
Pulitzer Prize Winners Moving to PR: What Does That Say About Future Journalism? - mudil
http://www.insidesources.com/two-of-this-years-pulitzer-prize-winners-now-work-in-pr-what-does-that-say-about-the-future-of-journalism/
======
jknz
Work in politics for a better world during a few years and then use your
network relations to sell contracts to governments and make money

Work as a security researcher for a few years and then sell your skills to bad
governments for money

Work in journalism a few years and then use your network for PR and make money

[https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/](https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-
surveillance/)

Edit: some professional bodies have conversations about unethical uses of
their skills and networks (security researchers). Some others are already lost
(incestuous relationship between politicians and the companies that sell
government contracts). Journalists? We will see but it may be the right time
to pay for subscriptions and get journalists pay raises.

~~~
briandear
> but it may be the right time to pay for subscriptions and get journalists
> pay raises.

Lol. And you post this on Hacker News where every paywall article has some
variation of “how can I get around the paywall?”

We have a significant number of people on here that think it’s perfectly ok to
steal movies, music, books, bypass paywalls yet, somehow lament the loss of
“good journalism” while complaining about being tracked, i.e. “being the
product,” all while devising ways to steal content, use stuff for “free” or
otherwise do everything possible to avoid giving a single cent to a content
creator.

The HN community is just a tiny slice of humanity, but damnit, you/we are
supposed to be the vanguard, yet we actually allow “how do I bypass the
paywall” to be allowed. Now imagine the rest of the world bypassing the
paywalls. And here we are.

If we had comments asking people “how can I more easily shoplift video game
consoles?” — would we allow that?

/rant

~~~
tjoff
Well, paywalls are just an insanely bad concept when coupled with a site such
as HN.

I will not start a subscription on a random site because it was linked on HN.
I'm most certainly not even part of their target group. And even if I was,
reading 1 article a month on 100 different sites is equally insane. (that
said, I don't bypass the paywall, I just don't read it)

Personally I'm also not fond of the idea to pay money so that they can track
me better, but I know I'm in minority there.

We need better ways to pay for content. Preferably one which rewards good
content. Today everything is clickbait and the idea to pay for clickbait is
extremely off putting to me.

~~~
kristianc
> We need better ways to pay for content. Preferably one which rewards good
> content. Today everything is clickbait and the idea to pay for clickbait is
> extremely off putting to me.

That's garbage. The NYT isn't clickbait. Neither is WaPo, BBC, NPR, Reuters,
AFP and many others. If you want more tech focused content there is The
Information, Stratechery, Pando Daily.

For nearly all of those there is an easy way to pay, or someone else is paying
on your behalf.

~~~
dang
> That's garbage.

This breaks the HN guideline against name-calling in arguments. Could you
please (re-)read and follow them?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Your comment would be fine without that bit.

------
vonnik
Pulitzer Prize winners are rare. The fact that two recent winners had left
their jobs in journalism between the date they did their prize-winning work,
and the date the prize was awarded, is telling. This flight of reporters from
journalism to PR is widespread. It is caused by the decline of the print
business, as well as the decline in ad revenues. Those two problems are linked
but not synonymous. (Print circulation is declining as print subscribers age
and younger readers stay online. Ad revenues are declining because platforms
like Google and Facebook now consume the bulk of the money that once went to
the media that held local monopolies or oligopolies on the distribution of
information.) Most of the HN community is part of system of free content
distributed by online ad platforms that is slowly killing local, regional and
many national publications. Not responsible for it, but part of it. And the
death of those publications harms the communities that once learned about
themselves through those media. It also harms the health of the political
system governing those communities, since leaders are held less accountable
wherever information fails to circulate. Even more pernicious than reporters
leaving journalism for PR, though, is the slow corruption of journalistic
organizations into instruments of propaganda. This isn't necessarily linked to
the move online, since good examples of it include Sinclair Broadcast Networks
and Fox News.

~~~
arkades
Perhaps I missed something, but this article didn’t say two Pulitzer winners
went into PR. It spoke of a photographer who got a non-journalism job, a
journalist who found “greener pastures,” and a third journalist who got a job
for the Shoah Foundation. That last one comes closest, I guess, though doing
PR for a non-profit holocaust education organization isn’t the propaganda bs I
think the title meant to suggest.

Again, I’m open to being corrected if I misread, but I don’t see anything in
this article supporting a flight from journalism to PR except for the
comparison of the median salaries.

~~~
vonnik
You are missing something, but it's not your fault. I'm referring to
information outside the article.

Natalie Caula Hauff, one of the journalists cited, says on her LI page that
she works in PR. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-caula-
hauff-243b3a10/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-caula-hauff-243b3a10/)

I would qualify any job that "raises awareness" about something as a PR job,
as in the case of the reporter who now raises awareness about the Shoah.
Reasonable people can disagree about how to define PR. If you're dealing with
external communications, how to raise awareness with the public, that is often
PR, even if you work in-house rather than for an agency.

In the case of Ryan Kelly, the photographer, he did not exit to PR. Newsweek
says he got a digital marketing job in a Brewery. Which for a photographer
probably makes more sense.

[http://www.newsweek.com/pulitzer-prize-ryan-kelly-
charlottes...](http://www.newsweek.com/pulitzer-prize-ryan-kelly-
charlottesville-photographer-890034)

------
git_rancher
A lot of journalism is basically PR. I forget who, but someone did a study
showing that a large percentage of journalism source material is basically
press releases.

Edit: typo fix

~~~
carapat_virulat
The Knife Media usually does analysis about how much spin different newspapers
add to current news stories:

[https://www.theknifemedia.com/world-news/pompeo-kim-jong-
un-...](https://www.theknifemedia.com/world-news/pompeo-kim-jong-un-media-
spun-political-spin/)

------
teddyh
The article never explains what “PR” stands for, and only incidentally uses
the phrase “public relations” about halfway into the article. It seems to be
an article written for journalists, not for the general public.

~~~
Caprinicus
I thought they were moving to Puerto Rico, and wondered why they would pick
now to do that

~~~
DoreenMichele
That's actually what I thought as well.

------
asdsa5325
Making a broad claim based off the career actions of 2 individuals...

Terrible Clickbait Articles: What Does That Say About Future Journalism?

~~~
handojin
It says maybe you should pay for your journalism if you give a shit.

~~~
milankovic
To be honest, and this is HN, where everyone values intellectual honesty
(right?), I will only say this:

I would pay for porn on the Internet, definitely, but not for journalism. They
can all go die in a fire already..

~~~
itronitron
I would pay for journalism but not for news

------
motohagiography
In my experience, the only time it is appropriate to refer to a reporter as a
"journalist" is if they are either unemployed, or dead. Reporters report,
writers write, where "journalists" occupy a kind of vague institutional
gatekeeper profession that is (rightly) being usurped by people taking up the
former trades using tech and social media.

I have strong opinions about this.

Writing press releases, ad copy or doing PR work is only offensive to a small
cadre of journalists who try to cleanse themselves of the "taint of trade" as
to somehow differentiate their role from people who are judged by the quality
of their work, and not their approval by an institution, credentials, or
perceived political legitimacy.

A reporter is an artist taking risks in a trade with real public value. The
modern journalist is a kind of official court jester, selectively using the
cover of speech protection to carefully trade favors for "access."

If as a society we want better reporting, reporters need money and autonomy.
Viewed this way, the availability of gigs in PR to support the art, especially
at the expense of the preciousness of journalism, is of net benefit to all.

