coverage happen? What can be gleaned about the work beyond the information in the story?
More deeply, can you break apart the construct of “the media” into something more specific and differentiate-able? “Media” are not monolith, just like any executive would push back on being categorized as “The Tech Companies” or “The CEOs”. Digital times make humanization more challenging, but can you humanize media through Zoom meetings, (safe) meet-and-greets, and introductory meetings? Better, can you get to the bottom of the fears or misunderstandings and address them directly?
Also: this culture of fear around PR people being quoted in articles…if I could wave a magic wand, this is one thing I would make go away. As Nilay and others have pointed out, PR people’s careers mean talking to media constantly; for many organizations, the culture of fear and reproach around PR people being quoted in stories stems from (again) misunderstanding of how media works. Managers: help your team by breaking apart this archaic organizational quirk. If you, personally, fear being quoted in the media, you might operate under less self-pressure in another role outside of media relations.
For media…the burden of solving this mistrust does not rest with journalism alone, but, journalists can play a role. I would love for Nilay or someone to pen a companion piece that can, from the media point of view, play a role in a conversation that adds to trust by (hear me out!) using empathy.
I am not suggesting babying scared executives to go on the record. However - like I said earlier - emotion-based resistance rarely will be overcome simply from facts, information and logic. Empathy reduces distance and creates understanding; it can serve as a tonic for fear and misunderstanding.
What could this train of thought cover? What is the relationship between accountability, institutional trust, public discourse and progress? How do the largest firms in the world play a role in this balance? Selfishly, what's in it for the executives, their companies and their brands to put their names on it, and speak about issues outside of product launches? Can we point to examples where this is done well, both in terms of participation, as well as a relationship driven by more nuance than simple black-and-white, positive-or-not journalism?
It means more than I can explain when media say things like this, rather than PR people; ultimately many executives do want media coverage despite their distrust. Adding this perspective could enrich the conversation in a way that laying the smack down might not.