Saturday, July 29, 2006

The intelligent interface between journalism and PR

If you haven't latched on to this buzzword yet, let me introduce you to the concept of Editorial Intelligence. Actually, it's more of a club than a concept. It describes itself as 'an Information and Networking Club for all public and private sectors of PR and Journalism which captures and digests the world of comment and opinion in the U.K.'

It has a pretty nifty website that has some useful links and resources available even to non-members - for example, click on 'the media and e.i.' for relevant press articles and 'downloads and briefings' for podcasts.

But it is a little scary as it suggests some form of regular collusion between journalists and PR people to control the news agenda and keep the information flowing to sell newspapers while keeping PR clients in a positive light. You might think that the role of a truly 'intelligent' journalist is to see through the spin and tell us what's really happening.


Filed under:
Editorial Intelligence    media relations    spin

3 comments:

Pete Wilby said...

Note for students - check out the 'work for e.i.' link on their website as they do offer work placements.

Pete Wilby said...

I've raided the blog site of my colleague Caroline Wilson to present this critique of e.i - well more of a critique of a presentation given by its CEO, Julia Hobsbawm at a recent conference.

BTW - Caroline's PR blogsite is available here. It's a superb resource.

Pete Wilby said...

Just come across this article in the Financial Times which offers some useful (if contentious) views on the relationship between journalists and PR professionals. The author, John Lloyd defends Editorial Intelligence and claims that journalists and PR people do (or) should) inhabit the same world. Whether you agree with him depends on whether you accept his characterisation of modern PR, especially when he argues that PR (and journalism) is about truth.