Confessions of a Former Flack

We've talked some this semester about public relations, and how to educate student journalists about the devious methods and motives of those who practice this nefarious art.

Fair enough. But as a former practitioner, wife of a public affairs officer and daughter of a veteran publicist, I'd like to state for the record that public relations is not always spelled E-V-I-L.

My first job out of college was for a small advertising and public relations agency. Our clients included small hospitals and a nonprofit group lobbying for a safety-belt law in West Virginia. On their behalf, I helped run booths during community events and dressed up as a crash-test dummy. I was, and still am, proud of these efforts to promote health and safety issues. And for the record, safety-belt legislation was passed in Almost Heaven.

My husband, John, is one of those former journalists who has entered the public relations world as a result of the newspaper industry's struggles in recent years. He now works for a nonprofit medical society, where he writes and edits newsletters and handles media relations. The society focuses on major public health issues such as H1N1, HIV/AIDS and immunization, just to name a few. It's "honorable work" that John, a former health-care reporter, feels good about when he comes home at night. What I've found especially interesting is that he fields far more reporter calls than he makes.

There's no doubt that my attitude toward public relations was most profoundly influenced by my mother, Pat. I remember drifting off to sleep as a child lulled by the sounds of her typewriter. She claimed I used to beat on it with my tiny fists when I felt I wasn't getting enough of her attention.

Mom's career as a publicist began with an effort to collect enough Top Value trading stamps to earn a station wagon for nuns who taught at a local Catholic grade school. "Franciscan Friends for a Ford" was a rousing success. Over the years, her clients included the West Virginia Veterans Memorial Commission (established to raise funds for a Vietnam memorial at the state capitol), one of the state's most highly regarded judges, a community concert association and Keep a Child in School. She also donated her talents to the church we attended and to numerous arts organizations.

I left the advertising/PR agency for a job at my hometown newspaper. In my 15 years there, I did plenty of eye-rolling at flacks who inflicted upon me bad pitches and worse press releases. But I also valued those PR practitioners who answered my calls promptly, helped me connect with sources and provided unique angles on stories that had to be written year after year after year.

God bless flacks.

Twitter Titan

Right after I read this story last week in The Washington Post, I subscribed to Andy Carvin's Twitter feed.

Hours later, I unsubscribed. The guy lives up to the billing, and then some.

Carvin, a D.C.-based social media strategist for NPR, has made it his mission to provide updates on happenings in the Middle East. Given the subject matter, the result is a lot of tweets. A lot. I just couldn't keep up with him.

What's fascinating is how Carvin uses Twitter to verify information. His followers play an active role in the process. For students, "@acarvin" is worth studying not only as a potential model for how to incorporate Twitter into newsgathering, but also as an example of how to engage citizens.

It's not a perfect model, of course, as both Post writer Paul Farhi and Carvin himself observe:

"Despite the speed of delivery and breadth of material that Carvin musters every day, the form has its weaknesses. Carvin acknowledges that it’s difficult to know the full context of some of the information he transmits, such as the harrowing footage he linked to last week of a father encountering his dead and disfigured son in a hospital room. The video apparently was from Yemen, but much else — who shot it, under what circumstances and when — was hard to substantiate.

"What’s more, Carvin doesn’t speak Arabic or Farsi, which means he must rely on his followers for translations. He’s also never met about two-thirds of the hundreds of sources he uses for tips and tweets.

"Carvin candidly notes another potential pitfall: He’s far more likely to get information from rebels than from the regimes. 'The majority of people online [in the Middle East] are young, better-educated and skew toward reform,' he notes."

By way of addressing some of that, Carvin says he sticks with reliable sources and makes a point of labeling unconfirmed items. Post blogger Melissa Bell provided a glimpse into Carvin's process, which speaks to the values of verification and transparency.

While I don't plan to add "@acarvin" back into my feed, I do keep him in my saved searches so I can visit from time to time. Sa-lute!

Ultimate Example

From Japan, which continues to reel from the recent one-two punch of earthquake and tsunami, comes a stirring example of how one newspaper views its social role.

Conditions were especially dire in the days immediately after the twin disasters, yet these journalists were undaunted. A half-dozen rounded up the news. Three others wrote it out by hand on large sheets of paper. These were posted at relief centers.

The cycle was repeated for six days, until the paper could resume traditional mass production. Free copies now are provided to relief centers each day.

So here's a message to my future students: Think it's hard to put out a paper?

Really?

Think again.

