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.