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Without spin doctors, society would be in the dark
The greatest news story of the last century broke on April 25, 1953. But it didn’t make banner headlines in daily newspapers and in fact probably never made so much as a page lead story.
The event was the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. It was published in a series of articles in the now historic April 25, 1953, issue of Nature. Watson and Crick et al had discovered the secret to life on Earth. Yet this did not appear in The New York Times, arguably the world's leading daily newspaper, until the following June. And when it did run, it was in column 8 on page 17. So the editors of the day believed there were 17 pages of stories more important than the discovery of the secret of life itself.
If you find that amazing, The Times of London, another world-class newspaper of record, did not mention the story until five years later when it was discussed in an obituary for one of the key researchers, Dr Rosalind Franklin.
The Los Angeles Times didn’t mention the story until 1962 when several of the scientists received the Nobel Prize. Even then it only appeared as a page 3 picture caption.
This is how some of the greatest newspapers dealt with the biggest story in the halcyon days of newspaper journalism. The reason is there was a vital ingredient missing in the chain of communications between the scientists and journalists – good spin doctors.
There is a chorus of voices right now quite rightly warning about threats to quality journalism in our daily newspapers. However, many are taking the opportunity to denigrate the public relations profession and use of media releases in the process.
Public relations is a much misunderstood profession. There is this slick, snake-oil selling perception that gets reinforced by hilarious movies like Wag the Dog and Thank You for Smoking and TV shows like Absolute Power and Hollowmen.
While there are of course many scaly wags and feral practitioners who fit the slick stereotype, nevertheless the profession as a whole plays a vital role in a healthy democratic society.
Few people appreciate the importance of PR and media releases to the daily flow of information. Information that is crucial to the formulation of rational public policy decisions.
Essentially spin doctors act as translators, by analysing the complex tsunami of information that is continually generated by scientists, corporations, governments, as well as the multitude of other organisations that make up modern society. They take in this often complex technical information and then regurgitate it in a form that the media can easily digest.
The need for this process is two-fold. First the sheer volume of this information flowing 24/7 makes it impossible for news journalists to adequately assess and report on. And remember the information stream is growing rapidly as our newsroom resources are diminishing.
The second reason we need spin doctors is the nature of much of the information. Scientists, technicians, engineers, lawyers, corporate executives, bureaucrats, in fact specialists of any kind, speak languages that are totally foreign to journalists, politicians and members of the general public. And sometimes vice versa.
Specialists tend to use guarded, qualified, conservative terms and emotionless technical jargon. The rest of us communicate with emotions and hyperbole.
Take for example the words used by Watson and Crick to announce the fact that they had discovered the secret to life: “We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.”
You can be damn sure this is not the language they used in the pub after their eureka moment.
The DNA news oversight would be unlikely to occur today, because most universities now have PR people dedicated to promoting their work.
In the last five months I have received 36 media releases from one university alone. They announce amazing advances in research covering areas such as nanotechnology, neuroscience, astrophysics , climate science, entomology, geosciences, engineering, medicine, astronomy, quantum physics, zoology, psychology and genetics, just to name a few. How could a science journalist possibly keep track of such a vast and diverse array of research without the PR professionals delivering succinct summaries in language that is easily understood?
And this is just from one university. To understand the true task facing science writers you have to multiply this by the number of universities and research organisations the world over.
The scenario is similar for journalist covering the corporate sector or just about any sector of our modern society.
The PR people are obviously working primarily in the interests of their clients and so are endeavouring to “sell” these stories to the journalists. But most media releases are not designed to be news stories in themselves. Ideally they just attract the journalists to a particular topic. They always provide contact details for further information and the hope is the journalists will follow up.
Cutting the number of journalists in a newsroom does not make the PR professional’s job easier – quite the contrary. The future of our liberal democracy depends on well resourced newsrooms raising the public’s awareness and understanding of a vast and growing range of complex issues.
It’s a task journalists could not fulfil without the assistance of PR professionals.
Leonard McDonnell (www.lmcdonnell.com) worked for more than 20 years as a daily news journalist. Today he works as a media consultant and speech writer for The Edge Media Pty Ltd. An edited version of this article was published in The Age, Melbourne, on September 19.