Donald Trump’s successful tactic of communicating directly to the public via tweets and other means, almost never having a news conference, is a worrisome development both for journalism and public relations.

Both industries have lost lots of their powers in recent years. The number of reporters has shrunk along with ad revenues. Both Gallup and Pew put confidence in media around 20 percent. It used to be in the 70s.

Media that bet heavily on Clinton winning the presidency were red-faced when the results became known. New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. published a half-hearted apology for the almost non-stop attacks on the Trump candidacy. The Times’ estimate that Clinton had an 84 percent chance of winning, made on the day of the election, resulted in some women thinking there was no need to vote.

The Times is an example of media shrinkage. It is sub-leasing eight floors of its 52-story building at 620 Eighth Ave. between 40th and 41st streets. About 400 employees are affected. Hundreds of other employees have been laid off in recent years.

The Times sold 21 floors of its space in the building in 2009 for $225 million and leased it for 15 years. It could buy it back for $250 million in 2019. The Times owns 58 percent of the building and Forest City, 42 percent.

Tribune Media Co., Chicago, sold the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times in 2014 and this year sold the iconic Tribune Tower in Chicago and the Times building in L.A. after an employee buyout program.

Press conferences, interviews, vanish

PR people, who used to be able to produce CEOs and other executives for press interviews and conduct press conferences, now have trouble producing themselves when reporters call. Virtually all communications are by email with every word monitored by legal and administration. Press queries are normally shifted to outside PR firms.

This shift, similar to the closing of corporate ad departments in the 1950s and ’60s, has helped propel the growth of PR firms. Most firms in the top 25 ranked by O’Dwyer’s grow in double-digits each year. Emphasis is on direct contact with customers, potential customers, stockholders, employees and other audiences via social media, house websites and emails to key audiences.

Lots of creativity is needed in reaching these audiences and it’s more likely found in agencies that cope with numerous client problems on a daily basis rather than in corporate departments that have the single corporate client.

PR/press relations may warm

Signs that PR/press relations may warm up after being cool for decades appeared at the Institute for PR dinner Nov. 30.

Patrick Ford, Burson-Marsteller executive and recipient of the Alexander Hamilton Medal of IPR, said the “most important role” of PR people is to “focus as much or more on behavior as we do on words.”

Among those listening was Tina McCorkindale, president of IPR who herself has said effective communications requires that people talk to each other, even if they disagree. She calls this “dialogic looping.”

The same advice was given at the dinner by Distinguished Lecturer Geoff Colvin, Fortune editor-at-large, who spoke about the importance of face-to-face communications. Certain parts of the brain “light up” when people are facing each other but are inactive when they talk to each other without being F2F, he said, quoting research.

PR availability is needed

This reminded us of what Harold Burson said in accepting the PRSA Foundation’s Paladin award for courage in communications in 2012. PR, according to Burson, has four duties: to listen; to be the corporate conscience; communicate, including answering questions and serve as “ombudsman” representing the public’s interest to companies.

Our wish list for 2017 is that corporate and association PR people reach out to the press and not wait for the press to call them. Emails and phones of press contacts should be on websites rather than boxes where questions can be submitted. PR groups including PRSA, IABC and the Arthur W. Page Society should open their membership lists to the press. PRSA and IABC used to publish their lists. Reporters should be able to join PRSA.

One reason for the decline in the influence of the press is that it has become hard for reporters to prize any facts out of companies and institutions. Press conferences and interviews with CEOs and other top execs have about vanished. Much of reporting today is combing official records, “data-mining.”

PR professors, who have replaced PR firms and corporations as the dominant element in PRSA, can lead such reforms if they wish. They must erase the bogus designation of APR from the Society’s governance structure. Despite a move to do that led by Richard Edelman, Art Stevens and Dave Rickey in 2010, the 2017 board will have 16 APRs and one non-APR.

Cision Expands; Akeroyd Is CEO

Cision, which owns PR Newswire, Vocus and Gorkana, with annual revenues reaching $630 million, emerged as the largest PR services company. Kevin Akeroyd, senior VP of Oracle, joined as CEO, succeeding Peter Granat, who becomes chairman of the Chicago-based company. 




Cision unveiled an integrated platform titled the Cision Communication Cloud that integrates earned media with paid and owned channels into a single platform, allowing communication pros better insights and the ability to establish a stronger multichannel content strategy. Users can monitor trending topics with access to millions of news stories across online, print, broadcast and social channels. It also provides content management and media outreach performance tools that allow users to target and engage audiences and influencer communities, leading them to make better real-time decisions.