eChaser: July 2009 / p3

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Andra Bennett House, APR, Greater Fort Worth PRSA

GFW PRSA corralled four publishers/editors of local weeklies and an

ex-ombudsman — Lucie Allen of the Spanish-language Panorama News; Lee Newquist, Fort Worth Weekly; Blake Ovard, The Star Group Newspapers; and Kay Pirtle, Wedgwood News, with moderator David House — at the June meeting to hear how they were doing financially and how we could work together on news stories. Not all of the answers rang sweetly on happy ears.

“PR companies, at least on the journalism side of what we do, are problematic because they’re in between (us and) the person with the real answer,” FW Weekly publisher Newquist said. “I don’t want to talk to a PR person whose sole role in their career is to spin it and make it sound good.”

Cue nervous laughter in the audience. Tweets flew.

Star Group managing editor Ovard echoed: “All of the cities have a PIO, and their job is to keep you from getting the story, so they don’t understand why I don’t want to talk to them. They say, ‘Well, I have all your information.’ ”

Tarrant County PIO Marc Flake stepped forward and told how he had aided the Weekly’s requests for a recent Peter Gorman cover story that examined issues related to the medical examiner’s office. “I was very helpful with Mr. Gorman,” Flake said, “and told him who he needed to talk to, gave him background, gave him all the documents (and) contact information he needed. I don’t stand between you guys (and the county). … I help you get the information you need.”

Applause erupted. I found the exchange candid and enlightening. It brought home that the adversarial relationship between hacks and flacks plagues us still. But I would hope that the PRSA members in the audience all hold to the PRSA Code of Ethics, which emphasizes advocacy, honesty and fairness.

We PR practitioners are obligated to our clients, their stakeholders and the public interest. Journalists are obligated to the public’s right to know, to readers and to advertisers (yes, the panelists said advertisers are an important audience). So here’s the rub: A PR pro being honest and ethical doesn’t always translate to being as “open” as some would like. The reasons can range from proprietary information and SEC regulations to security concerns and political sensitivities.

PR people daily weigh the benefit vs. risk of dealing with the media. Brave, skilled responders will answer even a hostile reporter in order to provide balance. Cautious ones will favor silence if they have been repeatedly mischaracterized or taken out of context.

In a changing media landscape, PR practitioners should eschew derogatory terms for alternative or community weeklies — all newspapers, really — and appreciate their scope of influence. At the same time, journalists should reexamine their generalizations of PR practitioners as spinners and blockers. As resources continue to shrink, ethical PR pros provide information, assistance and access to high-level sources that will only become more critical for journalists who want to report the truth.

Comment on this issue on the chapter blog or David House’s blog.

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PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Betsy Deck, IABC Fort Worth

The Bronze Quill luncheon every June marks the end of our fiscal year. What an amazing year this has been, and none of the chapter’s accomplishments would have happened without our wonderful volunteer board — Betsy Black, Amy Yancey, Pam Fry, Tim Tune, Liesl Gray Logan, Laura Hanna and Sara Reynolds; Pam Huff, ABC; Lori De La Cruz, ABC; and Ken Roberts — the most dedicated, hard-working communicators in Texas! These individuals prove that it’s the people who make IABC the outstanding group it is.

Now get ready for our new and improved president, Cheryl Hart. With her boundless enthusiasm, Cheryl will lead IABC Fort Worth in an exciting direction. Fresh events are already in the works to exchange ideas with other organizations in this terrific network of communicators that is at our fingertips. I can’t wait to see the great things Cheryl will implement.

In my seven years in IABC I have seen example after example of how it benefits members and nonmembers alike. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I thank you for your support and hope you will stay with us and take advantage of the many opportunities during the upcoming year.

IABC traditionally takes July off, so enjoy the break and we’ll see you at the Aug. 25 meeting.

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OVER & OUT

John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ

I was never around Diane Turner much, but still I miss her. Likewise Jeff Henderson, with whom I shared memorable Society of News Design conventions in Fort Lauderdale and San Francisco. Both were exceptional journalism teachers/newspaper advisers (Diane at Tarrant County College, Jeff at Texas State), storytellers and characters. Diane played a little poker and stayed immersed in Delta Gamma sorority and Altrusa. Jeff was a published author and actor. Both are in the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Hall of Fame, both had legions of admiring ex-students, both made you laugh, made you think, and both died last month, unexpectedly and way too soon. SPJ national lost executive director Terry Harper in June, too, to the brain tumor he blogged about with such courage and humor. Terry will be remembered for getting SPJ’s finances in order. Go to your address book and call an old friend and tell him thanks for everything. We never know. ...

If you’re a good writer and want to be better, a great writer and want to be the best — if you can’t write a grocery list but are fascinated by the way words, cleverly dispatched, snggle up to each other on the page — then the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference beckons. Can’t afford it? Scholarships are available. Too busy? Rearrange something. ...

Jeff Biggers, the American Book Award-winning author of “The United States of Appalachia,” presents an indictment here of President Obama’s failure to stop mountaintop removal for coal mining. OK, the man has a lot on his plate, but what a disappointment, what a disgrace. ...

Welcome back, conservative media monitor John Wallace, who found the John Kerry quote below at bostonherald.com. Haven’t heard from John in a while. Surely it can’t be because Democrats have quit saying dumb things.

Closing words: "You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write." — Saul Bellow ... "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." — Thomas Mann

Closing words II, Democrats talking stupid division: “Too bad if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’ — Sen. John Kerry, discussing with a group of business and civic leaders how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had disappeared for four days and claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail. Twenty-four hours later Sanford confessed that he had actually been in Argentina over Father’s Day weekend — a long way from the Appalachian Trail — and with his paramour

Closing words III, quick, find the person with integrity in this paragraph: “In all my life I have lived by a code of honor and at a variety of levels know I have crossed lines I would have never imagined.” — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford in an e-mail to his lover ... “Am I OK? You know what? I have great faith, and I have great friends and great family. We have a Good Lord in this world, and I know I’m going to be fine. Not only will I survive, I’ll thrive.” — Jenny Sanford, the governor’s wife, to reporters ... “I disagree with the idea that this shows problems for the modern Republican Party. I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.” — Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, assessing the effects on the GOP of Sanford’s and Nevada Sen. John Ensign's admissions of extramarital affairs