Beware the Public Relations Industrial Complex

After consistently cheering on theStreet.com's Business Press Maven, Jack Flack has finally found a point of disagreement with Marek Fuchs --the growing power of the "public relations industrial complex."

In writing about his remarks at the SABEW conference in Chapel Hill the other day, Fuchs compared sports news and business news, asserting that both are increasingly controlled by all-powerful flacks.

"The process of collecting news in modern sports and business is very similar. Coverage of both beats is remarkably structured and systematized. Indeed reporting on these two great American pastimes is regimented beyond easy description or reason.

"Everyone in the sportswriter scrum is fed the same quote, just as in business where all the journalists are restricted to the same conference calls, collectively hunching the afternoon away over the same press releases.

"If you want a quote from anyone, be it a backdating CEO or a point guard with a suspect jumper, whatever you get will be vetted and rehearsed seven different ways before it is uttered. And let's be clear, said utterance will come under the tight supervision of a heavily armed public relations staffer."

Usually spanking lazy reporting, Fuchs instead breaks character with a coddling insinuation that journalists are actually pretty helpless after all.

"The process of sports and business news gathering has officially been taken over by the public relations industrial complex. The process of gathering information has become systematized, processed, highly pasteurized, bleached and -- well, you get the point, but you don't get the news."

Public relations industrial complex?

Jack Flack still prefers Randall Rothenberg's "media-spindustrial complex," and, like others, doesn't buy into the supposed omnipotence of spinners. The rise of the web is actually increasing the scrutiny inflicted on any subject in which people have an interest, including sports and business. The concept of internal/external is fraying, and business news is driven by leaks more than ever before.

Think about it. Are athletes or business executives actually getting softer, more protected coverage than they were 10 or 40 years ago? Is A-Rod really getting an easier ride than Mantle or Ruth? And are Mozilo, Prince or Russo really feeling nice and cozy behind their stonewalling flacks?

Doubt it. While many flacks may be keeping a tougher gate than before, the reality is that the walls to which that gate is attached are crumbling fast.

(BTW, one of the big reasons Mozilo isn't feeling cozy is that Fuchs was the first to sound the manhunt siren.)

Meanwhile, Jack Flack is intrigued with the comparison between sports coverage and business coverage. So stay tuned, sports fans.