CorpComms Magazine

It is five minutes to deadline on the tightest, sharpest (indulge me) most finely tuned newspaper engine in Britain.

I am trying to finish my thought, finish my sentence, proof a page, re-write a headline, tell a junior reporter about the difference between disinterested and uninterested, and shout at the sub-editor (trust me, anyone would).

The phone is going. It will not be ignored. It demands to be answered. And I know exactly who it is. It's Jemimah. It always is. There are thousands like her.

She's sweet. In other circumstances, she would be perfectly likeable. She asks how I am. She can't remember where she is calling from, she doesn't know whom she is calling. She doesn't really know why. She has a press release. It is vital that I see it. There's a new trend in hairdressing. Perhaps this is of interest?

In general, it's best to be civil. We all have moments when we are not, but we try to apologise afterwards.

But here's the thing the PR industry is not getting. There are, it seems, ever fewer numbers of us beleaguered hacks and ever greater numbers of PR 'professionals'. PR firms that no one has ever heard of with clients from the Arctic (polar bears, anyone?) expect our time.

In the old days, this was an occupational hazard. Listen politely, say Send it over, I'll take a look and move on.

But there must be a limit to how many times a reasonable person can be expected to say this in one day. We passed it some time ago.

PR folk may sometimes think that us lowly reporters are getting above our stations. Sometimes they may be right. My rough guide is that if you are going to be rude, make sure it is to the chairman for a good reason, not to his secretary, just because things aren't going your way. But it's getting harder to keep to this rule.

As a journalist, part of your job is to hold powerful people accountable. This takes time. We don't always do it well. It isn't just that the PR industry is making it more difficult for me to do that - that might be a reasonable move if you were all conspiring to do so. I have sometimes imagined the meeting where London's public relations industry meets to decide that the best way to stop me doing proper work is to collectively spam email and phone up with surveys about 'business morale'. My own is tumbling.

But actually it's not a conspiracy, it's inefficiency. Here's the thing Jemimah doesn't know. (They aren't all called Jemimah, I should say. Charles is also keen.)

She is costing me money. At the Evening Standard, the presses should start rolling at noon. If the pages are late, fewer copies get printed. This gets noticed. Advertisers ask for money back. If it's my pages that were the cause of the delay, I get a perfectly reasonable bollocking from a man who has himself just had a bollocking. (Please excuse my French!)

Say it again Jemimah? A survey on trends in the Argentine fruit juice industry? May I call you back on this one?

None of this is Jemimah's fault. Her employer has sent her on a pointless errand with no hope of success, without explaining, or knowing, the pitfalls. Without the slightest understanding of how my newspaper, or any other, actually operates, perhaps because they do not read them. (The best of you do. Please tell the rest it might be a helpful start.)

As PR professionals you'll have noticed something. Newspapers are less well resourced than they they used to be. Something to do with the Internet, say experts. This ought to lead to there being fewer PR people (a terrible thought!). Instead it seems to have led to there being fewer that know what they are doing, and 90,000 others that think delivering a press release and telling someone about it means that a box has been ticked.

Really good PR people are at least as valuable as they ever were. Newspapers are at least as open to persuasion as they ever were. And a smart, honest briefing from a communications professional that knows her stuff is as helpful as it ever was.

On the way, you might even persuade me that your client has been unfairly maligned elsewhere. That there's a positive point to be made here. Sadly you can't get through in time because I'm engaged on the line to Jemimah. She is in your way as well as mine. She must be stopped.

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