Today's story is the breathless coverage in Stars and Stripes and elsewhere that "dossiers" were created by the PR firm Rendon Group on reporters who wanted to embed with U.S. military in Afghanistan. Oh horrors! According to the story, PR professionals are reading the stories published by journalists and "analyzing" them for whether they are pro- or anti-military (or just "neutral"). Who thinks of these diabolical schemes, Dick Cheney?
The story does not a) say that these analyses are determining who will and won't go to the war zone, nor b) does it quote any PR professionals explaining that "briefing books" on journalists are as common in the PR biz as coffee stains are in media newsrooms.
But the story does quote two anti-PR cluckers as follows:
Professional groups representing journalists are decrying the Pentagon’s screening of reporters.
“That’s the government doing things to put out the message they want to hear and that’s not the way journalism is meant to work in this country,” said Amy Mitchell, deputy director for Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
“The whole concept of doing profiles on reporters who are going to embed with the military is alarming,” said Ron Martz, president of the Military Reporters and Editors association.
“It speaks to this whole issue of trying to shape the message and that’s not something the military should be involved with,” he said.
My response to Martz and Mitchell (and Stars and Stripes): baloney. I'm GLAD to hear that the U.S. military is using standard-issue PR tactics to conduct business -- that tells me they know what they are doing. As a PR pro, I'm FINE with that.
Putting on my citizen hat, I would be concerned if the ever-vigilant media were to find that coverage was significantly affected by these tactics, or to put it another way, that we were sold a phony war by con men. But I guess getting that story is beyond most of the media. It's much easier to kick PR.
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