Social Media Primer

The April 6 "J-Flash" from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism contains a promo for "Likes and Tweets: Leveraging Social Media for News Sites." It's a learning module for journalists who want to explore using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and the like.

I'm not all the way through it yet, but I think it could be a good tool - one in a series of tools - to help students navigate the beginning stages of social media use. My starting point was the section on Tumbr, a platform I considered using for this blog but decided against because I felt like I needed more knowledge on how it works. This would certainly have informed my decision.

I'm liking what I see in the section on maximizing impact, too. Journalists should understand the basics of Web analytics, tagging and such.

So far, I haven't come across anything about ethics of social media use by journalists. Luckily, I now know where to find such material.

Overthinking It?

One of our assigned readings this week outlines the social media guidelines for students in Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. These are based on "A Newsroom Guide for Using Social Networks" by Kelly McBride of The Poynter Institute.

Maybe I read it wrong, but one thing in ASU's version concerned me. "Aggressively manage 'friends' and followers and their comments. Delete comments that call into question your ability to act independently as a journalist and, if necessary, remove 'friends' or followers who make such comments."

McBride's version puts it differently: "Manage your friends and their comments. Delete comments and de-friend people who damage your reputation."

My concern with the "aggressive" management advised by ASU lies in interpretation. Let's face it -- the thickness of journalist skin varies widely. Some people can take a lot of criticism and even thrive on it, using it as a means to spur dialogue about the subject. Others, however, take offense at the slightest hint of negativity. So, in those cases, "aggressive" management of friends and comments could shut down valuable discussion. And it could result in accusations of censorship.

I would want my students to consider this very carefully as they craft editorial guidelines for managing website comments and social media.

Good Timing

This week I've been watching a young family member struggle with social media etiquette. Well, she hasn't exactly struggled - she's voiced her opinions loudly (in all caps at times) and clearly. Her catfight with a "friend" started with a misunderstanding and quickly escalated into an ugly, nasty exchange that went on for more than a day.

On my lunch break today, I called and preached a sermon about the lasting nature of the Internet, the likelihood that future employers might well conduct Internet searches, the potential legal issues, and so forth. My young relative, to her credit, had already been thinking about her behavior. She was contrite and resolved to take the high road in future. And she apologized for any embarrassment she might have caused adult family members.

While I could have done without this situation, it did provide me with a personal angle on we have been reading about lately concerning social media issues associated with scholastic media. My young relative did not work on a school newspaper or yearbook (more's the pity), but she told me during our phone conversation that she is mindful of the example she needs to set for the little girl she babysits.

It's highly likely, then, that my take on this week's assignment involving a guide to social and digital media for an editorial policy will touch on these points from "Online Ethical Considerations":

• We will not create personal or professional attacks in our use of social media on the people (we) report on. We will keep the personal and the professional separate.
• We agree that staff members should conduct themselves in social media forums with an eye to how their behavior or comments might appear if called upon to defend them as a news organization.

Shoe-Leather Reporter

In reading about David Broder, the veteran political writer for The Washington Post who died March 9, I found some life lessons for student journalists … well, make that journalists of all ages.

1. Do your homework and do right by your sources.

Broder’s career illustrates that the two go hand in hand. Post columnist E.J. Dionne was among those who commented on Broder’s approach to his work. “It's been said eloquently by so many others that he was a reporter's reporter – and within that, a citizen's reporter, a voter's reporter. It wasn't just that he knew every governor and every state party chair in the country – and some enormous proportion of county commissioners, state legislators and city council members, too.

“It was also that he felt compelled, constantly, to go door-to-door to talk to voters," Dionne continued. "They were subjects for Broder, not objects. He wasn't trolling for good quotes. He truly wanted to know what and how people thought and felt. He wanted to understand them.”

Jack Betts, associate editor of The Charlotte Observer, referenced Broder with the moniker reflected in the title of this blog post. Over the years, Betts “ran into Broder from time to time as he breezed through the state on the trail of one story or another, watched him question businessmen, college presidents and those who might know something he needed to know. His interviews always seemed more like conversations than interrogations.”

2. Own up to your mistakes.

"As a reporter, Mr. Broder admitted shortcomings on issues great and small," the Post's Adam Bernstein wrote. "He compiled for publication his 'annual accounting of errors and misjudgments' highlighing his bloopers in election coverage."

3. Help your colleagues.

Dionne first witnessed Broder’s bigheartedness as a 23-year-old reporter in the runup to the 1976 New Hampshire primary.

