There is always hope in the world (no matter how little we sometimes see around us) and there will always be good journos and good PR people.

But there will also be bad journos and bad PR people. Afterall, sometimes it’s only when you meet the terrible ones that you know what the good ones are like, and vice versa.

Perhaps, I was just thinking, that there is a fundamental difference between the mentalities of thosewho write for magazines and those who write for newspapers. For one, the pace is different, and I believe the business model would differ to a certain extent as well.

Would that make an impact on how they treat pitches and deal with PR people in general?

Comments, anyone?

I believe the good journos (who still exist) can always be convinced by a good story idea/angle/pitch, regardless of ad spend.

And if a client asks you on where to put his money, always recommend the publication which provides his target audience, not so much on how much “editorial support” they’ve given to date. That’s still the fundamental difference between ad buys and editorial support – they don’t always go hand in hand and mixing them together muddles the business model.

But people like to muddle issues…so if the client doesn’t get any editorial support he believes he’s entitled to, despite him spending oodles of money, they simply have to ask themselves why.

Lousy product? Lousy relationship with the press? Or gasp…lousy PR person?

Most the points put forward are correct, but you’ll gain full enlightenment when you’re a journalist who has to worry about the business of his paper.

And shame on you, anonymous, a journalist who can’t even tell us his name.

I guess what i find most worrying about The Anonymous’ posting is that it is made into an excuse for providing less-than-deserved coverage of something – then blaming it on what is part-and-parcel of an industry’s product life cycle. Publication houses close up all the time – it’s not just restricted to tech publications. It just goes to show that there isn’t sufficient critical mass (both in terms of READERSHIP and AD DOLLARS) to support X number of publications in the market. That’s the way of the commercial world – the weak get culled, while others (hopefully) learn from their mistakes and move on stronger and more knowledgeable.

As Pris pointed out – the issue is not about whether clients should advertise. In fact, I say, let the client advertise MORE! The issue in this case the about the role the journalist plays in providing coverage of good and credible things DESPITE the ad buy.

Although I sympathise and can understand the views from “anonymous”, but isn’t it sad for a journalist/ writer to say, “… but why should I if there’s no returns and only you are getting the gain, right?”

This is the exact point I am trying to make.

This sounds like a journalist who tries to do a sales person’s job too. Like I mentioned in the post, I have nothing against the marketing and the sales people from the publications doing their jobs. If you read my earlier posts, I am all for advertisements, I love flipping my Glossy Mags and look at the pretty ads. I encourage my jewellery/ fashion clients to tie up and buy ads in targeted women magazines.

I am just questioning journalists and writers who take up the role of sales folks and try to bargain for ad dollars in exchange for writing about a coverage.

What if one day, PR folks hold the ad dollars of clients and have all the power to buy ads directly with journalists and say to the editorial team, “forget about us pitching newsworthy angles to you, just give me my full page write up before i’ll even spend a cent in your publication?” would you question our PR ethics/ professionalism too?

David’s points is valid – there is logical reason why publishers set up different departments (ie: marketing, sales, production and editorial etc) – each to handle its respective role.

This vitriol about PR professionals not caring about the media industry was uncalled for, and obfuscates the issue at hand. Professionally-run publishers have marketing and editorial divisions for a good reason. No doubt it’s a catch-22 situation, but if editorial produces fair, quality pieces, eyeballs and attention will be drawn over time. And that ultimately translates to ad dollars for marketing. Publishers who consistently fall prey to short-term profits will doom their publication as readers start to dismiss them as ad trash. Quite a number of tech publications have died ignominiously with few missing their presence.

Interesting that the only person here who claims to be a journalist is posting anonymously.

Pris, you have opened up a Pandora’s Box.

The way I rationalize the justification for PR is however, twofold:

Firstly, advertising dollars are not by itself the only factor in deciding a publishing house’s income level, because implicitly if you work that chain a little further back, you would realize that companies advertise mainly based on circulation/subscription figures, which in turn depends on the quality of the publication’s content.

Without PR agencies dishing out pitches all the time, whether it’s about a new product, an exciting event or another government campaign, would the writers/journalists have the ability and bandwidth to source for enough stories and material to fill up the pages to make it a worthwhile read?

Fact is, the local media (at least) does not get most of their story ideas through their own research, contacts or journalistic instincts (whatever that means in Singapore). They depend on PR agencies and in-house corp comms people for story leads and frankly such professional interdependence is not anything to be ashamed of anyway.

Truth is, which reader would pay money to buy a crappy publication that is full of ads but misses out on all these new and interesting bits that may invariably come as a result of PR practitioners’ endless pitching?

If you are an advertiser yourself, would you spend money putting your ads in such a publication?

So yes, it’s all a vicious cycle and who’s fault it is depends on where you choose to cut this cycle: no pitches> no content> no readers> no subcription/reader base> no ads> no money?

Which brings me to the second point: PR serves to provide important and timely information that sustains the modern media environment. Such a role is essential in maintaining the richness and vibrancy of our media content.

For want of a better example, the PR function is to the media what personal experiences and opinion is to a blogger. Would a media without PR start sounding like a boring blogger who has nothing exciting happening in his life? Perhaps.

Or maybe a blogger who updates his entries with tonnes of endorsements and paid-for content (which implies less personal self-opinion)?

At the end of the day, the media needs PR as much as PR needs the media. It just seems a little unfair now because the status quo favours the media. Which PR agency would dare to go to Straits Times and say, “I’ll only release the information to you if you run a half-page story on it”?

I have met publishers who only see the money. Instead of listening to their editors, they hang on to the words of the sales directors instead. The latter is driven by the profit motive (short term), the former by editorial intergrity (long term).

This is unavoidable. I guess most publications undergo the same editoral-vs-sales tension. But each cancels out the other and a balance is struck. So Izzie’s right.

Yet, when you are talking about small publishing houses with perhaps just one title under its belt, it is hard to stay faithful to editorial virtues when someone is buying 10 insertions in exchange for a little favorable coverage.

The publisher may feel good that he has rejected a baited offering, but it also mean he will have to tighten his belt that much more.

For a publication to maintain Izzie’s version of journalistic integrity, it has to have a strict editorial policy that prohibits sales from ever influencing content, and that can only come from a house with a lot of money already in the bank.