Frankie Flack: Reporters don’t have a team in a business fight

A good friend of mine once told me that when it comes to business competition most senior executives would offer their first born child to gain one point of market share from a competitor.

While this is certainly an overstatement of biblical proportions, it is instructive to remember that while public relations tend to focus on the positive aspects of corporate existence (emphasizing a friendly working environment, respectful competition, new business wins, etc.) business is still business.  In that I mean businesses only truly succeed when they are growing and that reality creates fierce competitions.

Most of us in the public relations industry do our best to downplay direct competition with other organizations because (simplistically) customers — the most critical audience of all — almost never want to support a “bully.”

However, there are times when the day-to-day battle between sales people spills over into the media world, and a PR person has to fight it out in the press.

For example, when major brand name A sues major brand name B there is typically a lot of emotion internally and a lot of media attention externally.  First of all, for most companies getting all the way to fighting a battle in court is a big step and likely has put a fair amount of money on the line to do so.  Therefore, both sides have a lot invested in winning and want to win every battle, including the one going on in the press.

As a PR person, the first goal should be to support the business strategy.  Most often, press coverage of a court battle doesn’t do much for either side so it’s likely the recommendation is to not go out and pitch new articles.  However, that doesn’t mean the coverage and related reporter inquiries can be ignored either.

The PR person’s role is to engage with the media to ensure that your company’s side of the story is told fairly.  In certain cases, this may mean drawing attention to issues not yet covered but support your company’s overall argument.

For example, press coverage may not immediately pick up on the fact that Company A has a history of filing lawsuits and rarely wins these suits.  This is an important factual point that Company B’s PR person may want to draw attention to in conversations with press.

What often is lost in fighting a press battle though is that the reporters aren’t in on the fight.  Many times PR people will see an article that seemingly takes a side in the fight and yell at the reporter for being incompetent, etc.  This happens a lot, and typically there are good reasons for why the coverage appears slanted.

Some reasons might include being misinformed, a differing reading of the facts or (in some cases) the reporter has more facts than the PR person.  PR people should get corrections where warranted, push for proper context of key points but read all coverage from an objective point of view.

The point is that the reporter is simply the conduit to reaching a broader audience.  While internally executives could be ranting and raving about the press, it’s critical the PR person keeps a level head.  Remaining calm and focusing on having productive conversations with reporters, even reasoned arguments over a few key points, can go a long way to getting fair coverage.

When businesses battle in the press, victories are often won on the margins where saner heads tend to prevail.