From Hack to Flack
Kelly Lynch // February 8, 2013
David Rodenhiser is a Senior Communications Advisor at Nova Scotia Power, and was previously a columnist for the Daily News. Students contributed questions to this interview, focused around but not exclusive to media relations. Having moved from journalism to public relations, David has a unique perspective to offer. And, between you and me, he’s a pretty funny guy. Here’s what he had to say.
As a journalist-turned-PR practitioner, can you comment on the relationship between journalism and PR? Is it really as complicated as we’re led to believe?
David: So…how complicated are people ‘led to believe’?
We’re often told or ‘led to believe’ that there’s not a lot of trust in the relationship.
David: It’s just sort of in the nature of the relationship. Journalists write things communications people don’t like. Communications people give, too often, PR bullshitty answers that journalists don’t like. Journalists often see PR people standing in the way of them getting to the person they actually want to talk to, whether that’s a business leader or a political person.
Do you think that’s true? Is that the reality of it?
David: It is from time to time. It works both ways. There are reporters who do bad, slanted jobs and they deserve the animosity that they create amongst PR professionals. But it is a relationship that has an inbuilt tension to it and that’s just how it works.
How do you deal with it?
David: For me, I try to avoid giving the PR bullshitty answers.
What does a PR bullshitty answer look like?
David: It looks like a whole bunch of buzzwords that don’t say anything. If you’re using the word ‘downsizing’ or ‘rightsizing’ instead of layoffs or cuts, those are PR bullshitty words. Instead of you saying something that’s a direct truth, you’re saying an indirect truth or the edges are filed down to try to soften it and make it better, but in fact what it does is make people distrust what you say. I think frankness is important.
What makes a good reporter?
David: Accuracy. Being smart. Asking the right questions. Listening to answers and trying to provide a level of depth to your coverage. There will always be slants to stories, everybody comes in with a personal opinion and as a reporter you’ll get a big bag of quotes and information and you can only fit so much onto your page or into your radio or TV piece. There’s discrimination and judgment that goes into choosing what you want to use. But you have to present it fairly and try to find some level of balance. I think the reporters able to do that, who can deal with the people they report on in an honest and fair way, even if the individuals they report on don’t like what they read or see on TV, they at least respect the journalist for the way they’ve done it. I know during 18 years as a reporter I wrote things that angered judges and lawyers and politicians and PR professionals but they always took my call. And that was because I dealt with them in an honest and non-torqued, non-slanted manner (for the most part – everybody slips up every once in a while).
My idea of a good journalist is someone who, like you said, is honest, but who lends objectivity to a piece. On the other end, as a PR professional, do you feel we have that same goal? To provide objectivity to our audience and the media?
David: I think that’s what good communicators should strive to do. And they should strive to make their corporate bosses or whoever they’re working for, the person they’re communicating on behalf of, to understand the value of that. That in fact speaking to issues honestly and forthrightly produces a better result. Think about the last few years, there were those two cases of illnesses and deaths in the meat processing industry. Michael McCain admitted the errors, he mapped out how they’d resolve the issue, he expressed sympathy and regret. Exactly what he should have done and he did it in an honest and human way, did it, I am certain, against the advice of lawyers. And people respected him for that. People didn’t turn away from Maple Leaf because of it.
How has the relatively volatile nature of NS Power’s media coverage affected your ability to build relationships with media? Does it make working with reporters more difficult, or does the frequency of coverage allow you to work more efficiently with media?
David: That’s a really good question. The reporters I have relationships with from before I started in communications – those relationships are still great.
You have that past to play off of.
David: Yeah, I do. I had a reputation for a certain level of professionalism as a journalist that has carried through with me …
Some street cred?
David: Yeah! For some of the newer reporters who I don’t know, who don’t know anything about who I am or what I used to do, I’m just another guy in a jacket spinning lines for the power company. And reporters are under a lot of deadline pressure now, even more than I was in the business 5 years ago. They’re expected to get stuff up on the website, tweet about it as quick as they can. I’ve talked to young reporters – I had a run-in with a reporter. I was trying to give context to the issue we were talking about and he said to me, “I don’t want context, I just want a quote.” That was all he wanted. He didn’t care to know our actual side of the story, he just wanted a quote to fit into the space where there should be a quote in the story to tick off the box that said he talked to someone at NS Power.
Does that bother you?
David: Yeah, absolutely. And I had conversations with his editor about that because that’s just not how you do your job. I’ve had other conversations with newer reporters who, because I work for the power company, they pretty much immediately don’t trust me, which is interesting because those who take the time to learn more about what we’re doing and to actually have a more in-depth conversation actually start to understand that we’re not as evil as some of our detractors might make us out to be – that there’s a lot of planning and good reason for some of the changes going on in renewable energy and in getting off coal and that’s got an impact on power rates, and we’re working hard to do the best we can. For example, the Port Hawkesbury paper mill has a chance at success going forward and that’s been another project where people didn’t understand why we were involved. We took a lot of criticism around that. But yeah. It’s a little of both.
When you’re dealing with media issues, there can sometimes be areas of difference with upper management/your executive team. How do you reconcile your expertise as a media relations professional with their authority on decisions? Is it more important to stick to your guns, or understand which hills you’re prepared to die on?
David: Sure you’ve gotta pick your hills. Oftentimes, well it depends on where you’re working, but often you’re preparing the executive to go out and be the spokesperson on behalf of the company. And you’re not going to agree on everything. In the end the exec’s position will win. You’d be surprised how often, if your advice is good and your reasoning is sound, and if you’ve built up a track record of giving decent advice – you can shape what they say and how they’ll say it. Media relations is the part of the job that often feels like alchemy to business people, especially accountants and engineers. It’s just not something they feel they have a great background in. So, yeah, you can help out.
We’ve all heard that there’s no such thing as “off the record” and that we should never say, “No comment.” But what would you tell a young media relations professionals that no one else seems to be saying, but that everyone should hear?
What is the other great secret? Hm. The other great secret is, I think, to at times play the contrarian within your own organization. To push back and make sure that the decisions and messages that you are about to take out into the world are the right ones. So, to be skeptical. Not cynical, but skeptical. And make sure it passes the test. The best thing you can do as a communications professional is prevent the public relations media disaster. You don’t want to be the person who’s out there representing a company during the public relations media disaster. You want to be the person to stop that from happening. And so I think it’s too often we relegate ourselves to that position of “we’re just the spokespeople” – we should also be the strategic advisor.
I think someone who’s new to the game would be less likely to feel comfortable doing something like that. I’d identify what you just said as something close to internal activism in some way. If you feel like you don’t have the power to push for change, how do you get past that? Is that just courage?
David: Do you actually not have the power or have you not pushed the limit to see if you’ve got it?
Would you recommend doing that?
David: You have to make the assessment for yourself. But the flipside is, do you want to work for a place where you’re representing them and speaking for them on policies and directions that you don’t believe in? If you think the company’s going the wrong way and haven’t been able to have the conversation to say, look, I’m not sure if this is the right thing, can we think through if there’s a better way for us to talk through this, is this something we can reshape or rethink in some way? And if you don’t have the opportunity to present that to whoever your superior is, is that where you want to work? It’s a decision each person has to make.
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David Rodenhiser is a Senior Communications Advisor at Nova Scotia Power Inc., and President of IABC Maritime Canada. You can follow David on Twitter @drodenhiser
