The Good, The Bad, The Spin

Berlin-Icthyosaur State Park. Photo: Bob Conrad.

After reading my local paper’s articles online, I often skim down to the comments below the article. It is here where I begin to feel so very unclean.

With the advent of attempts at creating more transparent journalism, many news media outlets allow ordinary folks to comment on their news stories online. I’m not sure why.

The lay public is incredibly misinformed and it is difficult to be truly knowledgeable about the complex issues facing people today. [Edit 10/17/08: Click here for an unrelated but pointed, amusing and sad example of how misinformed we are.] Social psychologist Robert Cialdini calls this “paralysis of analysis.” As information is more readily available, it is more difficult to be critical about how and what we absorb.

What adds insult to injury is when newsrooms don’t talk back after their readers respond. This is where journalists can learn from their PR brethren.

[Edit 10/17/08: The same day of this posting, which was written a week prior to being posted, there was an interesting storm of criticism directed at the local daily, and it was being dealt over Twitter. What happened was the paper posted an endorsement of a political candidate that was viewed with criticism. I even weighed in. One problem, among a few: In moving the article around, the reader responses got deleted, or at least there was the appearance of being deleted, which created further furor -- again, expressed on Twitter. The next day, the paper reposted the comments under the article with an editorial pseudo apology. Ryan commented that "this would have never happened without Twitter."

Also, the following day, I posted another comment to another story, taking to task, once again, the Associated Press, for fear-mongering reporting of dubious sources. A reporter promptly took me to task in the comments section! The point being: Not all's black and white in the world of Bob Conrad. So a partial mea culpa is in order, and a kudos goes out to Steve Timko for his participation. On that order, I've gotten initial approval to interview another employee of the RGJ to discuss this topic directly. But please continue reading to get to what I hope is a larger point on newsroom transparency, one that appears to be changing.] (more…)

Lest we forget, the ‘public’ in public relations refers to the constituents to which we are accountable.

So it irks me to hear about my colleagues who use their public relations positions to attempt to mold and control news stories to bizarre degrees. (When I was in a past position being encouraged to do the same, I couldn’t have felt more unclean.) Such attempts in fact translate as the authoritarian, “we know best” stance, which on the face of it, is just as arrogant as journalists who believe they also know what’s best for the public at large.

Consider: Both news journalists and public relations personnel constitute fairly measurable demographics. In PR, pros tend to be college-educated, (white) women of middle socioeconomic classes. News reporters tend to be college-educated white men from middle socioeconomic classes. Neither group reliably represents society as a whole yet both see fit to speak for us all. Remarkably. (more…)

I’ll be tweeting live tomorrow from the Tahoe backcountry on a media relations excursion (cell phone coverage depending, of course). A local TV news crew is doing a Lake Tahoe backcountry feature on horseback.

I’ll be tagging along and documenting it as we head from Spooner Lake to the grand vistas of the Sierras, which overlook both Lake Tahoe and the Reno/Carson areas.

Pics will be posted on the DCNR Flickr page hopefully by the end of the day. Please visit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevadadcnr/

Are you on Twitter? If not, you should be. Follow me here: www.twitter.com/nvbob.