“Don’t worry, it’s not to change anything.”
How many times have we heard that stock answer to our refusal to let public relations or interviewees see our articles before they’re published?
And to which our response is: “if you’re not going to change anything, what’s the point in seeing it?”, along with, “anyway, sorry, that’s our editorial policy and we’re sticking to it.”
To have sight, or even worse, check or approve a draft copy, is something every editor, at least in the specialist and trade press, has been asked at some point.
It goes against any decent magazine’s editorial code, a matter of principle for which I’d pass up an interview rather than break. Yet it still happens, and now from more worrying quarters.
But my blame is directed closer to home than the public relations profession.
There are various reasons we refuse, from questions of principle to the purely practical. The most obvious is editorial integrity. We’re supposed to be writing the articles from an objective standpoint, not for the benefit of the interviewee or the company. Even if uncontroversial this time, what happens next time when it’s more critical? That can lead to a sort of self-censorship.
Another is style. Once public relations departments get hold of a draft, sometimes they can’t help themselves but rewrite in the corporate style, ranging from inserting corporate bingo words like ‘world class’ or ‘going forward’ to crazy brand police-approved styles for product names or images.
It’s not sponsored copy; this is editorial. If you want complete control, buy an ad.
And another reason, more mundane, is practical. Once an article gets into a corporate approval process, before you know it, it’s going to a committee and a senior manager for ‘sign off’.
This can make production planning impossible and blurs authorship too. We know this from our experience with free contributed articles from companies, where it is their prerogative before submission. With our articles, it isn’t.
Why do they ask?
Looking at it from the other side, why do press offices, sources or interviewees think it’s acceptable?
Again, I suspect a number of reasons. The most innocent is ignorance – for whatever reason, they don’t know that’s it’s not done. Maybe they only have experience of appearing in sponsored articles, or in their own internal communications.
Another is misguided organisational policies which they think they can apply to the media outside their own sphere of corporate influence.
Sometimes they can.
I have been asking around friendly PRs about whether it’s something they ever ask of journalists. Well, no, said one. Why? “Because they’d just tell us to f*** off.”
We in the trade press are a bit more polite than those hard-bitten national news and features desks. But it’s just as much of a no-no. And that’s why it’s also quite insulting. They wouldn’t dare ask the editor of the FT or the Guardian to check their copy before publication. But they ask us, and that’s a little insulting for what it implies about our professional standards.
But let’s face it, they wouldn’t be asking if they’re always, consistently told ‘no’. Sadly, it’s because sometimes it must work. In that sense, I don’t blame them for trying it on. I blame those who agree to it – but first with a few exceptions.
One is national security. I can see why defence journalists sometimes might agree beforehand in order to make a visit and an interview more useful through freer conversation. I did it once many years ago, and I found the MoD reasonable, seen by those whose job was to only look for security implications and nothing else.
One place we all know it happens is in the world of celebrities. They know what they have sells magazines and they can sometimes get pre-agreement to check the copy, or indeed images. It’s regrettable, and I’m sure magazines would rather not, but sometimes it’s the only way of getting the interview and they have to make that decision as whether it’s worth it. However, what celebrities provide is a kind of entertainment and not always due the same kind of scrutiny as companies or government.
I’m used to companies trying this on but now we’re getting it from government departments and their agencies – yes, the elected officials and public servants now expect to approve what is said and written about them.
The media office agreed to our interview and expected, “that we build in time to review the copy before sign off”. Er, no you won’t. It did, I am glad to say, relent in the end, but the department is still pursuing this line with the media.
These organisations wouldn’t be trying it on if it didn’t sometimes get a result. Sadly there must be less rigorous, principled publications out there who are only too happy to hand over their drafts. That may be the editors, or it may be their freelancers doing it on the quiet.
To the editors, I’d say please don’t. Just think about where that’s leading the quality of magazine journalism. To the freelancers, I’d also say, don’t and if you’re found out, we won’t be using you again.
My informal survey of PR people did hear another problem with asking to see copy beforehand: they can’t then blame the journalist for anything the client doesn’t like in the final article. Which is not an argument I’d thought of. But go ahead, tell the client it’s all our fault. Rather that than end up producing boring, self-censored, puff pieces. And the dull publications they fill.
