Friday, July 21, 2006
A Too Typical Story
Here is a tale of a reporter who has gone into PR -- unwillingly --, but he has to pay the bills. It is too typical of mainstream media. Long ago, in my brief venture in television reporting, I learned one can have fun, as long as one didn't care about living. Pay was wretched. Pay continues to be poor in many markets.
The mainstream media have been hypocritical in this regard since the beginning. They call for fair wages for others, but they rarely look at what they pay their own workers -- unless their workers rebel. They espouse Free Speech but not when it comes to discussions about compensation. They believe themselves on the side of the angels and forget they are businesses like any other. Sorry. I'll stop now. It's a topic that sets me off.
On the other hand, as PR practitioners, we should be happy the conditions are so poor. That means we get experienced hands into the PR business who remind us of how mainstream media work. In the old days, most PR practitioners were ex-journalists. There was a benefit to that, which is mostly lost to the business.
The mainstream media have been hypocritical in this regard since the beginning. They call for fair wages for others, but they rarely look at what they pay their own workers -- unless their workers rebel. They espouse Free Speech but not when it comes to discussions about compensation. They believe themselves on the side of the angels and forget they are businesses like any other. Sorry. I'll stop now. It's a topic that sets me off.
On the other hand, as PR practitioners, we should be happy the conditions are so poor. That means we get experienced hands into the PR business who remind us of how mainstream media work. In the old days, most PR practitioners were ex-journalists. There was a benefit to that, which is mostly lost to the business.
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