Has PR and spin undermined trust in politics? To a certain degree.

The original motion at the Westminster University debate was:  “PR and spin have undermined trust in politics”, and it is a complicated matter. It would have been much easier had the motion been “PR and spin is the only reason why people have no trust in politics” or “PR and spin had no part in undermining trust in politics” (the answer would be “no” in both instances).

Personally I think that PR and spin has some responsibility for the trust deficit, but that politicians and the media also has played their part. What can be done about it?

Knowledge is power. Too much power

First of all, the system under Blair with Campbell as the autocratic ruler of all information was bound to be bad both for trust, for transparency and for democracy. In most democratic systems of governance, power is divided (between executive, legislature, and judiciary branches) to prevent anyone getting too powerful and thus threaten the democratic process.

A free and independent press is also crucial to a democracy, and “rewarding” “obedient” journalist or “punishing” journalists who dare to write things you don’t like, is a very slippery slope towards corruption. And if there is anything that corrodes trust, it’s corruption.

Together we stand, divided we fall

But here journalists and editors also have a role to play. Playing along with this game is completely self-destructive for a so-called free and independent press. I totally understand that being the only one who says no will be catastrophic for that newspaper, being the only one not getting the juicy news.

And I also get (and have witnessed first-hand) that there is so little money in newsrooms these days. Journalists are under a colossal pressure to produce sensational news, without being given the time or resources to do their job properly. To also go up against powerful government aids, might be a little too much to ask for.

But seriously, there is going to have to be a change in culture, and the media will have to put their foot down to such un-democratic tendencies. THAT is their job.

And it’s PRs job, as an ethical profession to make sure such practices are not being used, no matter how tempting.

Politicians need to get their act together

And lastly, if the main problem is a lack of trust in politicians (rather than politics, which is the system, rather than the people), then of course the politicians themselves bears the biggest responsibility to act trustworthy. As an elected represent of the people it is your duty to them to be intensely ethical, transparent and above board with everything. All the PR and the media coverage in the world can’t make or break you as good as you can yourself.

After the whole debate I ended up (as one of few) voting for the motion. I think PR and spin has at least played a part in the break-down of trust. I was appalled by the stories of the spin doctors’ behaviour, and the lack of backbone in the media. But in the end, if the politicians want to be trusted, then they had better start to act the part.

Has PR and spin undermined trust in politics? NO!

Yesterday we looked at the arguments for why PR and spin should take the blame for the lack of trust in politics, today we'll here some opposing views. Francis Ingham and Lance Price were on the panel athe the Westminster University deabte speaking in defence of PR, and here is what they had to say:

Francis Ingham agreed that spin has played a part in the loss of trust in politics, and then especially the excessive control practised by Alastair Campbell. He also agreed the PR gimmicks and obvious lies make politicians less trustworthy, as the public sees right through it.

He however refused to accept that PR was the singular or even main culprit, and pointed to the politicians themselves and the media as other possible offenders.

He pointed to the expense scandal, tory MPs preaching about family values only to be exposed as cheaters, and the hiring of Russian beauties (who turn out to be spies) as examples of how MP behaviour undermines trust, entirely without the help of spin doctors.

The media crisis

An increasingly sensationalist media also has to take part of the blame, he said. Political journalists have gone from reporting without question what politicians say, to now assume that everything that comes out of their mouths is a lie.

24-hour news and the incessant need for new angles and stories coupled with vicious cuts in news teams, demands sensational and dramatic stories.

A politician having a re-think about a decision becomes “an embarrassing U-turn”, and not only in the tabloids. Ingham concluded that while PR does play a part, it is a junior part compared to the other two culprits.

Spin is nothing new

Lance Price then claimed that professional political communication is actually good for politics, and indeed increases democracy. He pointed out that 20-30 years ago only the Tory party were using all the classical spinning techniques, and that Thatcher managed to convince voters that there was no real alternative to a Tory government. He felt that since only one side used spin, democracy suffered.

His other argument was that spin doctors are only as good as the politicians they work for. The only reason they could help get Blair into power was that he was already popular, and no amount of spin seemed to be able to save Gordon Brown.

He was also of the opinion that the politicians did a fine job of eroding trust themselves, with the help of a witch-hunting media. He said: “trust in politics is lost when politicians say one thing and do the oposit” and mentioned examples like the changing stances on tuition fees, forests and the importance of libraries.

Tomorrow I will look at both sides and analyse what we can learn from this debate.

Have PR and spin undermined trust in politics? YES!

You often hear that political ‘spin doctors’ are to blame for the lack of public trust British politicians are experiencing these days.  PR practitioners claim that it’s the journalists who are doing the spinning, and that the British press is the cause of politicians being so untrusted.

