Altruism is not journalism’s edge

It is said [eg, this university web page] that journalism serves the general public while public relations serves specific client interests.

Now, while I believe the assertion about PR to be correct, subject to various cavils and qualifications like not visiting harm on any person, I’m not so certain about the "journalists serving the public" bit.

Unquestionably the average working journalist is just as much engaged in transacting information on behalf of an employer as the average PR practitioner.

Of course, the relationship is different - in the case of PR, the employer (client) has engaged the practitioner to assist it progress its information flows or relationships. In the case of journalism, the employer (proprietor) has engaged the journalist to act in a catalytic role to get the good (mainly bad) news from Ghent to Aix.

Sure, the information ends up in the public domain, but – irrespective of particular individual belief systems – the information does not get there because of any notion of collective media altruism. Motives commercial as well as charitable, sinister as well as pure, are at work.

Any notion that an essential difference between journalism and public relations is based on the former party having a mortgage on selflessness is flawed from the start.

By the way, Robert Browning’s poem even got journalists’ drinking habits right:

"As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,

"Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

"Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent."

Comments

[Amy]

From the journalist side, I completely disagree. Most reporters I know are dedicated to get the truth out and put up a fight whenever they're ordered to write about one of their publisher's sacred cows.