CorpComms Magazine

When talking to clients, PRs often like to quote Napoleon: 'A positive newspaper is more powerful than a thousand bayonets.' To get that positive coverage, PRs know they have to engage reporters - but it's not always a two-way street. I can't recall how many times, when working in the press office of Morgan Stanley, I would have loved to have had a bayonet to hand following an encounter with a reporter. We've all had moments like this - it's just that PRs will rarely fight back for fear of permanently damaging a relationship.

So, as long as you realise from the outset that your objectives are different to those of the hack across the table - that they are often non-specialists in your chosen field and rejoice at being pushy (it's their job), that they are keen to get the story right ('right' is subjective here) and in most cases are under considerable pressure from their editors as well as rival publications - we should all get along swimmingly.

What many reporters fail to realise, however, is that PRs need to establish their own credibility with their external or internal clients first. They have to be (or at least be seen to be) in control of the direction in which events are going. Bypass them and the rules change. Work with them and the smile returns.

Ten things I hate about you

So what drives PRs nuts? Press meetings provide some good examples. It's the flack's job to brief the client on 'what to expect', as well as the reasons why the meeting needs to take place (believe me, not everyone wants to speak to the press). So please turn up, for starters; the amount of no-shows at corporate events and meetings is astounding. Communicate, guys, please - remember, we're busy too.

Oh, and how about spelling my client's name, title or indeed company correctly? 'Great piece, Alex, but we're not MSDW and have not been for three years now!' Who takes the brunt of the

CEO's ire? The PR does.

It also helps if you understand your subject matter. I remember dragging the global head of credit from the trading floor and persuading him to spare 30 minutes of his time to meet a reporter from a well-known trade magazine. The first question from the hack was: 'So, these treasury bonds - what are they, actually?' Let the trading floor swallow me up in one go. It's not called 'being creative and free-thinking', it's called 'being lazy and idiotic'. The best reporters (the ones with Pulitzers, for instance) never turn up unprepared - that's why they're so good.

When I was in PR, my recurring nightmare was seeing a quote plastered in the paper and the CEO's mobile number flashing up on my handset when I had clearly said 'off the record'

or 'this is for background only'. Setting the ground rules is cheesy, I know, but they're there for this very purpose - people have lost their jobs because of problems in this area. We know

hacks hate it too, but nothing makes a PR more nervous than the fear that someone might go back on their word about attribution.

Zero tolerance

Naturally, when both parties are pulling in opposite directions, emotions run high. Sometimes PRs simply do not want to engage. Sometimes the reporter's demands for an interview are unrealistic - I recall, when working at Morgan Stanley, telling one Bloomberg reporter that if she really thought I was going to call the head of M&A at 10 pm during his daughter's 21st birthday party, she could think again.

So unreasonable requests, 15-minute deadlines and hacks who aren't willing to explain what their enquiries are about all equals zero tolerance. Indeed, it's not always the PR's job to spill the beans on major deals and other such matters of import, so don't get annoyed when they don't tell you absolutely everything you want to know.

There are tales of reporters' rudeness, aggression and sheer arrogance. A bit of fear is OK, but where many PRs feel the line is crossed relates to professional courtesy and respect. Where a PR does not rate the reporters' publication, for example, they will decline the opportunity with a polite but made-up excuse. Some reporters, if uninterested, will go down the 'blatant rudeness' approach, and PRs simply don't understand why.

With every PR/reporter relationship, there is a fair bit of sparring. Tensions rise when the reporter believes they have a unique angle and the PR thinks it's total gobbledigook. From a PR perspective, it is this failure on the reporter's part to sometimes challenge what they have been told - their source who professes to speak with authority - that really grates. For example, reporters need to treat with caution ex-employees who say they still have friends on the inside - such situations can end up like a game of Chinese whispers. Ultimately, the responsibility to make sure the source has credibility lies with the reporter.

The most respected reporters are those that are scared of their editors. You know when you are dealing with a Wall Street Journal reporter - they live in fear of robust editorial scrutiny and the possibility that they may have got their facts wrong.

This makes for a more open debate. So in the end, it's always best to keep the communication lines open and try to understand what drives the other side nuts. Remember that tomorrow is another day, and hey - put that bayonet away, soldier.

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