Bad apple-cider

Trying to write daily IT news is like playing a game of rugby. One team is made up of a bunch of journalists in tatty denim garb, smoking cigarettes, swigging beer and keeping a sharp eye out for free food at half time. The other team is made up of corporate players. They play their game in suits or chinos, and their key defensive tactic is hiding the ball.

The game is reffed by a gang of public relations officers who are horribly biased in favour of the corporate players. Instead of insisting that the ball be kept in play, they can frequently be observed helping to obscure its whereabouts. And they always grant extra time to their favourites, but come down hard on the journalists for the slightest imagined misdemeanour.

Perhaps I am expecting too much from the PR profession.

Georgina Guedes, journalist, ITWeb

Their bias is the result of a long-standing feud between journalists and PRs. I first encountered it when I was a student, and our lecturer drummed into our heads the fact that these agents of the corporate machine would hamper our quests for information at every turn.

While it might have been unfair of her to introduce this prejudice so early in our careers, I believe she was only doing her best to minimise the blow that the real world would deal us the first time an interview subject referred one of us to his PR. Years of experience have cemented the conviction that was fed to me at such an impressionable age.

I`m pretty sure that at their gatherings, PRs shake their heads and issue equally derisive slants against journalists. In fact, on the couple of occasions where the veneer of politeness has slipped in our interactions, I have gleaned an inkling of the accusations that might be levelled at our retreating backs. I imagine that "lazy", "condescending", "uncooperative" along with some other unprintables rank up there among the more common descriptive terms with which they slur my colleagues and I.

In all fairness, I must confess that I know of a couple of wonderful individuals, who do their job with a level of efficiency and warmth that puts their clients in a very favourable light. These people have made my dealings with the corporate information mill as painless as possible, and have elevated certain press functions to the unlikely category of "a pretty good time". It`s just a pity that in the PR world, the bad apples are so bad they make enough cider to drown the entire barrel.

Perhaps I am expecting too much from the PR profession. As I see it, these people should be educated in the different types of media, and have a thorough understanding of their clients` businesses so that any request from a journalist can be responded to with the appropriate client information and contact.

Instead, we are forced to deal with situations where the bad apples insist they get to "approve" comment from their clients before it is published, and then, with poison pen, mutilate every piece of information that the client gave us in direct quotations. They insist on being allowed to define their client`s company using terms like "global leader", "unique" or "innovative". And any quote that lends a bit of colour to the article because it is an expression of the client`s personal sentiment is deleted with flourish and replaced instead with a piece of corporate fluff, rendering the article dull and lifeless.

Our frustrations abound when we explain to PRs that we are on a tight deadline and we need the comment by noon. They pleasantly agree and make noises to indicate they understand, and then proceed to ignore our calls until 1.30pm, when they snippily tell us that their client has been very busy.

They call us to tell us they have a story in which they know we will be very interested. Pinch of salt taken, we tell them to send it on through. Upon perusal, the article turns out to be so far from our intended target market or coverage that it`s relegated immediately to file 13, the wastepaper basket. They call to follow up about three weeks later and petulantly demand to know when their release will appear, and to insist, in the face of adamant protestation to the contrary that it is suitable for our target audience.

I think that all publishing houses should have counter-PR agents. These employees will have their own office, and it will be their daily duty to interface with the world at large, looking out for the needs of their journalists. They will be fitted with shin-pads and helmets, and will be expected to run onto the playing field and bludgeon the ball from the grip of any subversive player intent on obscuring its whereabouts.