Modern public relations has, in its own parlance, an image problem. As an investigation copublished by the Columbia Journalism Review and ProPublica put it, the industry was literally birthed from a train wreck. In 1906, ex-reporter Ivy Lee preempted media investigations into an Atlantic City train accident by issuing a statement about the accident to reporters on behalf of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The New York Times printed verbatim what would later be regarded as the first press release. Since then, public relations (often broadly referred to as “communications”) as a practice has expanded to comprise almost sixty thousand workers, and intersects nearly every other industry. Though the addition of technologies such as social media and mass email distribution have added new layers of specialized labor to the sector, the fundamental premise of PR has remained relatively unaltered since its conception: Hired to promote products and people, publicists exist to solicit positive media coverage for their clients.
Now outnumbering journalists four to one, publicists are an omnipresent component of the machinery that powers creative industries like fashion, arts, and publishing, and increasingly also play central roles in social-justice movements. Though organizations such as Free Press and writers like Robert McChesney have led the charge in asserting that the proliferation of these spin doctors constitutes an insidious and growing threat to journalism and democracy, few have bothered to analyze the gendered split between journalists and publicists. In stark contrast to newsrooms, in which women have never exceeded 38 percent, public relations operates as a solidly pink-collar sector of the creative industries and comprises a labor force that is currently over 85 percent female.
The palpable distaste for PR practitioners that continues to swell — spearheaded by the very same members of the media with whom publicists theoretically enjoy a symbiotic relationship — requires, then, a deeper look at how gendered assumptions about work continue to shape our contemporary notions of creative labor under capitalism.
The day-to-day of PR work ranges from producing press releases to manning social media accounts to planning events, but the crux of publicity is the establishment of relationships with the press. Networking with relevant editors and journalists is an essential component of PR, and includes attending industry parties, arranging pitch meetings or getting drinks with influential members of the press, and, in the case of the bigger-budgeted, company-sponsored lunches and dinners, to woo the aforementioned influencers.
In PR, a certain overlap of professional and personal relationships is not only likely, but ideal. As former beauty PR manager Mackenzie Lewis noted in an interview on The Hairpin,
The notion of PR as an insidious corporate apparatus designed to pull wool over consumers’ eyes is so widespread that “flack,” once a term that merely denoted a public relations professional, has transformed into an overwhelmingly disparaging synonym for any huckster. Given that the end goal of PR is company or client gain, a healthy suspicion of publicity materials is only reasonable. But so often these misgivings manifest as indictments of the publicist and her work, rather than of the neoliberal economy that enables and necessitates this form of labor. And this is especially troubling given the disproportionate presence of women in PR. With the already high numbers of women in PR continuing to climb, Ragan Communications, a news resource for PR professionals, conducted a video interview with several senior-level publicists to discuss the source of this burgeoning “pink ghetto.” As is the case with most other forms of gendered work, assumptions about women’s “natural” traits guided the discussion.
The New York Times printed verbatim what would later be regarded as the first press release. Since then, public relations (often broadly referred to as “communications”) as a practice has expanded to comprise almost sixty thousand workers, and intersects nearly every other industry. Though the addition of technologies such as social media and mass email distribution have added new layers of specialized labor to the sector, the fundamental premise of PR has remained relatively unaltered since its conception: Hired to promote products and people, publicists exist to solicit positive media coverage for their clients.
Now outnumbering journalists four to one, publicists are an omnipresent component of the machinery that powers creative industries like fashion, arts, and publishing, and increasingly also play central roles in social-justice movements. Though organizations such as Free Press and writers like Robert McChesney have led the charge in asserting that the proliferation of these spin doctors constitutes an insidious and growing threat to journalism and democracy, few have bothered to analyze the gendered split between journalists and publicists. In stark contrast to newsrooms, in which women have never exceeded 38 percent, public relations operates as a solidly pink-collar sector of the creative industries and comprises a labor force that is currently over 85 percent female.The palpable distaste for PR practitioners that continues to swell — spearheaded by the very same members of the media with whom publicists theoretically enjoy a symbiotic relationship — requires, then, a deeper look at how gendered assumptions about work continue to shape our contemporary notions of creative labor under capitalism.
The day-to-day of PR work ranges from producing press releases to manning social media accounts to planning events, but the crux of publicity is the establishment of relationships with the press. Networking with relevant editors and journalists is an essential component of PR, and includes attending industry parties, arranging pitch meetings or getting drinks with influential members of the press, and, in the case of the bigger-budgeted, company-sponsored lunches and dinners, to woo the aforementioned influencers.
In PR, a certain overlap of professional and personal relationships is not only likely, but ideal. As former beauty PR manager Mackenzie Lewis noted in an interview on The Hairpin,
A big part of public relations is building relationships between your brand and the media. Because brands are built by humans and humans run the media, this relationship … often boils down to your run-of-the-mill work friendship. When I was in PR, I had an expense account and a quota of breakfast/lunch/dinner or drink “meetings” I had to go out on each week (seriously). We didn’t have new products launching that often, so I wasn’t always there to pitch a specific story. A lot of times I was there to get to know the editor better so that pitching her in the future would be easier for both of us: I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable calling her and I’d already know how and what she likes being pitched. But, like with other work acquaintances, if you go out for company-sponsored cocktails enough it’s easy to become fast friends. When you inevitably get to the stage where you’re sharing boyfriend drama, it’s not awkward to start a phone call with “I need a favor …”Though this elision of work and friendship is necessary for effective PR, it also forms the basis of what people find questionable about the profession. In response to Lewis’s description, her interviewer stated, “It’s unfair to the readers not to disclose which products are great and which are there as the result of a friendship. Which is the thing that gets to me, it all seems so phony.” Phoniness is a criticism leveled again and again at PR as a practice that, after all, necessitates an expression of enthusiasm for a product because of pay rather than passion.
The notion of PR as an insidious corporate apparatus designed to pull wool over consumers’ eyes is so widespread that “flack,” once a term that merely denoted a public relations professional, has transformed into an overwhelmingly disparaging synonym for any huckster. Given that the end goal of PR is company or client gain, a healthy suspicion of publicity materials is only reasonable. But so often these misgivings manifest as indictments of the publicist and her work, rather than of the neoliberal economy that enables and necessitates this form of labor. And this is especially troubling given the disproportionate presence of women in PR. With the already high numbers of women in PR continuing to climb, Ragan Communications, a news resource for PR professionals, conducted a video interview with several senior-level publicists to discuss the source of this burgeoning “pink ghetto.” As is the case with most other forms of gendered work, assumptions about women’s “natural” traits guided the discussion.
by Jennifer Pan, Jacobin | Read more:
Image: Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch
