Nick Davies is leading off in what promises to be a lively, and possibly heated, debate this evening. He is proposing the motion, "The growth of PR is threatening the integrity of the press." I'm seconding. It is opposed by Tim (aka Lord) Bell (who has just taken on the president of Belarus as a client) and Phil Hall (who is acting for Max Mosley, having previously acted for Heather Mills).
You can get some idea of Davies's arguments from his book, Flat Earth News.
Helpfully, Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust has listed some of Davies's likely points on his blog.
1. Interviews: "[A]lmost all interviews are generated not by the reporter actively uncovering the truth, but by the interviewee's PR adviser actively making news to sell a policy or product".
2. The [Non] Event: "PR fabricates pseudo incidents". (Olympic torch?)
3. 'Astroturf' campaigns, or supposedly grass roots campaigns whose roots have actually been fabricated. Davies fingers Weber Shandwick (for Roche), Gray & Co (for porn industry), Beckel Cowan for American Petroleum Institute), Shandwick (for the food industry) and Lexington (for GM food companies)
4. Pseudo experts who have impressive sounding titles and work for grand sounding think tanks but actually represent only one specific organisational or individual interest (think Norman Brennan and the Victims of Crime Trust).
5. Polls that aren't really polls, such as the UK's favourite films, women's favourite holidays... that sort of thing.
Davies writes: "Journalists are fundamentally vulnerable to this kind of pseudo-news" which flows like a torrent into our now "unprotected media". It all adds up, he claims, to a "pseudo world".
The debate, organised by the Media Standards Trust in association with Westminster University, kicks off tonight at 6.30. But I understand all 350 seats at the university's Regent Street building are taken.
Now how about that for a good bit of PR?
