How To Judge a PR Agency?

What are you journalists doing here?

For more than one· year at Economic Observer, a weekly business newspaper whose goal is to be the Financial Times in mainland China, I've met plenty of PR agencies. For some of them, I'm a good private friend, and we often hang out for dinner together and share some ideas about the industries or our daily lives. For others, Steven Lin has become a footy name printed on an rectangular, which has been probably thrown into a recycle box and vanished.

How to judge them? And what kind of relationship should be proper between journalists and the PR agencies? My friends from the western media often told me that they are definitely standing on the opposite sides. Journalists' mission is to discover the truth behind the magnificent scenes glossed by the companies, while the PR agencies will protect you from doing such kind of things in full sail. All of the words from the agencies' mouths are diplomatic and they are only some slippery people who are blindly loyal to their employers. Is it true?

Company A is among the biggest search engines over the world and I‘ve contacted with two PR people who work for it. When I met Ms. B for the first time, she was a business reporter from a leading weekly magazine in China. After less than one year, she joined a PR agent, one of whose clients is Company A. Every time I criticised the company on my blog, she counldn't stop arguing with me and often ask me to publish "something good for them".

On the contrary, Ms. C is the PR specialist of the company and always told me to write "anything objective no matter it's positive or negative" if I feel comfortable. She helped me to get the full permission in their office building for some inside stories, but promised not to modify my articles unless there are some inexact data.

Of course you have gotten aware of my attitutes to each of them, and my answer to the "relationship" quesion. Most PR people i've met in Beijing are unprofessional - they had done tons of things out of their duties, appended too much personal points to their daily jobs and annoyed the journalists. For any PR agency, being tactful or diplomatic is
one thing, making lies or trying to curb media is another.

It has been proved that any actions to provoke the media will cause stronger conterforce. Remember the PR agencies of EMI China who wanted to buy media? The wave of critism on The Flower Band is a good example of what would be brought out by some inconsiderate PR strategies.