“I was then working for The New York Times and found myself in a press room, during a debate as I recall. And here was Dave Broder, one of the most famous and accomplished political reporters in the United States, bounding in after doing some reporting – he was always reporting. He just handed his notes over to a younger reporter and said, ‘Here, you can use these.’

More on Comments

After last week's rant on comments, I decided to channel my distaste constructively by taking on a comments-related assignment for the social roles class. I wrote a letter to my imaginary students designed to get them started on crafting a comments policy for their new website and Facebook page.

An e-mail this morning from The Poynter Institute about the latest Romenesko tidbits sent me to The Indianapolis Star, which is facing a judge's order to reveal the identity of those who commented anonymously about a former CEO of a nonprofit organization.

Whoa, Nellie. Along with all the other issues related to online comments, now we might have to worry about shield law implications?

Now I'm even more in favor of requiring registration for comments.

Say What?!

As far as user comments go, I’m firmly in the registration-required camp.

My position on this goes back years to when the newspaper where I used to work launched a “vent” phone line so callers could leave messages about stories, community issues and whatnot. A selection of vents was published regularly in print (and later online). While there was an occasional nugget of wisdom, most vents fell into one of these categories: mean-spirited, bigoted, just plain stupid or outer space. Readers, of course, loved it.

The vent line bothered me for two reasons: one, the hate-filled tone the comments all too often took; and two, the lack of accountability. Callers could leave messages in comfortable anonymity, yet authors of letters to the editor had to submit their names and contact information.

For the same reasons, I deplore systems that allow readers to leave comments without registering. Unlike vent lines, online comments can appear almost instantaneously – and are often unfiltered. Sure, comments can be deleted, but once out there, the damage is done. Just ask Lara Logan.

To those who cry “censorship” at any attempt to regulate comments, I respectfully remind you that the First Amendment does not allow journalists to publish anything they damn well please. Ever heard of libel? Obscenity? Fighting words?

Read up on those before you leave your next comment.

Plagiarism ... Not?

Is it plagiarism when you reuse your own work?

Yes. And no. So say those commenting on an unapologetic admission by Mike Rosen of The Denver Post that he lifted part of a column about supply-side economics from earlier work written for ... no, not The Denver Post, but the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News.

Comments (two) on Poynter's Romenesko were firmly on the "no" side as of Devil Machine press time:

"You can no more plagiarize yourself then you can visit an unsafe haven."

"Rewriting yourself is a nonscandal. I do it occasionally, and with links to the original versions, but even if I didn't, this goes beyond being a victimless crime; in the annals of journalism, this doesn't count as a crime at all."

Reaction on Denver's Westword blog, where the issue first was raised, was more nuanced (not to mention profane). Here's a sampling:

"He's stealing money from the DP which is paying him to produce original content."

"Would the current owner of the Rocky Mountain News archives be interested in Rosen's 'borrowing' of their copyrighted material?"

"Rosen didn't plagiarize, which makes the headline wrong. A better headline and focus for the story: 'Mike Rosen Recycles Column: Do Readers Deserve to Know They're Reading a Rerun?' That's the heart of the debate, whether Rosen needed to inform readers and his employer that he was recycling. Unfortunately, it's lost under a loaded buzzword like plagiarism, and everyone is arguing about that instead of what matters."

What a robust ethical discussion this situation would prompt in a student newsroom. Should you reuse your own material? Can you plagiarize yourself? If you reuse your own material, what do you owe readers in terms of transparency? What do you owe your former employer, for whom you originally wrote the material (better check out that copyright issue)?

Objectivity, Transparency and Diversity

A big story broke in medialand this week with AOL's purchase of The Huffington Post. Amid concerns about the long-term effect of media consolidation on journalism came this gem from HuffPost's Peter S. Goodman, which I found through Poynter's Romenesko:

“In the sort of journalism I am interested in practicing here, I want my reporters to reject the false idea that you simply poll people at both extremes of any issue, then paint a line down the middle and point to it as reality. We have to reject the tired notion that objectivity means the reader can get all the way to the bottom of the story and not know what to think. We do have to be objective in our journalism, but this does not mean we are empty vessels with no ideas of our own, and with no prior experiences that influence what we ultimately deliver … .”