Interesting debate

I attended a debate at Westminster University a few weeks ago where the motion: “PR and spin have undermined trust in politics” was put forward. On the panel we found Kevin Maguire (political editor of the Daily Mail) and Sheila Gunn (formerly political journalist and John Major’s press spokesperson) for the motion and Lance Price (Former Labour spin doctor) and Francis Ingham (Chief Executive PRCA) against the motion. It was a really interesting debate and I found myself being swayed each time a new person presented their views.

I will today sum up the arguments for the motion, and tomorrow I will look at the arguments against it.

Abuse of power

Sheila Gunn told us about her experiences with Alastair Campbell during the Blair years. She told of how he had gotten himself in a position where he had full and absolute control of all information, and how he was not afraid to use this power to his advantage.

If journalists displeased him, he would refuse to talk to them again, and keep them from getting important info other, less upsetting journalists would get. If he was happy with you, he would drip feed you good stories.

Her point was that an all-powerful spin doctor is not healthy for democracy and that when good headlines becomes more important than running the country, a lack of trust will surely follow.

Personal experience

Kevin Maguire also blamed PR, saying that it’s the spin doctors that has to step up and take their part of the responsibility. And with a fine selection of anecdotes from his experiences with both Campbell and David Cameron when he used to work in PR, he made a very good case for the motion.

So spin doctors’ abuse of power and letting headlines become more important than politics are good reasons for why PR is guilty for the lack of trust in politics, but there are also very good reasons why they should not take all the blame. Find out tomorrow!

Social media vs. traditional media: A trust issue

By a lot of PR practitioners social media, is seen as this fantastical new tool that will trump all traditional media when it comes to getting your message out. In their book "Online Public Relations", David Phillips and Philip Young goes as far as claiming that "everything will change" now that we have social media. 

Trust takes time

Recent research indicates that most people might not agree, at least not yet, with that assessment.



Public relations as all about building relationships and creating (good) reputations. An important aspect of both, is trust. Bombarding your stakeholders with your message will not achieve anything unless the stakeholders trust the information.

Not unexpectedly Edelman Trust Barometer shows that different sources have different levels of trust. Most trusted are academics and "experts", and at the other end of the scale we find employees, government officials and CEOs. The advantage of third party endorsement is in other words still alive and kicking.

Another piece of research that is even more interesting when it comes to the topic of social media and traditional media, is that where the source is delivering his message is also of great importance.

While there are many good reasons for getting your messages out through social media, it appears that creating trust should not be high on that list. Social Media is the second-to-last media platform, beaten only by advertisement when it comes to not being trusted.

Traditional media, and those who work for them, often show up on lists like these of untrustworthy sources. But this recent research shows that they are still more trusted than information we get from social media. My teacher, Pam Williams, mentioned an article she read where it said that while people might have gotten a piece of news first on Twitter or Facebook, they wouldn't trust it until they saw it confirmed in traditional media.

Choose your media platform

If you’re looking to traditional media to make sure your message is trusted, it’s also useful to realize that some traditional media is more trusted than others.

Business magazines are at number two, only beaten by stock or industry analyst rapports. We then find radio at number four, TV at number six and newspapers down at number eight.

I’m not sure why people perceive newspaper journalists less trustworthy than their colleagues on the radio, but I will guess that in Britain the BBC might have something to do with it, as one of the most trusted media institutions in the country. Radio (and also TV) is perhaps seen as a more sombre medium than newspapers with their tabloid shenanigans.

Readers build relationships with newspapers, radio programmes and TV News for years. It's no wonder they tend to trust them more than a new media outlet.

For PR practitioners the lesson is that not everything that glimmers is gold. Just because social media is new and shiny and exciting, doesn’t mean that we should completely turn our backs on traditional approaches. I think the best practice is to combine the two, and to find out in which situations we should chose social media and in which situations we should go with traditional media.

Here is another piece of research from 2008 that suggests that spending a lot of time on corporate blogs, might not be worth it…

Is political spin really such a new invention?

If you listen to the arguments against political spin, you’re almost left with the impression that the concept was singlehandedly invented by Alastair Campbell in the mid-90s.

Even though you might already suspect that this is an exaggerated claim, you might be surprised how long politicians have been spinning the truth, wanting to look good themselves.

We can find a lot evidence of public relations techniques in ancient times such as Roman emperors’ usage of bread and circus. Making sure the people was fed and entertained is an effective way to lead attention away from poor policy making.

Pope Urban II also employed many “modern” PR techniques in rallying up support for the first crusade, including a catchy slogan (“God wills it!”), “press conferences” (the Council of Clermont), appropriate advocates (Peter the Hermit) and a good old fashioned slander campaign of the enemy consisting of both true and totally made up atrocities committed by the Muslims. 

