Journalist’s disgust and distaste for the public relations agent began with the belief that PR threatened the very idea of reporting. Despite public relations seemingly helpful contribution of typed speeches and ready-prepared interviews, journalists scorned their handouts as the destruction of their profession.
Rather than scope out a story, journalists were forced to simply reprint facts which appealed to the special interests of those who could afford a public relations counsel. The hunt for the exclusive inside story soon was whisked away by press releases, and reporters who once found joy in going back stage for news, were now stopped at the front door.
This distaste for the enemy, however, was justified and their skepticism, warranted. Public relations was in its own right, a sense of mind control, managing and manipulating the public under the guise of public service. And yet while public relations was skewed in its practices, that’s not to say that journalism, in practice, was the morally superior career.
To borrow from the goal set forth for The New York Times after Arthur Ochs purchased it in 1896, the role of the journalist was “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor,” – yet, this was more of an ideal than a practice. While the insecurity of journalists after World War 1 led journalists to believe in objectivity to the extent that they did, as a goal, it was impossible to obtain. The very idea seemed to disintegrate as soon as it was formulated; after all, objectivity is unobtainable in a subjective world.
However, today while it is understood that PR agents oftentimes withhold certain facts and present news stories that represent a positive point of view or story line, journalists oftentimes do the same– except it goes unrecognized. While journalists were once seen as the honorable providers of truth and public relations agents the immoral deceivers—the two are gradually beginning to creep into the same playing field.
An example of this, Columbia Journalism Review in 2009 told the story of former CNN journalist Gene Randall, who was hired by Chevron to produce a report on its controversial actions in Ecuador in the form of a segment on CBS’ "60 Minutes". In the end, his report was comprised of only Chevron officials and consultants, and most importantly everyone interviewed was working for Chevron–including the reporter himself. The anchor deliberately ignored evidence that would undeniably affect the viewer’s perception of the story– a choice that knocks down the very model of objective, professional journalism.
The worst part, however, was that the video looked exactly like a typical television news report and never identified itself as anything but that, or exposed who had paid for it. While public relations has long been seen as the organized manipulation of public opinion, journalism has begun to embody some of these same features. Once an esteemed position that honored truth and objectivity, it is now increasingly taking part in the same practices that journalists once feared and despised.
