Beyond the Public Relations Spin: How We Can Help Build Trust in the Media

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times– our work as communications and public relations professionals is about trust, not spin. As PR professionals, through our work, one of the roles we can play is improving trust in the media.

When people think about public relations, they usually think about a dramatization of the work we do. It’s all very “Scandal” in the imagination of so many– as if we spend all day trying to figure out ways to "spin" the truth. This is false.

The Role of Public Relations

Public relations is about managing perceptions. It’s the job of publicists to increase awareness, improve business reputation, attract customers (if relevant), and strengthen relationships.

PR is a valuable promotional tool to have in your arsenal. Unlike paid advertising efforts, PR is focused on earned media and amplifying the credibility of its clients.

Also, unlike paid efforts, the work publicists do for their brands can’t be replicated. This is why it’s especially important that when we pitch to journalists that we’re pitching verified truths.

Fixing the Spin in Public Relations

According to a new survey from Gallup and the Knight, 50% of respondents in the United States do not trust the media. They believe the media intentionally misleads them. This figure isn’t a new one, as in 2020, 52% of Americans believed that reporters were intentionally misrepresenting the facts.

And it’s not just in America. Another poll that surveyed 40 countries found that there was a severe lack of trust in the media. Unfortunately, there’s a lack of data in the Caribbean available to add to this post.

What these numbers show us as PR professionals is there is work to be done.

Fixing the Trust in the Media

The public’s distrust of the media affects the work we do in helping our clients build reputable brands and boost their credibility.

If media relations is the one thing the public associates PR with, but there’s a significant level of distrust for the news media, then our clients and our industry are in trouble. We are in this together.

How do we fix it?

The answer is simple. Fix the spin in public relations.

This shouldn’t scare anyone. Because, as PR professionals, we should be led by the highest integrity. If our clients cannot prove something about a product or service they would like us to promote, instead of using spin, which can sometimes be clutch, we can address it directly. We can work with our clients to help them align their actions with their brand.

If we as professionals are misleading the press in our pitches, whether intentionally or unintentionally, then we are also to blame for the public’s distrust of the media. And it’s time to pay more attention to our role in this.

When we do this, we are putting journalists at risk of inadvertently misleading the public through our misrepresentations.

Our Role in Eliminating the Spin in Public Relations.

As PR and communications professionals, it is our job to be the first critical eye.

This means that we should be the first person to see the holes in our client’s narrative. And, instead of rushing to plug the holes with spin, we need to push our clients to make substantive changes that can support their claims– real-world ways to address what they’re lacking.

Depending on the problem, it may be as simple as asking for white papers or case studies. Other solutions may be more difficult, like rethinking the values of the organization and aligning internal culture with those values.

It simply requires us to do a little more work to ensure the brands we represent can withstand public scrutiny.

Personally, I am one of those people who believe that our role as professionals is not just to tell the story but to help create it. This can be one of the most exciting parts of the job in both the public and private sectors. This is also why I always maintain that PR and Comms professionals should be included from the beginning of the story– when its first pages are proverbially written.

If you’re interested in booking a call with me about building your organization's strategic communications and public relations capacity, click here.

Joey Gaskins is a public affairs professional with a formidable record of designing and executing innovative strategies, campaigns, and tactics—turning around negative perceptions, reaffirming trust, amplifying and influencing policies, and achieving unprecedented results.

Connect with him on LinkedIn.