Propaganda and Spin – The Media Must be Fed!

“By deconstructing the modern triumphs of PR, it also shows how objective inquiry becomes subsumed by manufactured information, which either changes the public’s perception of an event or the outcome of the event itself. In such an environment, facts cannot survive, nor can truth prevail”  (Dowie, M. Cited from Stauber, J and Rampton, S. 1995).

Some might say a rather cynical view of the industry as a whole insinuating that it’s not only the outcome of PR we should be worried about but the behaviour of the PR professional themselves. With previous experience of the industry and a hope of diving back in after uni this is a particular area of interest for me as this isn’t a label I want during my career.

I was given the opportunity to further investigate this point when I attended a Leveson Inquiry guest lecture, which although aimed at journalism students gave me a stark insight into journalistic attitudes towards PR professionals and the part they played in the News of the World scandal with dabblings in ‘Churnalism’ and spinning the media into complete disarray. If these tales are anything to go by, have we even made any progress to clean up PR’s unethical misdemeanors of yesteryear or is this an unfortunate truth that is best of being uncomfortably swallowed and swept under the PR crowd carpet?

It’s one thing to look at propaganda and persuasion from an extrospective stand point with campaigns like the above from  PETA or Greenpeace, but what about pointing the ethical finger of reason a little closer to home?

From my last post I concluded that a majority of the trust and integrity regarding a campaign should sit with the PR professional, which is interesting because before I embarking on this research project I had a warped idea of what propaganda and persuasion were and hadn’t given a great deal of thought to where they originated. But as I’ve been reading more into the topics surrounding ethics it’s become apparent that the PR professional should be at the root of ethical behaviour within the industry. However I’m sure we’re all painfully aware that in some cases this isn’t happening. But where did it go so wrong?

The origins of Propaganda are rooted in the pre-war activities of Edward Bernays with his 1929 ‘Torches of Freedom’ stunt with the aim of increasing cigarette sales:

He declared that “The council on public relations not only knows what news value is, but knowing it he is in a position to make news happen” (Bernays, E. Cited from Davies, N. 2009)

So it looked like PR’s have been spinning the news since the birth of the industry. In 1992 Jowett and O’Donnell defined propaganda as “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”. In my opinion that sounds a lot like a PR brief. It’s our job to deliberately and systematically manipulate public opinion to portray our client in the best light possible right?

Even 20 years later this definition rings true with numerous slanderous stories gracing the media on a weekly basis. In his controversial book Nick Davies described the PR industry as ‘full of manipulation’ and ‘targeting a vulnerable media sector with falsehood and distortion’. He spoke of organisations ‘astro-turfing’ stories and creating psudo-groups to add validity to figures within their carefully crafted client focused stories, that were fed though to the Press Association to a number of overworked journalists to copy and past into the local and national news.

There are two sides to this argument, the Nick Davis’ of the world who see PR professionals as conniving little so and so’s with a list of hidden agendas as long as my arm. Then there are those that simply see PR as the lovechild of democracy and free speech; Anne Gregory conformed to the latter school of thought, she believed that organisations should have the opportunity to portray themselves in the best possible light and the public should be allowed to come to their own conclusions.

Let’s put it into context, the most common gripe from non-PRs is the innate ability to pluck pseudo – news stories out of thin air, using ‘focus groups’ and ‘statistics’ from ‘reliable sources’ a slightly old but very notable example comes from  the Czech Republic where in 2001 it was reported by Philip Morris that smoking deaths actually have a positive effect financially for the Czech government saving them “between 943 million and 1.2 billion korunas (about $24 million-to-$30 million) in health-care, pension and public-housing costs due to the early deaths of smokers”. Naturally Philip Morris faced huge public backlash and cancelled further research into the area.

To some it may seem ridiculous that this story would ever reach the press, but fast forward to this year and some of the same ugly astro-turfing is still prevalent. Hurricane Sandy was a natural disaster that killed hundreds of innocent people, but that didn’t stop PR teams at Gap and American Apparel making statements of support for hurricane victims while simultaneously performing their primary purpose and promoting the brand. But what would you do in this situation? It may be an extreme example of pseudo-story gone wild but this is just one of a never ending steam of hooks that appearing across the web daily.

If anything these examples taken from two very different times in PR showing that very little cultural progress has been made, even with innovative PR techniques becoming the norm.  Personally I think the parameters of taste are always going to be pushed by the PR industry and that’s what makes it so innovative; ethics are a can of worms that are loosely tied to Pearson’s Pillars in reality. The interesting thing will be when Leveson reports will the PR vs. Media relationship become even more strained with pseudo- news stories die a death along with the Journalist’s reliance on the Press Association? I’ll have to keep you posted on that one.

How many PR stories have you seen in the news today?

What would you do if you were asked to find a positive hook in a sensitive event that conflicted with your personal ethics?

Do you think pseudo- stories are harmful or just an entertaining way to be client focused?

Sources

Bernays, E. Cited from Davies, N (2009). Flat Earth News. 2nd ed. l: Vintage . p.165.

Gregory, A (2009)  Ethics and Professionalism in Public Relations. In Exploring Public Relations 2nd ed. ed. Tench, R and Yeomans, L.  Harlow: Pearson Education

Jowett, G S and O’Donnell V (2006) Persuasion and Propaganda. 4th ed

Stauber, J. and Rampton, S. (1995). Toxic Sludge is good for you. Maine: Common Courage Press. p.1-4.