Frankie Flack: Running away from Mr. Draper

The return of “Mad Men” last night spurred my thinking about the history of public relations.

As I watched the show, and the continuing growth of the fictional agency Sterling Cooper Draper Price, it occurred to me how the public relations industry back then was so young and that the power of PR was still years and years away from being truly understood.  While the number of workers in the advertising industry was large and growing, those practicing public relations constituted a small fraction of what it is today.

Forty-five years later and the number of public relations professionals has grown at a staggering pace, with numerous global agencies, countless boutiques and rapidly expanding internal teams.  It seems that PR practitioners are growing on trees at this point.

These numbers are often pointed to with some angst among reporters who argue that there is a direct and negative correlation between the rising tide of PR professionals and the dwindling numbers of media.  It has been argued in a number of different ways but possibly most famously by Robert McChesney and John Nichols in their book “The Death and Life of American Journalism.”

While I do acknowledge that there are many good points in this debate, I am not entirely convinced that a simple rise in PR practitioners coupled with a decline in media staff creates a terrible vacuum for society.  Before jumping into my reasoning I want to be clear that 1.) I am a major supporter of our national media and feel strongly that more should be invested in its future, and 2.) I can in no way speak to how PR is practiced in the political field.  I am strictly talking about the relationship businesses have with the media through PR.

There is no question there are now more PR practitioners than journalists out there.  One simply has to attend a corporate press conference or other business event where media are invited to quickly see the number of PR people buzzing around a handful of journalists.

But numbers alone do not create a stronger defense for corporations against bad press. (In fact, some could argue more people involved in working with the press only creates more opportunity for mistakes.)  At the end of the day, a strong reporter cannot be stopped from a story by a PR professional.  As a PR person all I can do is to try and persuade a reporter to abandon a story, write it differently, focus on a different angle, etc.  Nothing I do can directly impact what ends up on paper, no matter how many of me there are.

Does the proliferation of PR people make a reporter’s job more difficult as they now have to work harder at source development and face more opposition to stories as they are developed?  Yes, almost certainly.

Others have argued that the growth of PR, particularly with its improved financial backing, has allowed the industry to better manipulate the space between truth and fiction.  This is I agree with to a point.

A maturing industry is bound to get smarter, and in PR getting smarter means being able to articulate a position for a company more convincingly.  Most often, this comes in the form of surveys that are conducted with an eye toward supporting a point or driving news coverage.  This though is not an argument about legions of PR people but rather a broader conversation about the improved intellect of a few.

Again though, all PR is really doing here is creating more “noise” in the market.  When it comes to the stories that truly matter, the large investigative pieces, this “noise” matters little.

When it all comes down to it, reporters and editors retain the ultimate decision making power.  The growth of PR may create more frustration for reporters, but I really do not believe it inhibits good reporting.  What stops good reporting, in my opinion, is the lack of financial backing and editorial direction to go get the critical stories.

For example, anyone who reads business news voraciously is often perplexed to find that what reporters are left out there somehow all seem to converge on the same short-list of stories.  This indicates a more important internal struggle in the media industry to serve the public interest through businesses that are financially viable.

The debate over PR’s impact on society as media declines is an important conversation that should continue to be studied.  But let’s not forget that, though a contentious relationship, PR is really dependent on a strong, independent press.  Without a strong media environment we all just become part of the advertisers like Mr. Draper.