Col. Nathan R. Jessup
Member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2020
- Messages
- 94
Opinion: There's no such thing as a former journalist
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "flack" as "a press agent, a publicist," someone who back in the day might promote a Hollywood movie. Sometimes flacks created "publicity stunts" to shine a light on a project or celebrity. (I've learned this from watching countless episodes of "I Love Lucy.")
But "flack" is also a variant spelling of "flak," defined as "the bursting shells fired from anti-aircraft artillery." The word developed a secondary, informal meaning: "excessive or abusive criticism." Even today we might say, "I am catching so much flak from that email I sent."
The connection seems logical and lexical: It is the job of the public relations officer to catch the flak, that is, to protect the interests of the company and its executives from criticism, and to mitigate the effects of bad news, where a so-called hatchet job gets rebuffed by a PR job.
If that is your vision of public relations, no wonder Jedi journalists might wonder if they have crossed over to the Dark Side.
How sad, how narrow, how counterproductive. It's the story that we continue to tell ourselves, and if we told it to a shrink, the good doctor would help us understand that it is a narrative that is keeping us sick and hurting the public good.
What if we changed the story? What if we imagined that the journalist, the mayor's speechwriter, the grant writer for the public schools, the public information officer for the hospital, were actually members of the same tribe?
Let me give that tribe a name: Public Writers.
What do all public writers do? They gather important information. They check it out. They decide what is most important or interesting. They report it out. Along the way they tell compelling stories. They write purposefully for particular audiences.
But "flack" is also a variant spelling of "flak," defined as "the bursting shells fired from anti-aircraft artillery." The word developed a secondary, informal meaning: "excessive or abusive criticism." Even today we might say, "I am catching so much flak from that email I sent."
The connection seems logical and lexical: It is the job of the public relations officer to catch the flak, that is, to protect the interests of the company and its executives from criticism, and to mitigate the effects of bad news, where a so-called hatchet job gets rebuffed by a PR job.
If that is your vision of public relations, no wonder Jedi journalists might wonder if they have crossed over to the Dark Side.
How sad, how narrow, how counterproductive. It's the story that we continue to tell ourselves, and if we told it to a shrink, the good doctor would help us understand that it is a narrative that is keeping us sick and hurting the public good.
What if we changed the story? What if we imagined that the journalist, the mayor's speechwriter, the grant writer for the public schools, the public information officer for the hospital, were actually members of the same tribe?
Let me give that tribe a name: Public Writers.
What do all public writers do? They gather important information. They check it out. They decide what is most important or interesting. They report it out. Along the way they tell compelling stories. They write purposefully for particular audiences.
