Honest media reporting versus PR?

Here is the argument of British business / media person Luke Johnson condensed:

The accidental beneficiary of this tidal wave of information is the PR industry....an incredible number of apparently independent articles are effectively planted and pushing a slanted view...
Quite how the black art of PR peddles influence is difficult to determine - but it certainly works. As Sophocles said: "I see that everywhere among the race of men, it is the tongue that wins and not the deed."...Witness how successfully Sir Richard Branson has used publicity in his career - and how important his PR spokesman Will Whitehorn is within the Virgin empire.
Today's cynical consumers can sometimes be reached more effectively through intelligent PR campaigns than simple paid-for communications. Even measuring their impact and value can be easier than with straightforward adverts.
As William Randolph Hearst said: "News is what someone does not want you to print - the rest is just advertising." ..The very best PR is, after all, invisible, and appears as honest editorial.
The public are right to be sceptical: a fair chunk of airtime and column inches out there have been subject to "perception management" by the communication experts. You have been warned.

You could write a lot about this sort of argument which has become more common, but let me just make a few points:
- the whole argument is premised on the idea that left alone the media is fair, honest, well-informed, balanced etc. Anyone with a passing acquaintance with the big media knows this is nonsense. It also suggests that the media cannot take the heat it so often relishes applying to others and is too tender to resist the efforts of PR people.
- the Hearst comment is a sleight of hand. The media is business, it often publishes things that sell newpapers, drive ratings. That is not usually or even often the truth. It is also lies, fabrications, half-truths, misleading sensationalism etc. It is this media reality that causes many people to seek the advice of PR agents.
- The public was accordingly cynical about the media well-before PR grew to the prominence it now occupies. In a chicken and egg sense media outrages came first.
Overall, we need to accept that the media is not perfect and neither is PR - hence the need for both. That is the more mature approach. Thanks to PR Machine for the link.