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I Objective – Reporting vs. Commentary

According to a new Zogby poll (thanks to The Future of News for the post):

“The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well – 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn’t take political sides.”

And no wonder. News programming today often makes little distinction between news reporting and commentary, and the journalist is often as important as the news itself.

But distinctions matter. Journalism can never be truly “unbiased.” By the time we read any news article or watch any news segment, even the most “objective” news has been run through a series of bias filters. Each news department selects which stories to cover and which reporters to cover it. Each reporter selects which aspects of a story to focus on and which details of all possible details to include in the story. And editors make selective changes to fit a variety of criteria.

But recognizing this inherent bias, doesn’t mean we should stop insisting on some objectivity. Journalists can still choose to report mainly on the who, what, when, where, and why, and refrain from subjective assessment. They can still do their best to be fair and cover both sides of an issue, reporting that some people disagree about reported facts, and quoting the subjective assessments of people on multiple sides of an issue. And news programs (and bloggers who report the news) can still make a clear distinction between news reports and commentary.

This distinction is an important one for me because it goes to the issue of trust. With the blurring of the distinction between reporting and commentary, to trust the news, we must place more trust in the news organization (with all its corporate influences), which can then lead to an abuse of that trust in the form of completely subjective reporting that serves only the bias. If we can’t trust the organizations, then we’re left only with individuals – whether reporters, commentators, or bloggers – and many of these have little credibility beyond zeal. Stephen Colbert’s incredible humor and influence come from playing off this so perfectly, and the fact that some people don’t recognize the Colbert irony is a testament to what they are not recognizing in actual news programming.

And it’s a good reminder for PR pros. While subjective assessment (“the leader in…”) certainly has its place, hype-free objective reporting encourages trust and ultimately coverage.

While I’d like to think the Zogby poll indicates healthy skepticism, I fear it indicates growing cynicism about an environment in which persuasiveness comes all too often from celebrity and the amount of noise one makes.

CHAIN MAIL 2.0

Oy. I’ve been tagged, or chainmailed, whatever you want to call it. I haven’t heard from my good friend and mentor Giovanni Rodriguez for a bit—and here he comes and “tags” me. G, if you’re expecting me to share some juicy things that you may know about, you can forget it.

The rules are you need to state five things people might not know about you, and tag five others to play the game. I don’t think this will ensure long life or that Prince/Princess Charming will sweep you off your feet, but what the heck:

1. I have an identical twin sister, Nikki. She’s a psych major at Berkeley and I’m in PR. Can you guess which one of us is the evil twin?
2. I am a professional Hearts player. Challenge me, I dare you.
3. At my first PR internship, I spent part of my summer in New York City buying vintage Mexican porn on Ebay (to be accurate, Mercado Libre, Ebay in Mexico). This was at Taschen.
4. In our 7th grade yearbook, I was voted “most likely to become a librarian.” This prophecy came true as I’ve worked in the Los Angeles Public Library and the Thomas J. Long Library at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
5. Giovanni once bailed me and my friend/colleague Denise out from a San Jose jail.

It’s time to pass the baton to the next five. Denise Vardakas, Katie Hallen, Jeremy Pepper, Tony Obregon, and Greg Olsen.

And one more for good luck! Alex Yenni from Lewis PR

The Big N Opens

It was a quiet, thoughtful entrance into the blogosphere, and from our perspective it was done perfectly.  Novell, a company that has fully committed itself to being all things open, has launched a blog run and managed by the PR team.  That the PR staffers are the primary authors  is a strong message that they aim to be open in their comms as well.  I recently met Bruce Lowry, the Novell PR chief, at a small blogger dinner organized by another company that has made a commitment to open source (IBM).  For Novell, says Bruce, the commitment extends to the tools they use, including the blogging software.

The Naked Web

A few weeks ago, we sang the praises of a new webzine called Gelf. We liked them so much we decided to join them. We'll be writing an occasional column called The Naked Web, which will focus on the media, PR and transparency. First installment posted today -- on the subject of anonymous blogging.

Attack on SEO -- Clarified

Tom Foremski recently posted tough words about SEO, and yesterday he posted a clarification. Worth reading in its entirety, but here's the punchline:

A message for web site owners: Web sites should be optimized for the user not for a searchbot. Invest in making your web site more relevant to its intended users/customers. After all, your goal is to boost revenues and that is done by creating relevant and compelling web sites for customers.

In this emerging Internet 2.0 world transparency is what is valued. Talk the talk and walk the walk and you will be rewarded.

If you do that, the googlebot will award you with a better ranking, but more importantly, your customers will become your evangelists. Value is always recognized and shared on the Internet.

The Problem with VNRs

Just as VNRs (video news releases) are falling out of favor in the corporate PR world, federal agencies are using them to promote their views, says The New York Times.  The big problem:  often, TV stations run the VNRs without attribution, leading viewers to believe that the segments are the work of independent journalists.

The unethical practice of packaging VNRs as "news" is not new. What is new is that the practice is getting the full treatment, in a 4,500-word story on page one of a national newspaper, and all who profit -- the media, the PR industry, and the organizations that fund them -- are being held accountable.

Everyone is a Marketer

Kim Cameron, a leading thinker on digital identity, asks:

So just as blogging transforms who is involved in journalism, might it not also transform who is involved in marketing?  Not by marginalizing people ... but by allowing more of us to participate, such that the relationship between customers and product development becomes more unmediated?

Alas, what if you combine this thought with the thesis of Seth Godin's new book?  All the more reason to educate everyone in our organizations about the virtues of transparency.

Attack on the House of Research

Andy Lark and David Berlind have posted some of the toughest posts yet on the industry analyst market. This is a tough one, but few will diasgree about the ethical quandaries that persist, or whether some firms are more trustworthy than others. This market, like PR (our market), will surely experience reform in the years to come.