IPR president and all round good egg Anne Gregory is convening an anti-spin summit tomorrow where the great and the good of journalism and public relations get together to discuss the relationship between 'hacks and flacks' and issues such as truth, honesty and integrity.
You can find out more about it on Patrick Weaver's Anti-spin.com website. This is a vital topic for debate but I think that Weaver's approach is rather too one-sided to be helpful. I think Weaver is the ex-business editor of The Independent.
I've said this before on this website but it's worth saying again.
"PR people lie. Journalists lie."
The important word I missed out was SOME. Bad apples exist in in every profession and just because we have some sloppy and incompetent journalists and PR people doesn't mean they all are.
Weaver writes: "all journalists have at least three seperate agendas, their career agendas, their employers' agenda and the public good". All well and good but the same statement could equally apply to PR people.
I think the biggest source of conflict between PR people and journalists is that too many sections of the media are no longer trying to report the facts but instead are seeking to promote their own agenda. This would be fine if they were open and honest about it. A campaigning newspaper is a good thing. But the problem is that too often they attempt to keep up the pretense that all they are doing is reporting facts, when those on the inside know it is blatantly not the case.
I know and have worked with many political PRs and it is this unethical behaviour by the media that creates a sense of frustration amongst some PR people that push them into using some of the more dubious 'spin' tactics.
What we require is for both the journalists and the so-called spin doctors to put their houses in order.
