It feels like public sentiment for the media is at an all time low, and much of that is truly deserved. What CNN did Wednesday night, hosting a White Nationalist rally led by Donald Trump, was an abomination.
It’s a new low for media, but you can expect the bottom to drop out again. And again. “The media” as many call it, is indeed biased, but much less than you might think in regards to a political agenda. The stronger bias is towards getting eyeballs, by any means necessary.
Media outlets are biased towards producing the stories that will require the least amount of effort, cheapest cost, and potentially get the most traffic.
Blame can be spread around to multiple places, when it comes to analyzing the severe decline of the media industry.
Consumers want news, but refuse to ever pay for it. Most consumers are more interested in junk and fluff than what actually matters, and bullshit moves the needle, facts don’t.
No one clicks on banner ads, and CPM based campaigns do not pay jack shit, so native advertising and sponsored content popped up as a replacement.
However, news outlets greatly insulted the intelligence of their consumers by presenting them obvious product placement as “news.”
And the Public Relations industry was more than willing to play along, feeding the monster everything it needed.
PR peeps insult the intelligence of the journalists they pitch their stories to, and thus create a vicious cycle of one side reinforcing one another, as they all race together to the bottom.
The decline of media and journalism has often been discussed, but one of the most significant factors contributing to its degradation has gone overlooked- the PR/Media Relations angle. Which I’ve really experienced, first hand, more so in recent years.
Sadly, reporters have been very complicit in this, and we’ll get to why that is.
PR people, who love to tell reporters the extremely condescending and egregiously shopworn cliche: “there are way more of us now than you,” don’t really care to give you access to anything at all anymore.
They don’t seem to care if you actually show up or not these days. All they want is for you to copy and paste the press release.
That’s the vision of what they believe the “news” story should be. And when you present them with alternative viewpoint, they look at you like “404 error: file not found.”
Oh, you need to speak to someone for your story? Sorry, we can’t be bothered to work too hard to make that happen.
You need actual real quotes to work with? Take the statement attributed to the subject of the story (which is fake, because we actually wrote it) and use that.
All of this phenomena is something I’ve encountered much more doing stories that aren’t sports related/involving sports.
(Although the NWSL can be bad about this, as is MLS when it involves an individual superstar) When access in the sports world is limited or bad, much has been made of it. However, I’ve found that the sports world actually provides much more access, and in a wider capacity, than many other niches.
Sure, it’s most often in a sterile press conference format where everyone else gets the same not especially worthwhile stuff, but it’s a lot better than nothing.
Which is what I’ve gotten from:
a local movie theatre and their media mailing list, an opportunity to see a prominent figure in the world of finance speak at an investor conference, a rock star speaking at a local economic club, and a financial news network’s conference.
With the movie house, it’s a bunch of emails that are subject headed “MEDIA ALERT!!!” but inside is nothing but “hey, we are showing a new movie now.”
And then maybe, sometimes, rarely but sometimes, it’s “let us know if you want a screener copy of the movie.”
It’s sad to see bigger organizations that should have better PR becoming as poor as the individual free-lancers who send you emails with subject head “STORY TIP” and it’s just spam.
Or “I’ve got some exciting news to share” and it’s just a product promotion, or an announcement about a new endorsement.
They basically just want you to do pro bono publicity for said product.
And when you respond to them with “this isn’t news, it’s product placement,” they look at you like you’re a creature that resides in Area 51.
Where does this brazenness come from? Why do they expect you to act this way?
Because so many journalists have complied. They actually do copy and paste press releases or they do run non-sensical garbage and tell you that it’s news.
How many times have you seen the “new items at fast food place” story on the local news?
PR people only care that you bring brand awareness, and sometimes, to them the Instagram is much more important than the article.
Although it’s worth noting that the “influencer economy” is crumbling too. And how much value is in the currency of likes?
None!
My photo of that prominent figure in American financial history got only five likes on Instagram, one of which was from the cat, and another from my niece. That’s a photo I was not supposed to take, as photography, much like video or audio, was forbidden.
“Hey, but you can take notes” I was told.
Oh gee thanks. And on top of it, they misplaced my name being on the media list. With of course the in-house PR blaming the outside firm they hired to plug the event, and vice versa.
That’s a huge thing in PR these days- no one taking accountability for their adverse actions nor apologizing for them. (Which of course is symptomatic of society at large right now, it’s not just in the news gathering business).
The real “fake news” or “alternative facts” is when you call someone out for their incompetence and/or lack of professionalism. It’s like this guy in a driver’s ed video I watched in high school, when he said:
“there are two things that no one will ever say about themselves- that they’re a bad driver or a bad lover.”
This landscape has given rise to a new term: “access journalism.” It’s a euphemism for glorified promotional material, and it is a pejorative. However, those who are producing access journalism pieces aren’t doing it to try and obtain/maintain some kind of competitive advantage.
They’re doing it just so that they can even have access to begin with.
That’s how far things have fallen. And I certainly don’t have the answer, I just know that it’s an antiquated and broken system, in dire need of an overhaul.
Journalism is almost dead. Sadly.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now. Follow the website on Twitter and Instagram.