Journalism on supplements ... how healthy is it?

Because those suddenly beefy publications are often living on a diet of supplements - those 'special surveys' that purportedly take an in-depth look at an industry, professional association or corporate group.

To delve into those pages is to vanish beneath a weight of adjectival goo. You rarely encounter an objective assessment of a company or sector. This is fact-free journalism for hire.

It would be surprising if a business sponsoring self-adulation were prepared to pay for incisive reportage. But it's not only objectivity that gets lost. You look in vain for a single new statistic. You scan the contents for hard data on production, profits, productivity, staffing trends, strikes, exports or comparisons against world norms - something that might induce you to save and hold this "overview". Unfortunately, this is not the fact-filled last word on an industry. It's pap-packed puffery.

Supplements like these eradicate the distinction between advertising and journalism. Press space is hijacked by an advertiser who is wooed and cosseted by the publication concerned.

You start by kissing the hand. The fear is you will end up kissing the whip (the lash you will feel if ever your sponsor withdraws his support, not just for the present supplement but for future advertising).

Journalistic blushes are supposedly spared by the 'fig leaf' at the top of each page; those little words saying 'Advertising Survey' or whatever.

None of this is new, of course. So what's different?

Three issues stand out:

1. 1. This has been going on so long, these things are now regarded as normal. They are 'legitimate'.

2. 2. There seem to be more of them around than before. Is reliance setting in?
   
3. 3. We're now a democracy and need journalists with the skill to dig for facts and the guts to print them. In a democracy, journalists are supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. One suspects that if 'the comfortable' are big advertisers and supplement sponsors they won't be afflicted any time soon. (Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so.)
   

Cynical, hard-bitten journalists (should there be any left) will want to know: Why should a PR firm worry?

The reason is simple: PR needs credible media. A key PR skill is the development of press release and media liaison programmes that result in credible exposure in trusted publications. Credibility is the basic currency in all interactions between PR and journalism. We dare not risk a devaluation.

If meaningful exposure ever becomes a cheque-book transaction, clients will stop calling in PR professionals. Reputation management could be left to the finance department.

This explains my jaundiced view of supplements. I admit, however, that many clients love them. A chance for 'positive' press and a smiling photo of the CEO can be irresistible.

This creates interesting ironies. A PR firm then finds itself educating a client to news values and the special significance of factual reportage of new developments that warrants publication on its own merits.

Earning space rather than paying for it takes skill and requires mutual respect. A client has to establish a name as a trustworthy source who can be relied on for good copy that's relevant and reliable.

If journalists become purveyors of puffery rather than fact-finders we're all in trouble - journalism, PR and South Africa.

Thankfully, we're still a long way from this dire scenario. But every time I see another 'special survey' I can't suppress a shudder. Surely living on supplements can't be healthy...