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At Commencement, Journalism has a Hazy Future
by Norman Solomon
Today, departing from an
institution steeped in modernity, you say farewell to a fine
journalism school. Honored to address this graduating class, I will
speak with uncommon candor about the wisdom of your training and the
opportunities that lie ahead.
You have studied how to
write news articles and contrive news releases; how to dig for truth
and how to obscure it; how to produce journalistic sensations as
well as public relations; in short, how to unspin and spin. Like
many others around the country, this school of journalism imparts
vital skills of reporting and distorting.
A senior adviser to the
huge lending institution offered this explanation: "We decided
that you can't have a meeting of ideas behind a cordon of police
officers." Presumably, the meeting of ideas will flourish
behind a cordon of passwords, bytes and pixels.
Last year, the national
journalism magazine The Quill noted what is now occurring on
hundreds of college campuses: "Future newspaper reporters and
broadcast journalists regularly share classes and crowded curricula
with aspiring public relations managers and advertising
copywriters." What an idyllic, pastoral, almost biblical scene
this evokes, with lion and lamb bedding down together.
Allow me to extend the
metaphor. It is neither cost-effective nor necessary to be at each
other's throats. We all rely on the creative use of words and
images. Why perpetuate past rifts between journalists and PR
professionals? Why polarize when we can synthesize? For a fresh
generation of media pros, a new modus vivendi awaits.
Some object to the
efficacy of such pragmatism. We hear claims that public relations
and journalism are incompatible. These are different functions, the
naysayers moan. In recent years, they have steadily lost academic
ground. Yet resistance has not disappeared.
At the University of
Maryland, in 1998, the college of journalism went so far as to boot
out the public relations program. But some big guns in the PR
industry counterattacked and raised hell with top officials at the
university. According to the publication PR News, the embattled
program got lots of backing from "corporate communicators at
deep-pocketed companies." Surviving handsomely, the PR program
found a new home at the department of communication.
I've heard complaints
from people like Dave Berkman, a retired professor of mass
communication at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where he
was chair of the department for a few years. He argues that when
students take courses in public relations, they're learning to
become "professional liars." He calls PR "the
antithesis of what journalism is supposed to be."
Berkman taught mass
communication for 21 years, and now he doesn't want to give up the
ghost. He laments that many college journalism departments now
feature public relations as the dominant program of study -- and he
alleges that "to house PR with journalism is to give public
relations an imprimatur of respect and propriety that belies its
inherently corrupt and corrupting nature." I say, make that guy
an offer he can't refuse! Ha ha.
Unfortunately, he won't
pipe down about the public relations biz. "On the occasions
where truth and the client's interests coincide, then you go with
the truth," Berkman grouses. "But because you are paid to
make the client or the client's cause look good, truth can never win
when it conflicts with the client's interests." And he goes on:
"The purpose of journalism is to ferret out the truth. The
purpose of PR is to protect your client."
But consider the
glorious career of David Brinkley. After decades at NBC and ABC
News, he moved on to voice lofty TV spots touting the humanitarian
goals of agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. You got a
problem with that?
As students, perhaps you
feel a twinge of sympathy for Professor Berkman when he asks
rhetorically, "How do I teach a kid in Reporting 101 to go
after the truth and teach a kid in PR 101 how to lie?"
It's best to consider
Berkman a spoilsport when he contends: "Journalism and public
relations don't belong under the same academic roof. It's like
teaching astronomy and astrology in the same department."
Hey, the wall has
fallen. The free market is our secular faith. To those who resist
the convergence, I say, "Get over it!"
In the current media
environment, only the intemperate fail to realize when missions can
be synergistic rather than antagonistic. Look at it this way: In
journalism, the job is to be as truthful as possible. In public
relations, the job is to be as misleading as necessary. Surely, we
can find plenty of common ground. In any case, build your career by
proceeding discreetly to scope out the limits. See what you can get
away with.
Congratulations to each
and every graduate. Go out there and search for truth. But please,
don't carry the lantern too high.
Norman Solomon is a syndicated
columnist. His latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive
Media."
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