Sathnam Sanghera, who writes the "Inside Business" column for the U.K.'s Financial Times, devoted his Feb. 10 column to a complaint about his failure to gain access to CEOs, putting the blame for this on their PR executives.

He said that not only he but other journalists he has talked to have the same problem. "This reticence is widespread," he wrote, and possibly due to the fact that companies are spending heavily on PR and "no PR consultant dares risk a mistake."

Sanghera's Feb. 10 article on corporate PR.

Sanghera said that a couple of years ago he tried to do a column based on interviews with CEOs but gave up after a month or two because "so few CEOs were willing to talk."

More recently, CEOs would not even talk to him about an "inconsequential piece" on executive cars. Six of the eight CEOs he called declined comment.

Writes Sanghera: "The joke used to go: 'How many PR people does it take to change a lightbulb? Don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that one.' Increasingly, the punchline feels like: 'I'm not going to tell you.'"

PR Is Widely Used

"Nowadays, everyone in business employs a PR consultant," says Sanghera.

He recently interviewed David McMurtry, head of Renishaw, a listed engineering company, and realized that for the first time in eight years as a business journalist there was no corporate PR person present to supervise the interview.

McMurtry told him an outside PR firm was hired when the company went public in 1984 but the firm "never impressed me."

Sanghera says many journalists feel PR people "stand in the way of us getting information" but his own view is that "some PR pros are excellent" while others are not.

He said he realizes financial PR people do more than deal with reporters since they are involved in analyst relations, investor relations, internal communications and provide strategic advice to CEOs "whose attitude to the media is generally akin to Osama bin Laden's attitude to the Central Intelligence Agency."

Sanghera adds: "BUT I do think that there is too much corporate PR, it is too aggressive, and too much of it involves saying no."

Related links:
Sanghera's page at FT.com

Anonymous (2/15):
As an ex-journalist, I'm not normally a "blame the press" person, because they still play an important role in keeping us all informed. In this case, however, the press is a big part of the problem.

In 30 years of handling corporate media relations, I've seen a marked decline in the quality of reporters and in the traditional standards of fairness and objectivity, even among some of the more highly regarded news organizations.

There's also been a growing tendency for some reporters to deliberately disguise the true purpose of a story to perhaps catch a CEO unprepared and get better quotes or gain some other advantage (although we know that's not a new technique).

I had one such situation recently with a business reporter from a major publication. I felt like I was conducting an interrogation just to get him to tell me about the basics of his piece. I very much wanted to advise the CEO to do the interview, but I was having having a heckuva time getting enough simple information to make that recommendation. It comes as no surprise, then, that I've also seen a corresponding increase in the reluctance of CEOs to speak with the press. Think about it.

Why would any CEO willingly risk his/her reputation by putting it in the hands of an incompetent or deceitful reporter? And for that matter, why would any good PR person risk his/her job by putting the CEO in such a situation?

Thinkman2 (2/15):
It is the whiny complaining of some PR folks as represented here that gets the kind of articles that appeared in FT. Making all those CEO's out to be angels just does not work. Better these PR pros should learn how to counsel their clients better and the clients should figure out how to be tougher people in the media jungle they thrive on in the first place.

As for Lay and his gang being such sweetie victims, please have your writer refer to the lawsuits about how Enron screwed the state of California as well as their employees and shareholders. If Lay knew nothing about any of this, where was he all this time? Poor guy.

Hollow sanctimony (2/15):
The press loves to attack PR for doing its job. This column has been written 10,000 times, occassionally with merit, but usually not. Why would corporate PR stop calling back the press or stonewall reporters? Because a lot of those press calls are "gotcha" reporters looking for a quick headline.

Brian Kilgore -- Toronto (2/15):
I wonder if perhaps the CEOs and their PR people have some reasons for avoiding interviews. Like hatchet jobs in the past, or fear of a hatchet job like some other poor sap was subjected to. And government shut-up rules.

In the USA now, a CEO who says something interesting may find the SEC breathing down his neck, or some politically motivated prosecutor holding up the clipping and threatening jail because of Sarbanes-Oxley.

For an example of how journalists work, just look at the bookmaking case in New Jersey. Are the cops camped out at the state police headquarters, trying to find out who leaked what? Nope, they're chasing Wayne Gretsky to Italy.

Tune in CNN and see what they think about quality journalism. Brown gets fired, stuttering Cooper gets promoted.

A little tightening up of journalism might make get CEOS more motivated to participate. In the meantime, there's work for PR people, sorting out the hatchet wielders from the fair and knowledgable members of the fifth estate.

Optimistic Spokesman in Danger? (2/15):
It's easy to understand why CEOs are reluctant to talk for publication when we look at the ordeal Lay and Skilling are suffering. Nobody accuses them of stealing -- or of making products that cause millions of people each year to get lung cancer. No, the makers of carcinogens are in their offices earning millions while Lay and Skiling are in a courtroom accused of TALKING too enthusiastically about Enron's prospects although knowing that Enron had -- as all companies do -- problems.

Are PR people also criminals if they express very positive assessments of a company although knowing of corporte problems? Is it not possible to know of problems but ALSO to know of positive facts that may on balance lead a company to new heights of sales and earnings? Are YOU a criminal if you tell your management -- or tell association members via your own publication -- that a release got 200 newspaper placements, or a group of releases got 2,000, numbers reported to you on paper by a vendor, when you know that actual clippings in hand may be less than 10% that number and mainly from tiny weeklies and shoppers?

Blessed are the pure of heart but blessed also are the silent corporate managers for the silent are less likely than the ebullient to see the inside of a courtroom, acused by a publicity-hungry prosecutor of preseting too rosy a picture to analysts and stockbrokers who are paid to be skeptical and always are.

This is how many CEOs get their jobs--by believing that what some think is impossible will be achieved, and by sometimes achieving it.