Shame of papers that rely on PRs for ‘news’
NHS PRESS officer Paul Ilett (Don’t bite the hand, Gripe, last issue) must think we hacks came down with the last shower of rain.
Why does he suppose cash-strapped health trusts manage to scrape together the money to hire people like him: out of an altruistic desire to give the public the facts, or — like every other user of PR in the entire world throughout the whole of human history — to make themselves look good? You choose.
As a sub on a regional daily, I see the sort of “information” churned out by the local NHS trust almost every day, and it’s hardly what you’d called full and frank disclosure.
Just last month, for example, a story crossed my desk which began “XXX NHS Trust has once again been named as one of the 40 top-performing trusts in the country”.
Five minutes on Google revealed that the list was compiled only from those trusts which pay (handsomely) for the services of a particular “benchmarking company” and that the so-called top 40 also included one trust identified by the Healthcare Commission, in a rather more objective assessment, as among the worst performers in the country. I looked in vain for this information in the original copy.
It’s not Paul’s fault, of course; he’s just doing his job — and how. “We are extremely proactive. Our local papers often have two or three page leads that have come from us, as well as full or double-page features.” His local newspaper “lives on our work”.
There, in black and white, is the crisis in journalism writ large. What is wrong with his local papers that they allow themselves to be spoon-fed this self-serving pap? Is it just laziness, or overwork, or have they actually forgotten that readers trust — and pay — journalists to tell them the unvarnished truth?
And when a real story breaks — one which perhaps shows Paul’s bosses in a less than flattering light — what news editor is going to risk running it, if it means Paul and his ilk cutting off the paper’s supply of boil-in-the-bag pseudo-news?
Were he not there, Paul warns, “Gone would be the quick responses to media enquiries.” Yeah, right. If the story is bad enough they’ll get the chief executive out of the jacuzzi to tack his two-par apologia on the end. No one’s indispensable, Paul.
When stories about botched operations, filthy wards and staff at the end of their tether arrive on our desks on NHS-headed fax paper, then — and only then — will Paul fairly be able to claim that he’s acting in the public interest. In the meantime, I suggest his local papers take a long hard look at themselves.
Reluctantly, I must ask to remain anonymous as these criticisms could equally well be levelled at my own employers, and jobs in these parts, however occasionally dispiriting, are hard to come by.