CorpComms Magazine

Simon English is an upstanding member of the UK's respected fourth estate. What crimes have been committed against this honest toiler at the coal face of journalistic endeavour? His erudite piece in last month's CorpComms Magazine, suggests that he is at the end of his tether, poor man, over being called by a PR.

Typically, his story starts with multitasking - as all media chaps must do these days - when the phone rings. He cannot ignore the call, you never know when it might be 'that call' from 'that source' about 'that story'.

Sadly, for him and, presumably, for the reading public, it turns out to be 'Jemimah', a PR representative from an agency whose name even she cannot remember, enquiring whether he is interested in 'new trends in hairdressing'.

He is not but he cannot turn her away; 'she's sweet'.

Simon has a serious point to make. 'She is costing me money.' The Evening Standard's presses are delayed by this frivolous phoning up on meaningless issues when Simon is keen to 'hold powerful people accountable'. Bollockings will happen if he takes time to respond to Jemimah or Charles with their likeable (sweet?) requests for coverage of the Argentine Fruit Industry.

Two words, Simon. VOICE MAIL.

I am a poor, relatively underpaid PR hack whose job it is to convince my clients that the UK business media is interested in their messages or stories.

I have told clients that you and your contemporaries within the newspapers will be interested because, while there are no journals of record anymore, journalists are always interested in a story which will play to their editors' agenda and their readers' interests.

While I appreciate the attractiveness of the comedic 'hook' - not least the 'Jemimah and Charles' references - is it really credible that someone promoting hairdressing or fruit would call a City correspondent. Who were these people working for Simon, Max C or Stephen Fry?

Laughing at the PR world

No, I think you were trying to have a laugh at the PR industry's expense. And why not? We are not, typically, ex-journalists (I, myself, spent 15 years working for investment banks but that hardly counts), and we cannot know the pressures of the current UK media market, beset as it is by the new fangled interweb and strange, foreign owners. Moreover, we are paid huge sums of money to lie to our clients about the media's preparedness to write about them and lie still further when it does not happen; 'a dark art old boy, better to trust me on this one'.

In writing this piece, I was struggling to think of a good example of where PR has helped the media get it first and get it right.

I must confess to failing in this regard until I picked up the Sunday business sections. Reviewing the content, I suddenly realised that, far from business journalists being kept from the next Enron, they are kept in business by PRs dropping them a line about what may happen next week and who may be bidding for who (or is that whom? Sorry Simon, I read Economics at University). Would Harold Evans recognise the business sections of our major Sunday newspapers as 'seekers of the truth'? I rather doubt it; seekers of a job offer more like.

Which brings me onto my final point in reviewing your piece, Simon. I have worked at several PR agencies in London during my career. Most, if not all, of them have recruited (for considerable sums) senior business journalists. They were not cajoled into coming. They joined to buy bigger houses and nicer cars. For damn sure, they did not join to do the 'dog work' of a typical PR account. No, these people employ people like Jemimah and Charles. They ask them to call you, Simon. Technically, they should be really good PR people.

From hack to flack

Could it be that all the really good business journalists have gone to PR? Ex-hacks now run major agencies across London. They employ younger versions of themselves, extracted from a media under fire from the Internet and an emerging generation more likely to play 'guitar hero' than read a paper. Who is left within the business media to take their calls? Perhaps, Simon, it is not that PR has too many Jemimahs and Charles but that the media has too few Rolands, Johns, Nicks and Neils?

A rant but a heartfelt one. I would like to leave Simon with one final, final thought before closing. Bollocks is not a French word.

Note from Editor: Pardon et moi. I inserted the 'Excuse my French' line. Mon Francais c'est ne pas bon.

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