So how about spin? Are the origins of spin just as old? You bet!

As with all incidents set so far back in time it is hard to know with certainty exactly what happened. History is often written by winners, and is in itself a good example of how the victorious side can put a positive spin on appalling events making themselves look good for future generations. What we do in life may echo in eternity, but with a good spin doctor (historian) it can echo so much nicer, valiant and heroic.

Still I find the theories of Italian historian Cettina Vozi both interesting and plausible. Her specialty is Greek scientist and inventor Archimedes, and in her article “The death of Archimedes: A reassessment” she explores possible alternatives to the popular account of his untimely death.



Archimedes Thoughtful by Domenico-Fetti 1620



Archimedes lived in the city of Syracuse, on Sicily, and died there during the Second Punic War in 212 BC. After a two year roman siege, the city was captured by the forces of General Marcus Claudius Marcellus.  

According to the story, Marcellus was a great admirer of Archimedes work, and had ordered that he should not be harmed as he saw him as a valuable scientific asset. But as his city was falling down around him, the great scientist was apparently so engrossed in his mathematical studies, that when a roman soldier ordered him to get up, he refused, wanting to work on his studies instead.  Enraged, the soldier killed him not knowing who he was.

According to the greek-roman historian who wrote down the account (over a hundred years after it happened) Marcellus “was said to have wept” as he heard the news and subsequently arranged for a grand funeral.

Vozi however, is not buying the “death by misunderstanding”-theory, and claims it was most likely an excellently executed early example of political spin by the romans. Archimedes didn’t just dally in finding formulas of volume and other math theories, you see. He was also an inventor of war machines, like catapults and an alleged mirror-device that could make ships catch fire, inventions that made Syracusans a feared enemy.

Such a man would probably not sit in his room oblivious to the destruction around him, and more importantly, due to his involvement in the siege, Voza argues that Archimedes would have been Roman target number one.

Archimedes' solar powered "death-ray"

She believes Archimedes death was nothing more than a “state-sponsored assassination”, conveniently spun to blame the killing of one of ancient world’s greatest scientist on a case of mistaken identity, and throwing in a portrayal of Marcellus as a honourable and cultured man for good measure.

The theory is hard to prove without a time machine, but I find is as plausible as the popular account written down by roman-friendly historians with no primary sources.

Spin was not invented by Alastair Campbell and his minions, nor will it be possible to get rid of it completely. But with a functioning press, and a general public able of critical analysis, I am confident democracy is safe for a while yet.




Archimedes too engrossed in his work: Truth or clever spin?

 

By the way, if more examples of ancient PR is of interest, I'd like to recommend Tom Watson's article in Public Relations Review (vol 34 (2008) 19–24): Creating the cult of a saint: Communications strategies in 10th century England. It's really interesting to realize how sophisticated the PR machinery was even more than a thousand years ago.

Hope, not despair, brings support to NGO campaigns

When working in the NGO sector, dealing with victims of poverty, war, deforestation or other serious hardship, it can be tempting to try and use the despair to make people want to help. Thinking something like “If we can only make people see how hard life is for this little girl in the slums of New Delhi, surly they would give us money to make it better” may seem to make sense, but actually often has the opposite effect.

When faced with overwhelming problems like world poverty, or global warming, you find that they often feel paralyzed by the enormity of what needs to be done. If you also add in messages of suffering, or guilt for not doing enough, chances are that you potential donor will just switch the channel, or walk away.

One NGO that has understood this is WWF who found that their old scare campaigns about the effects of global warming should we chose to ignore it, just weren’t working. They decided to device one that was positive and empowering instead, and that was the start of Earth Hour. By giving people an achievable task (turning off their lights for an hour each year) WWF have managed to mobilize a billion people worldwide, including local governments, companies and celebrities, making a stand for sustainability and against climate change. By focusing on happiness, positivity and the message that by standing together we can move mountains, WWF has managed to engage with people in a way a scare campaign would never do.

While the act of turning off your light for 60 minutes a year won’t achieve much in that respect, it is always easier to ask people who are already involved to up the ante. And when engaging those who have the power to accomplish the needed structural change, it is always nice to point to a billion supporters championing your cause in a very visual way.

Webcast about current trends in PR: Trust and transparency

As part of our master degree in public relations, we've been asked to produce a video adressing a current trend in PR. We are to pretend that we work for a PR agency and that the video is meant for our clients.

So while *Firefly PR is completely made up, the research is all real.

Transparency and accountability is becoming a key aspect of gaining trust, and the PR industry should definitly pay attention.