Press Embargoes Are So 2003

What seems to be a never-ending series of highly-publicized media scandals — from Jayson Blair last year through CBS News last month — has got the public thinking in new ways about the work of the media. A positive by-product of all this may be a renewed belief in the public's right to know the truth.

But here's something you might not have thought about: your part in that job of reporting the truth.

One aspect common to all the media-related stories that have unfolded lately is the role of sources. With terms like "media bias" and "background information" becoming household words, most people can see how much a reporter's job depends on getting reliable, accurate information.

By now, everyone should also be aware of a news organization's responsibility to verify the information its sources provide — and some recent failures in that department. The less discussed side of that coin is what happens when sources distort or withhold the real story.

As readers of a trade newsmagazine like Tradeshow Week, all of you are potential sources. Although this is true in a broader sense for readers of any publication (everyone is a potential newsmaker), it's even truer in the world of business-to-business publishing, where the news consumer is also part of the defined community being covered.

But not everyone in this community seems to understand his or her responsibility as a potential source.

The recent Teamsters strike in Las Vegas offers one example. Perhaps on the advice of attorneys because a lawsuit had been filed, the general contractors who were negotiating with the union hired an outside public relations firm to field press inquiries. The firm issued blanket statements of fact and refused all requests for one-on-one interviews, in which questions specific to each publication's audience could have been answered. Tradeshow Week's readers have a very different set of concerns than those of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but everybody got the same information.

The approach might have been understandable under the delicate circumstances surrounding the strike, but situations like this raise some broader questions.

First, who benefits when you clam up? Typically, if a situation merits a news report, it impacts people's lives. If something's going on with your business, don't your associates and clients deserve to know about it? You can't criticize journalists for presenting one-sided views if you insist on only telling your side of the story "off the record."

A positive relationship with the press can only help you. Journalists are more likely to listen to your good news if you're honest with them about the bad news too.

Besides, don't you want people to hear your news from you? It's the job of reporters to ferret out a story. If you don't tell them what's going on, they'll look for someone else who will. And, if you don't tell them the truth, their suspicions will be aroused — and they'll keep digging.

Shutting out the press as a crisis management technique is both ineffective and passé. Many organizations have come to understand that effective public relations means honest, down-to-earth disclosure in even the toughest times.

Consider the repercussions of President Clinton's infamous statement that he "did not have sex with that woman." Now, consider Gap's recent response to charges that it employs offshore sweatshops that use child labor. The company released a 40-page report that divulged a variety of labor infractions and outlined plans to fix the problem. Which strategy makes more sense to you? And who came off looking better?

There are models to follow in the exhibition industry. Mired in bankruptcy, in the midst of a management shakeup and watching some of its biggest shows take a nosedive, the former Key3Media took a different approach. It hired an independent auditor to get out the truth about its numbers, and began scheduling press conferences and interviews to keep interested parties informed of what was happening at the company.

And that's really all people want: to know what's going on. Reporters may sometimes struggle to not get carried away by a juicy story, but good business journalists understand that what their audience really needs is a balanced view of the facts. Facts that, sometimes, only you can provide.

Nobody's asking you to make a reporter's life easy; we expect to work hard for a story — in fact, we enjoy it. But we also want you to do your part.