Arthur Solomon, Public Relations ConsultantThe cable TV beat reporters and the beat sports reporters have many things in common: For years, despite the changes in journalism, they don’t seem to mind being used by the politicians and teams they cover.At the political level, Trump keeps attacking journalists as “enemies of the people” and “fake news” merchants at his rallies, which are largely devoid of news. The result is that the cable shows do story after story of Trump attacking the media. By sending reporters to all his rallies, knowing that they are providing an easy target for the president, the cable producers are knowingly giving him a symbiotic gift. They are providing the president with an irresistible target.Despite the dangers from riled-up Trump supporters, the cable networks place their reporters into Trump’s line of fire. (As my C.O. once told me when I was in the Army, “A good way to get shot is to deliberately put your self in the enemy’s line of fire. Never a good idea, he assured me.”) It’s as if there’s a Trump vs. the Media long-running symbiotic theatrical performance, with Trump as the leading man, and the “failing New York Times,” “Amazon Washington Post,” CNN and Jim Acosta as the principal antagonists.Both Trump and the cable TV producers are winners in their dangerous game, which many believe played a big part in the president’s surprise 2016 election victory: By attacking the media, Trump fires up his supporters. And by attending the no-news rallies, the cable shows are rewarded with talking points and footage for the next 24 hours or until the next rally, when the Groundhog Day scenario is repeated. The formula provides the cable networks to look like they presenting “breaking news” instead of having them act as real news organizations and do original reporting. (What the cable producers need is a script doctor and more performers who act like aggressive truth-seeking journalists digging for stories, instead of using reporting by print pubs as their news sources.)It’s as if the cable networks agree with former CBS C.E.O. Leslie Moonves, when he said of Trump's presidential campaign, “It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." (A statement he later said was a joke, but remains a reality.)Beat sports writers are in a similar position during the pre and post-game press conferences. Regardless of the questions asked, the reporters already know what the replies will be: No hard news; only rehashed generalizations. A savvy sports writer can predict and write several answers to questions prior to the conferences and chances are all that has to be done is to insert the proper names, a take-off of “bunk or B copy” writing, when, as a journalist, I used to file articles on deadline while waiting for actual news to occur during my days covering real breaking news events. (What’s even worse is the pre-seasons coverage, when reporters act like PR people extolling the next Babe Ruth or Jim Brown before the newly-crowned greats have played a game in the big leagues.)At both the Trump rallies and the game day pressers if any real news was disclosed it would be by mistake.Tune in any of the cable political shows coverage of a Trump rally and it’s as if you’re watching a re-run of the 2016 election campaign rallies and every other rally since.Splurge for a few newspapers after a ballgame and look at the notes. They’re all the same. Only the sportswriter’s by-line is different.Another joined-by-the-hip relationship of cable political reporters and sports writers is the use of “inside baseball” terminology, which is understood only by “diehards.” The use of words that confound even some sports enthusiasts are ubiquitous. (Add those words to email language and it’s no wonder that Johnny and Jane don’t know proper English and that many colleges have to offer basic courses in a language we grew up with.).Cable TV reporters and pundits, in an attempt to give the impressions that they really know the situation, use gibberish political jargon: “blue wave,” “yellow dog,” “blue dog,” “RINO,” “bundler,” “Wall-Mart moms,” “soccer moms,” and “soft money,” terms that camouflage their lack of specifics. (To paraphrase Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” because they’re on TV people really think they know.)The same is true with print, TV and radio sports reporters, who use jargon without explaining its meaning that would have editors during my days as a sports reporter spike a story, or say, “rewrite this in English.” A few examples: “Triple A,” “air mailing it in,” “around the horn,” “a knock,” “squaring it up,” “bomb and blitz” and one that I saw on August 8 in The Journal News (Westchester/Rockland, N.Y.) “0.5 WAR.”(Of course, every reader knows that it means wins above replacement. WHIP is another term used without explaining its meaning. Everyone knows that it means walks plus hits per inning pitched. Right?)In the sports world, “kill the umpire” was a good natured catchphrase often used by upset fans. But even truly disturbed managers and players never egged on the spectators.The same is not true at Trump rallies, where the president‘s words about journalists are meant to agitate the crowd to the point of endangering the covering media, some of whom receive death threats.Of course, the Trump rallies and after game sports q and a sessions must be covered in the highly unlikely event that real news will be disclosed.There’s a simple solution:The Trump rallies will be covered by the local press, and probably A.P., so there’s no need for the networks to send a bevy of reporters, when one pool reporter and camera is sufficient. Of course, that would mean that the cable shows wouldn’t have enough of what they deem “hard news” featuring their reporters with which to fill their no new news time slots. (Suggestion: Give more time to your pundits so they can provide more nonsensical and sameness commentary than they currently do and to your Congressional beat reporters so they can run down the hall trying to find any senator willing to speak to them and then breathlessly repeat verbatim what the Senator said, rather than checking out the veracity or providing insight regarding the statement before reporting on it as “breaking news.” Sports reporters have an even easier solution: Since the team PR people are eager to provide notes, (people who follow sports on TV, and too frequently in the print media, must, or should, know that all those meaningless statistics are provided to reporters) one pool reporter covering the pressers is sufficient, even if it is usually one too many.(I have a better chance of becoming younger each day than the probability of a reporter getting a forthright answer to an unwanted question at the political and sports pressers.)Instead of attending these staged White House and sports teams’ pressers, a better news report can be had by having experienced reporters skip them and dig for original news or write features so one reporter’s story doesn’t seem like a mirror’s image of someone else’s.Before jumping the fence to the PR business after New York City papers that I worked for went bust, a “kindly old editor” once told me, “Sonny, there are three things that you should never do in this business if you want to get ahead: Don’t include information in your stories without checking its veracity, don’t be afraid to ask for help from an associate, and don’t end up as a pack reporter.”In the race to be the first to be wrong, today’s reporters too often ignore that advice.Too many stories contain errors because the veracity of the information is not confirmed, especially on cable TV (which unlike print pubs doesn’t know what the word “correction” or phrase “we made a mistake” means.) Also, usually devoid from the reporting is the political background of the person being interviewed, especially on the talk shows that use “think tank” guests, which camouflage obvious propaganda as “breaking news” or expert commentary. Adding to the problem is that because of the reduction of staff on print pubs, (and the number of print pubs in general) there are fewer colleagues to help reporters in the field. So the practice of pack journalism is probably at an all time high.Pack journalism is so prevalent these days that many new PR people and young reporters might not know what it means. It’s defined in Merriam-Webster (that’s a dictionary for those of you who only know spell check and google) as journalism that is practiced by reporters in a group and that is marked by uniformity of news coverage and lack of original thought or initiative. (Like today’s cable TV political reporting.) Some years ago, when I taught public relations at an Army information school, I would advise the soldier-students to tune in to radio and TV news reports and to try and emulate them when writing copy. I also told them to study the writing of news stories in papers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or the Associated Press and use them as examples of good writing. If I was teaching today, I would tell them to watch cable TV news and use it as an example of what not to do. When supervising novice PR people during my agency days (before becoming a free lancer), I would give them the same advice.Unfortunately, too many people in our profession practice pack public relations. (See one PR program and see them all.) Doing so is a good way to keep you a member of the team instead of becoming the leader of the team.
About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in some of the most significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr (at) juno.com and artsolomon4pr(at)optimum.net.