Goodman’s column – which should be required reading for every reporter – focused mostly on political and business coverage, but its underlying messages apply to all forms of journalism. He was particularly eloquent about objectivity, transparency and diversity:

“… [O]bjectivity means that we conduct a fully open-minded inquiry. We do not begin our reporting with a fully-formed position. We do not adhere to the contentions of one think tank or political party or government organ as truth. We don't write to please our friends or sources or interest groups. Rather, we do our own reporting, our own independent thinking, our own scrutinizing. But at the end of that process, we offer a conclusion, and transparently so, with whatever caveats are in order. …

“And this sort of objectivity is the real argument for diversity in newsrooms – the need to ensure that we have people in place who can tell a greater range of stories, so that we collectively see and understand the breadth of the American experience.”

Amen, brother.

Clear Like Mud

My husband got all worked up last night reading an article in The Washington Post about Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins, and his beef with a writer for a local alternative paper.

Upset about an unflattering cover story, Snyder wants the writer fired. In addition, Snyder is very interested in e-mails exchanged by the writer and a Post sports blogger.

These passages in The Post’s Feb. 2 article on the unfolding saga sparked the spousal outrage:

“According to several people with direct knowledge of the situation, Snyder's attorneys contacted The Post last week and asked the newspaper to preserve e-mails between Post sports blogger Dan Steinberg and McKenna.” (McKenna is the writer for the alt paper.)

“Steinberg declined to comment Tuesday, as did The Post.”

Among the “people with direct knowledge of the situation,” my husband reasoned, had to be someone with The Post. “And how can a paper not comment in its own story?” he demanded.

Excellent questions, aren’t they? Especially given that Washington City Paper’s coverage of the brouhaha has been much more transparent.

Looks like I have a good example for my future students on the merits of transparency and the pitfalls of anonymous sourcing.

The Press Vs. The Media

Romenesko led me to this post in American University's The Eagle blog, which dovetails nicely with some of the reading I've been doing for the social roles class this week.

In a recent visit to the AU campus, Dan Rather articulated a distinction between "the press" and "the media." The press focuses on news with a constitutional mission at its core -- i.e., the press as watchdog -- while the media's coverage of news is designed to generate profit.

"We can't let journalism sacrifice itself on the altar of entertainment," he said.

There's some irony in Rather's comments, of course, given his departure from CBS after concerns were raised about documents he used on "60 Minutes" to question President George W. Bush's National Guard record. The former anchor couldn't resist a dig at CBS head Les Moonves for "sleazing up" the venerable news show after Rather left.

Still, I say "amen" to his take on press vs. media.

Truth Is Hard

"You can't handle the truth," a character played by Jack Nicholson famously proclaimed in the movie "A Few Good Men." The same can be said for all too many reporters.

Getting to the truth takes work. It's time-consuming. It involves digging through paperwork, archives and files. It means more interviews and more sources. It requires tough questions, often of authority figures. And it can be very unpopular.

But the truth is out there (thank you, "X-Files").

In "The Elements of Journalism," authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel suggest looking at journalistic truth as "a process ... or continuing journey toward understanding - that begins with the first story and builds over time. For instance, the first news stories signal a new event or trend. They may begin with an account of something simple - a meeting or a car accident. The time and place of the accident, the damage done, the types of vehicles, arrests, unusual weather or road conditions - in effect, the physical externalities of the case - are facts that can be recorded and checked.

"Once they have verified the facts," Kovach and Rosenstiel continue, "reporters try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation."

Then comes the second story, in which sources respond and fill in the blanks. That leads to a third story. And so on. "Context is added in each successive layer," the authors write.

It strikes me that this wouldn't be a bad way to teach student journalists how to move from reporting news to finding truth. A series, each story building upon the last, might be less intimidating a prospect than a ginormous investigative piece.

The Awareness Instinct

"People crave news out of basic instinct -- what we call the Awareness Instinct. They need to know what is going on over the next hill, to be aware of events beyond their direct experience. Knowledge of the unknown gives them security; it allows them to plan and negotiate their lives. Exchanging this information becomes the basis for creating community, making human connections." -- Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, "The Elements of Journalism"

Sometimes this means the audience wants to know all about Lindsey Lohan or Charlie Sheen. And sometimes this means the audience wants to know why 29 people were killed in a mining explosion, or what pushed a deeply troubled young man to open fire at a congresswoman's "meet the people" event.

I can work with that audience.

Return of the Devil Machine

I managed three whole posts (two of which I've deleted) before abandoning this blog. Now I'm reviving it to comply with a requirement for another course in my master's program. It's safe to say that this time, I'll last at least a couple of months. Grades are a wonderful motivator ...