My Nightmare PR Dream

Readers of some of my columns might remember that I entered the PR business only after reporting, mostly on sports, for a few New York City dailies and wires services, most of which went bust. And that after finishing my military service I was to be posted by one wire service to Washington, D.C. to cover politics, which I requested. However, by the time I completed my obligation to defend our country that wire service also was history. Thus, my entry into the PR business.

Throughout my PR career I have been criticized for frequently telling clients and account groups the truth: What they want in a program will not work with the media because it is too self-serving and lacks originality, news or feature use possibilities. These opinions were based on my days as a reporter and editor.  Doing so never soured me with clients because I always coupled my criticism with suggestions on how to improve the programs. In fact, many clients have praised me for bringing a news person's thinking to accounts I managed or played key roles on.

(Acceptance of my criticism and suggestions varied among account supervisors. The great majority of supervisors, who had been in the PR circus for a number of years, were happy when I offered suggestions that would improve their programs. Conversely, newbies, who were quickly promoted because of office politics or loyalty to their supervisors, often resented my “butting in” and finding fault with programs they crafted, even though that was a major part of my job.  One disgruntled “wet behind the ears” supervisor exploded shouting, “The only reason you don’t think this program will work is because we didn’t include you when crafting the program and decided on the spokesperson without consulting you.” And then he stormed out of my office (after I told him to “get out of my office and don’t come back until you grow up.”) The core of the program was a national print, TV and radio media tour.  The spokesperson they wanted to use was the great soccer player Pelé. “The problem with the concept,” I told the young supervisor’s supervisor, “is that Pelé can’t speak English.” End of program before it started.)

To me, one of the highest praise I received from a client was when John Folan of the Gillette Company once told me, "Whenever I speak to you I feel like I'm talking to a reporter. You always question everything." And I kept questioning everything for eight years on sports (and nonsports aspects) of the account  until Gillette decided to drop the national promotion I was honchoing because of the increase in rights fees demanded by Major League Baseball.

Much to my amazement, last June I received a call from a fairly large daily asking me if I would contribute a twice weekly column on a subject of my choice. But it had to be a humorous column about a topical subject. My contract will end on July 4, Independence Day for both me and the newspaper. Whether it will be renewed only the pundits on cable political TV shows might know, since they claim to know everything.

Last week, I had a disturbing dream about my experience writing the column.  When I wanted to tell my wife about it she said, "Don't talk to me while I'm watching "The View." Later on when I wanted to tell her about my dream she said, "I think you should tell it to "Dr. Phil."

To this day she hasn't found the time to listen to my dream. So I'm writing about it in this column, because I know she reads them in order to criticize them. Unlike long theatrical and book review criticisms, my wife's reproof is succinct and is usually limited to one of the following words – “stupid” or “idiotic.” That’s when she’s in a good mood. When she has a tough time playing Wordle or Spelling Bee she’ll use both words in her critique. A lengthy criticism of my columns from her is “Gimme a break. This column is not worthy of discussion.”

Here's what I dreamed or, if you prefer, dreamt:

I powered on my computer one day and there were 2,603 emails in my in box. Because most of my career has been in public relations I have much sympathy for the practitioners and I spent the better part of 151 hours opening, reading and answering everyone who tried to have me include a

client plug in my columns. Unlike most journalists who ignore emails from PR people, I answered more than 2000 of them by replying, "It's not for me,” or “I don’t write on that subject,” and unlike many journalists who will immediately trash snail or emails that have misspelled their names or contain other typos, I often replied, "Suggest you proof read your missive from now on and check the byline on my columns:  My name is Arthur, not Author.” 

That accounted for 2,403 of the emails.  Of the remaining 200, 176 were from people who hated my columns. The remaining ones were from marketers trying to sell me products to keep my lawn free of crab grass (I live in an apartment house), giving me one last opportunity to become a multi-millionaire by investing in a new start up in the Shetland Islands, from a Prince of Nigeria who likes my columns so much that he's willing to gift me $9-million dollars if I would just provide my banking information, and from a vitamin company telling me if I just  take one of their magic pills a day it would prevent me from getting the flu, coronavirus or any other disease that is currently known, with a disclaimer saying, "we do not guarantee that this pill will prevent diseases not yet known."  Honesty in marketing, at last.

Many years ago, when I landed my first job as a reporter New York City had 11 or so dailies. Even then a kindly old editor, Jim Murphy, who was in the business when New York had even more dailies, told me, “Son, learn how to drive a truck. The ways papers are going out of business you might have to do that to make a living."

Murphy was prescient. Today, more than ever newspapers are looking for ways to reduce their staffs, some by layoffs, and others by not filling the slots of retirees. And some by going out of business.

At the same time, if the PR business as one entity was on the New York Stock Exchange it would be promoted as a growth industry, when honest advice would be to "sell the stock" before it goes lower, because media outlets are doing  without earned PR content. That's because a 2019 study found that there were about six PR pros for every one journalist and to prevent reporters, editors and producers from spending their entire day replying to PR people they just ignore the calls and pitches.  At one time, PR people would complain that "the reporters won't answer my calls or reply to my email pitches." That's truer today than ever as reporters are always on deadline because of the malevolent 24/7 coverage demands.

My dream ended with there being only one newspaper left in New York City. Instead of human beings the reporting and editing was done by robots, who would reply to a PR person, "Sorry, we only communicate through artificial intelligence,” with my wife adding, “than you should do very well, because if there’s one thing you have it’s artificial intelligence.”

And while April 1 has passed, and my wife is still certain to say that this column is a joke, the advice that Jim Murphy gave me so many years ago is now more relevant than ever.