Why So Sensitive?
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
There are entire websites dedicated to jokes about the nefarious nature of lawyers. Hatred of lawyers is a widely accepted vice in America. Yet, enrollment in law schools is trending ever higher.
The first thing people do when they’re in hot water? Call a lawyer. When starting an ambitious new venture? Call a lawyer.
Calling a PR pro — whether it’s “a guy I know who knows someone at the newspaper” or a full-fledged agency — comes a close 2nd. In hot water? Call a lawyer, then call someone who can effectively tell your-side-of-the-story to the media. Starting an ambitious new venture? Call someone who can help you proclaim it to the media.
Of course, that’s not all that PR people do; it’s just what most folks THINK we do. Just as there are all kinds of lawyers, there are many sub-disciplines to the PR industry. PR is actually not about spamming reporters.
So why do PR pros get so ruffled when someone (especially someone like a Scoble, a Jaffe, an Owyang or a Calacanis) says “PR is dead?” Saying something negative about PR on Twitter, in a blog post or in a magazine article and you are guaranteed to get a high-volume, angst-filled response from practitioners.
Here’s my take: there are bad PR people just as there are bad lawyers. Bad lawyers don’t care if you think they are evil. Bad PR people probably don’t even realize that they suck, because they’re not bothering to listen for negative feedback in the first place.
Both of these “bad pros” are blithely inept; they give no thought at all to the destruction they wreak on the reputations of their fellow practitioners.
Which means if you’re one of those people who get upset when influencers suggest that PR sucks, it probably means you care about your work; it probably means you’re doing good for your clients; it probably means that your work can stand as a bulwark against the slings and arrows of those peevish influencers.
It probably means you shouldn’t get so worked up over all the negativity. Do what good lawyers do: get back to doing some good.
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I think this is spot on. The best way the PR industry can respond to this sort of criticism is by upping the overall standard of the work we do. There will always be bad PR people out there – more so than bad lawyers – while anyone can set themselves up as a PR person, and damage the industry in the process.
Maybe there’s a bigger role for PR industry associations to play in accrediting the good ones by something other than a membership fee?
In the meantime, good PR people can grab the opportunity to distance themselves from the bad guys, and get on with doing great work.
While I think PR industry associations could take a lead in accrediting practitioners on the basis of qualifications and experience, this could lead to a staler industry. The relative lack of regulation leads to innovative/risky/edgy campaigns.
In any case even strict regulation would not stop the potshots – how often are lawyers referred to as sharks, or accountants a bean counters?
The changeover from offline to online PR and Marketing is causing the industry some pain but far from killing it, it is revitalising it and bring the best practitioners to the fore.
Those who love blasting pitches to bought lists of journalists seem unlikely to retain good clients for long – as the results they get diminish year on year.
Taking the “what counsel would we give to our clients” tack, I find it difficult to disagree with this post. One of the hard lessons the dawn of social media has burned into all of us [well, hopefully most of us] is that the Internet is forever. Anger and self-righteousness may be our first response, may even be a justified one, but there are enough cautionary tales spread across the blogatwittofacebooksphere to give us pause. Every time I have a discussion with a client about responding to a blog post or comment, the counsel usually involves an appeal to logic and restraint. I don’t think this post argues for silence, it makes the case for a grain of salt.
Great points made here. The “death of PR” has been greatly exaggerated for a while now. The bottom line is those who take the profession as a profession will continue to build relationships and do well for their clients or their company. So many of the so-called “experts” in social media today are devoid of actual proof to the points their making.
At the end of all of this, as social media solidifies and matures, I have a feeling a majority of the so-called “experts” will have been as wrong as those who said back in the late 1970s that the VHS format could not survive against Beta-max.
Boy, did I just age myself!
I have to just chuckle at these overwrought diatribes. Who do these “journalists” turn to when they need to file a story on deadline? Who do they rely on to get a story first? Turn a rumor into a fact? While the power balance usually tips toward the media, it’s always fun to watch the scales shift the other way every once in a while. And when those pundits publish their books and try to get on GMA to pull product on Amazon? Yeah, you know who they call.
A closing thought: Has Twitter not revealed more sharply than one could ever imagine just how much these same people thrive on and excel at self promotion?