------
OtterCoder
I really dislike the recent flood of random news on HN. I'm not ready for this
September. Is there a new haven ready yet?

~~~
humanrebar
I also think the content has become haphazard and mostly uninteresting. Is it
because tech culture is stabilizing around a new normal? Smart phones are
stabilized. Several next big things are growing slower than we hoped. Even JS
frameworks are less dynamic than before.

Or is it all just as dynamic and we just became more jaded?

~~~
OtterCoder
I think it's still a dynamic and interesting field, and there are still good
tech articles on HN's front page every day. I firmly believe that we are still
in the wild-west of programming as a profession, and anyone who says they know
what the next twenty years will look like is delusional.

The problem here is simply dilution. Every niche social site that grows large
will eventually face the Eternal September, when the userbase grows too large
for moderation, and the content drifts dramatically. At that point you simply
have to move on and find somewhere that still has a focus on the topic you
originally were looking for.

~~~
humanrebar
I don't think it's accurate to describe HN as too focused. The mods and
algorithms discourage controversial content for example.

------
himom
_Let’s celebrate the corporate manufacturing of consent, in all forms._ is
what it says. )’:

------
mirimir
tl;dr - There's no real money in it, so hey.

------
txsh
Anybody else wonder why writers were moving to Puerto Rico?

~~~
ci5er
No.

EDIT: Sorry - that was brusque of me. Having read the article, which the rules
at this place assume you have done, you might assume that P.R. does not equate
to Puerto Rico. It turns out, that there are other acronyms that apply to this
story.

~~~
txsh
I think it’s reasonable to read the title before the article.

------
jister
Something I found:

"Pulitzer Prize-winning piece peddled fake news"

[http://www.manilatimes.net/pulitzer-prize-winning-piece-
pedd...](http://www.manilatimes.net/pulitzer-prize-winning-piece-peddled-fake-
news/393648/)

~~~
blackbagboys
The Philippine press is not free. Duterte has made his "fake news" nonsense a
key part of his project to crush opposition media. It's no surprise that the
Manila Times has gone out of its way to avoid stepping on his toes, although
the overheated stuff about 'communist propaganda' is maybe a little too
obvious.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/world/asia/philippines-
du...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/world/asia/philippines-duterte-news-
website.html)

~~~
jister
Or maybe you can read these instead?

"Responsible journalism also means complying with the law," said NPC President
Paul Gutierrez in a statement released Tuesday. "To say that the fate of one
media entity found to have run afoul with the law translates to media
repression in the country is stretching the argument a bit too much."

"The SEC finding is quite clear: that Rappler Inc., has indeed violated the
law when it allowed the entry of foreign investors and also allowed,
specifically, Omidyar Network Fund LLC, to have control on 'corporate matters'
of Rappler based on its own submissions to the SEC"

[http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/01/18/NPC-on-SEC-
ruling-...](http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/01/18/NPC-on-SEC-ruling-vs-
Rappler.html)

[http://opinion.inquirer.net/110628/rappler-stop-
misleading-e...](http://opinion.inquirer.net/110628/rappler-stop-misleading-
everyone)

[http://www.manilatimes.net/rappler-stop-misleading-
everyone/...](http://www.manilatimes.net/rappler-stop-misleading-
everyone/377251/)

~~~
blackbagboys
Yes, it's unsurprising that the pro-government press supports the government's
campaign against their rivals.

~~~
jister
Or maybe there's really no need to politicize everything?

If you are a local you should know that CNN is a liberal press and but they
are also trying to be neutral (which we appreciate). Inquirer is notoriously
anti-government and manilatimes is neutral.

The point is that journalists should report facts and not be partisan. The
quality of Pulitzer Prize winners were put into question when the story that
they wrote were not backed up by evidence as to what the manilatimes article
pointed out. A couple of police sources doesn't make up the entire police
force.

And about Rappler, our consitution says that media should be 100% Filipino
owned. Rappler received funding from a foreign company, Omidyar Network, and
allowed them to have control of corporate matters. This is a red flag that is
why SEC did an investigation. It is really that simple. No need to politicize
it.

