Don't give in to fishing expeditions, says Helen Dunne
As a former financial journalist on a national newspaper, my advice is often sought by PR advisers on how to cope with 'fishing expeditions'.
You know the type of thing: a journalist thinks he or she has a great story and rings the relevant press office for comment. The trouble is that the story is not quite there: it is neither right enough to confirm, nor wrong enough to deny.
But journalists are persistent. They fish around, playing with the facts that only minutes ago they stated as Gospel, in the hope of landing a muttered ‘yes’ from the harassed PR person.
My advice to PR people is to say nothing. I spent years dealing with press offices that responded ‘no comment’ to every story I proffered. It was often irritating, frequently frustrating – and occasionally amusing – but I was comforted by the knowledge that every other journalist received the same response.
Veering from such a PR strategy is rife with problems, and therefore very risky. The occasion when a PR person denies a rumor changes the rules; from then on every ‘no comment' is interpreted by journalists as meaning 'there may be something in that' so, from their point of view, it is worth taking a punt on the story.
As relationships develop between journalists and PR people, trust is established. Some details may be confirmed, while others are disputed. I’ve played ‘cough when I get it right’ games with PR officers often enough, which inevitably led to confusion as I tried to decipher the true meaning of an inadvertent splutter or sneeze.
So I was really surprised when Marks & Spencer (M&S), a doyen of Britain’s high streets, brought forward the release of a trading update after a Sky News reporter appeared to have seen the figures. The retailer hastily convened a conference call at 8.30 pm GMT to clarify its figures, citing the rules of the Financial Services Act.
Now, there are two things terribly wrong here. Firstly, if I was the journalist who had landed the scoop, I would be mightily upset by a move I would view as, in effect, ruining my moment of glory. As a print journalist, there is no better feeling than heading off to bed knowing that your front page scoop will set the following day's news agenda.
But the second issue relates to timing. The journalist had most of the figures (I imagine he’d seen an early draft), and released the story after the London Stock Exchange had closed.
Admittedly, M&S does have an ADR program that trades over the counter in the US, but to seriously suggest that a story featured on Sky News – we’re talking not many viewers here, people – could create some kind of false market is absurd. Analysts fully expected that the retailer had ‘enjoyed’ a dreadful Christmas season, and the market was braced for such news.
Some argue that the retailer didn’t want staff to read about its unconfirmed woes on their way to work, but seeing as the results were scheduled for release at 7.30 am, I don’t buy that one. Similarly, the UK’s financial authorities have not indicated since the incident that they would have forced a response to the report.
M&S panicked and allowed lawyers to take control; it’s as simple as that. But lawyers have a different outlook. They are not looking at the situation from a communicator’s (or even a journalist’s) point of view – they are looking to mitigate potential problems. One PR person once told me that, had she her time again, she would have taken a law degree in order to know when to push back against legal advice.
And it is only advice. Every journalist will now take a punt on M&S stories in the hope that one may be near the truth, and confirmation will be forthcoming. And that way madness lies.
