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Spin Doctors Can be Friends as Well as Foes

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Reviewed by Peter Preston Posted Thu, May 15 2008

Call them whatever you like — corporate relations directors, press officers, spin doctors, PRs, even lobbyists — their job is essentially same, to make sure that the boss who pays their wages gets his (or her) word across with maximum force: and instinctively, of course, journalists on the receiving end don’t like it. They may be grateful for a quick, clear handout and lazily transfer it into print. They may be relieved to find some copy fodder that doesn’t need too much tinkering, or a few pat phrases that save thinking time. But, traditionally, their hackles rise when someone tries to peddle them a line.

In America, as the full force of a presidential campaign strikes, the candidates’ press officers are both friends (when it comes to getting a seat on the bus) and enemies, when they put a favorable gloss on unwelcome facts. In Britain, journalists snort with indignation as the prime minister’s men hand them a story. It’s a healthy enough response. The trouble is, though, that it leaves one or two vital things out of the picture.

Rowan Williams is the current Archbishop of Canterbury and an academic and intellectual, which means he tackles the big themes of society and religion when he lectures; he is also Welsh, with a love of language that never uses one word where 20 will do. All of which means that even the specialist reporters, who follow him day by day, have problems with reporting what it is he’s trying to say. On occasion, perhaps, such obscurity can be a refuge. If you are the dominant voice in a church split down the middle on the rights of gay priests, for example, then a certain ambiguity can come in handy.

But most of the time, Williams needs to be clear. He wasn’t clear, pretty disastrously, a couple of months ago. He was talking about how a multi-faith Britain needed to develop; how some faiths — like Judaism — already manage to regulate matters like marriage and divorce through their own network of informal courts that work within the context of British law, and how, as our Muslim population grows, it would be necessary to find the same sort of accommodation with sharia law. But he didn’t say “necessary”, he said “unavoidable” on a BBC news program; at once the blogosphere seemed full of fury. Hundreds of Anglicans had heard the broadcast and were both angry and baffled. It didn’t take long for the written press to pile in behind.

The red-top tabloids were frankly and typically insulting. More thoughtful quality papers were calmer but still almost wholly hostile. The Archbishop had been terribly muddled. A damaging crisis, but also an avoidable one.

Advisers aghast at the extent of the debacle lamented that the Archbishop didn’t respect the press anyway, or take advice from them on how to deal with their crude demands for simplicity. And at once, in a modern and unfamiliar context, you could see how press officers and press men needn’t always be adversaries; why, indeed, they needed each other. The Archbishop of Canterbury wasn’t trying to unload some propaganda thesis. He was trying to explore a difficult area of national life, and he clearly needed help. The press summary of his speech sent out by his office was a little flat, to be sure, but it wasn’t hard to understand. It was how Williams put it himself that created the problem.

So where does this land us in what journalists still see as a War for Truth? Only in more confusion. The plain fact of the matter is that often, in the rush of 24/7 news, the reporter doesn’t always have time to pursue a complicated argument. Perhaps that means journalism by sound bite, but it is also unavoidable (as the Archbishop would say). Enter the press officer, with a role to fulfill: making sure that the person he serves has got his communications skills in order, that he has something comprehensible to communicate. In short, he has necessary talents.

Just remember the days before he existed, when getting any comment out of a government or civic authority was a nightmare of toil. Just remember that making journalists’ lives easier can sometimes make their reporting better, too.

Universities around the world are churning out too many journalists to fit the available, shrinking pool of jobs: 40,000 in the UK alone as newspapers cut back on staff. Is there a future for those who don’t find a slot? One obvious, developed road leads to press relations, an area expanding, not contracting, and many journalists think it an easy option.

But it’s time to step back from the barricades and take a more measured approach. Do spin doctors sometimes impede the search for truth? Of course they do. But they often facilitate it, too. Should journalists and press officers learn to work together better? True again, up to a cautious point.

There’s reason for careful dialogue here, not scorn. There’s reason to create an ethical context that covers relations. There’s reason to acknowledge the faults on both sides and try to do better.

Do you still feel your hackles rising? Probably. It’s the first, best reaction. But remember, from White House to soap company, that there’s always a second phase. And saving us time to think means that we have a responsibility to do some hard thinking for ourselves.