Item: One popular PR yearbook estimates that news releases influence as much as 80 percent of the news.

Item: Other studies show that up to half or more of the content in publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal originate from press releases or PR story suggestions.

Dr. Michael Turney of Northern Kentucky U adds some more context and detail, noting that “researchers consistently find that a high percentage of news stories originate from public relations input.”

• One of the oldest but most-cited of these studies was published in 1973 by Leon Sigal who reported that “almost 60 percent of the editorial content of the New York Times and Washington Post are generated by public relations efforts.”
• A widely cited mid-1980s study of several leading newspapers reported by the Columbia Journalism Review “found that 45 percent of stories came either verbatim from PR releases or with perfunctory additional reporting.”
• A 1999 national survey conducted by PR Week and cited in Wilcox’s Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques “found that almost 60 percent of the responding journalists used news releases ‘all the time’ or ‘often.’” And, almost a third of the respondents also admitted that they had come to rely more heavily on public relations sources for their news stories than they had five years earlier.
• Another survey reported by Wilcox was done Jericho Promotions of New York. It involved more than 5000 questionnaires sent to journalists worldwide. 38 percent of those responding said “they got at least half of their story ideas from public relations people. The percentage was even higher among editors of lifestyle, entertainment, and health sections of newspapers.”
• Other smaller and more limited studies focusing on other media and conducted at various times during the last two decades reported anywhere from 35 to 75 percent of the analyzed media’s editorial content came directly or indirectly from public relations sources.

Hmmm. Now let’s consider responses to a Hartford Courant survey that “asked a number of media experts and critics to make sense of events and to reflect on what they believe has been the year’s biggest media story – the one that will have the most lasting effect on the business.”

• Geneva Overholser, the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in public affairs reporting, Missouri School of Journalism, Washington bureau: “This was the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, “objectivity” makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message….And it leads to a false balance of ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ stories that make the two ‘hands’ appear equal even when factual weight lies 98 percent on one side.”
• Steve Lovelady, managing editor of Campaigndesk.org, and former newspaper and magazine editor: “I think the most important media story of the year was the way in which the press was so easily manipulated by spin machines all the way through the election campaign, partly thanks to the fact that it was hopelessly hobbled by some of its own outdated conventions and frameworks.
• Daniel Okrent, The New York Times’ public editor: “We all see things from our own perspective, but I think it was the way both the left and the right were primed and armed to assault the press. I felt this very keenly in my job when complaints came to me. There was a determination, a vigilance that staggered me. There was intimidation and self-dealing. It was amazing to me that Adam [Nagourney, the Times’ national political reporter] and his colleagues can still keep their eyes on the ball. Obviously, everybody’s got to be on their toes all the time to do a fair job and complete job, you have to not be intimidated but also not ignore it. I think it can affect what’s in the paper – Ed Wasserman ‘Washington and Lee University journalism professor) calls it ‘negotiated news,’ where the response is dictated by efforts to keep people off your back instead of what you deal in – news.

I think it’s that boldfaced term there that bothered me the worst. Think about what you know of the world and how you know it. Now, try to get your head around the idea that your views of the world are not the result of reporting, of professionals observing events and then detailing them in a way that strives for accuracy and truth. Instead, the news that frames your understanding (or misunderstanding, as the case may be) of the world is the process of negotiation. It goes like this:

• X happens. For the heck of it, let’s say X has political implications that favor one political interest over another.
• Reporter attempts to produce a story that explains X to the reader/viewer.
• PR flaks representing A and B (interested and opposed political parties) contact reporter in attempt to help reporter “understand” X.
• If reporter doesn’t respond appropriately, A and/or B contact reporter’s editor, and process now begins to morph from “influencing” to “intimidating.”
• Since editor is scared senseless of appearing biased, he/she guides reporter to a “balanced” story that gives equal time to both A’s and B’s “versions” of the facts.
• Reader attempts to understand X by reading story that is designed not inform and edify, but to appease vested political interests.

Well, there are more facets to this little gem than we have time to examine here, but what is suggested is that we’re approaching a point where Journalism is no longer distinct from Public Relations. Journalists no longer have the responsibility to seek out and report the truth – rather, they become copy editors who more often than not “report” “news” that has been conceived and crafted by political or corporate propagandists and whose most taxing tasks require them to produce sterilized information-like product – News-Whiz® – that attempts to serve opposed power elite camps in whatever proportion best insulates them against charges of bias, thereby insuring maximum profits.

If you’re paying close attention, you might be able to identify the group whose interests aren’t being served – the public – unless you’re simple-headed enough to believe that the best interests of Americans are truly safe in the hands of the Skull & Bones alums who dominate both of our major parties. The 1st Amendment was intended as a hedge that would safeguard the citizenry against the government, but corporations have bought the government and put their mouthpieces to the task of convincing us that one “side” or the other is looking after us. Since those corporations have now largely bought the press, as well, who’s looking after the public?

At what point does PR fully co-opt Journalism, and what happens to the public then?

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