PR as the unavoidable source : a qualitative study on the source-reporter relationship in Spanish media

PR as the unavoidable source

A qualitative study on the source-reporter relationship in Spanish media

Jesús García Corte. Student ID:10609598 Master Thesis. Graduate School of Communication

Master's Programme Communication Science Supervisor Piet Verhoeven. Submitted 30/01/15

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PR as the unavoidable source

A qualitative study on the source-reporter relationship in Spanish media

Jesús García Corte. Student ID:10609598

Master Thesis. Graduate School of Communication Master's Programme Communication Science Supervisor Piet Verhoeven. Submitted 30/01/15

Abstract: News media are highly influenced by PR and Media Relations practitioners' activities, and the amount of content published related to this kind of sources normally represents an important percentage of the news content. This study approaches this source-reporter relationship through a series of in depth interviews with Spanish journalist from different written media. The nature of that relationship, the power dynamics involved and the journalists' perceptions and assessments towards practitioners constituted the main topics covered through the interviews. Opposingly to an important part of the literature in the field, mainly coming from the Anglo-American tradition, Spanish journalists seem not to hold negative ideas and stereotypes towards the PR profession, while some interesting differences were found in terms of the degree of specialization of the media. Specialized media show a higher degree of dependence on certain firms in terms of advertising, leading to a more collaborative relationship, while generalists, less subject to specific firms or industries, tend to express themselves in much more adversarial terms.

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Introduction

Sallot and Johnson, in a research published in 2006 about the source-reporter relationships in the US, estimated that around 44% of the content in the American media is influenced by PR sources. Indeed, media relations are considered to be one of the most prominent parts of corporate communication and public relations practitioners work, who deal with journalists from different media on a regular basis. The agenda setting theory, which was initiated by McCombs and Shaw´s (1972) study of the coverage of the American presidential elections of 1968, first approached this relationship from a political communication perspective, having as a central idea this transfer of salience between the media and the public agendas (Carrol and McCombs, 2003).

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However, and in spite of the fact that this theory was initially developed and tested in

terms of political communication, Carrol and McCombs (2003) propose that this idea about the transfer of salience of different issues fits equally in the business world. They state that the amount of news coverage that a firm receives in the news media is positively related to the public´s awareness of that firm. At the same time, they relate the amount of news coverage which links an attribute or a series of attributes with a firm, to the proportion of members of the public who define the firm through those attributes. Furthermore, the more positive those attributes related to a firm are, the more positive will be the perceptions of the public on that firm.

This idea of influencing the public agenda, through the media agenda, is the central principle behind this research, and the way this influence is materialized through the work of public relations and corporate communication practitioners, which focuses on journalists and media, constitutes the main interest point of it. This "relationship between the public relations person as a source and the reporter", as defined by Cameron, Sallot and Curtin (1997), is characterized according with the same authors by both mutual assessments and a series a power dynamics.

This mutual assessments and power dynamics determine what the same authors define as the "acceptance of source materials", which is one of the main goals of the media relations practice. By interviewing journalists, asking them about their perceptions of the professionals on the other side, their goals and motivations, their strategies, and also about the power dynamics involved in the relationships (corporate connections, partnerships, potential and actual advertisers), it will be possible to see, from the gatekeeper point of view, which ways are the most effective for that acceptance of source materials. Thus, the main research question of this study is how does this source-reporter relationship works, being that source a PR or a Corporate Communication practitioner.

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Theoretical Background

The agenda setting theory is probably one of the most repeatedly used approaches to study the influence of media in public opinion. That influence on the public opinion constitutes the main factor that makes media relations one of the most crucial parts of the communication strategy of a firm or institution. The main idea behind this theory is that the issues that journalists judge to be relevant, are those which would be judged as relevant by their audiences as well. The day-to-day selection and display of news by journalists focuses the public’s attention and influences its perceptions (McCombs and Reynolds, 2002).

This relationship has been studied and tested empirically in several occasions, like in the case of Winter and Eyal (1981) who compared the coverage of newspapers related to civil rights issues in the United States (focusing on front pages of The New York Times), with perceptions held by the public on the same topics, during a period of more than 20 years. Brosius and Kepplinger (1990) carried out a content analysis of German press which they contrasted then with a series of surveys, designed to measure the levels of awareness about different issues. Canel, Llamas and Rey (1996) did something similar in Spain, by carrying out a content analysis of news coverage on a series of issues, and then comparing those results with perceptions of publics on those issues. Going one step beyond, a meta-analysis carried out by Wanta and Ghanem (2000), and which included data from ninety empirical articles, found a mean correlation of +0.53 between both agendas.

Nonetheless, agenda setting theory involves two dimensions. At the first level of agenda setting, the salience of objects on the media agenda would be influencing the salience of those objects on the public agenda. On the contrary, the second level of agenda setting has to do not with the salience of issues, but with the attributes associated to a certain object (Carrol and McCombs, 2003) and it implies that when an object (which can be a firm, but also a politician or

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an institution, for instance) is associated to certain attributes in the media, audiences will also

define that object by those attributes. Both levels of agenda setting have at least a certain degree of impact in what constitutes the image of a firm, and serve to explain why so many resources and efforts are dedicated to that source-reporter relationship, a relationship which is defined by a series of power dynamics and mutual assessments and expectations.

Mutual assessments in the reporter-source relationship.

Cameron, Sallot and Curtin, in their critical theory review on the relationship between the production of news and the Public Relations profession of 1997, include a quite important number of studies carried out on the perceptions of professionals from both sides, showing, when taking all together, a clear tendency: journalists value very negatively the work done by professionals on the other side. Journalists make negative assessments about PR practitioners (Aronoff, 1975), although those normally align themselves and their values with those of journalists. These differences in terms of perceptions of group membership (Swartz, 1983), news values (Jeffers, 1977), trust (Sallot, 1989), or even attitudes (Belz, Talbott and Startck, 1989), explain those negative ideas generally expressed by journalists.

Studies on mutual assessments started as early as in the 1960s, inaugurated by Feldman´s research of 1961, which used a survey, administrated to both journalists and PR practitioners, to determine for the first time differences in perceptions on credibility, status and even professionalism. This first approach served to break the ice in a field that was going to get more a more attention in the subsequent decades.

Aronoff (1975) replicated this survey, and came up with similar conclusions; journalists had more negative perceptions on PR practitioners, even though "most public relations practitioners and many journalists acknowledge the contribution made to the process of news production" (p.51). Furthermore, when asking both journalists and practitioners to rank news

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values, both their own, and the perceived news values of their counterparts, results did not differ

in a significant way. In a second part of this study, journalists and PR practitioners were both asked to rank, based on their perceptions of professional status, a series of occupations including journalists and PR practitioners, but also some others such as politicians, farmers, artists and so on.

Surprisingly, while PR practitioners ranked journalists third (out of 16) and themselves fourth, journalists ranked themselves first, and PR practitioners last. In line with these results, when journalists were asked to assess the credibility of different stories, some of them attributed to journalists, and some of them attributed to PR professionals, they tended to favor the ones they thought that were coming from journalists, considering PR professionals as low-credibility sources.

Jeffers (1977) conducted a similar research coming to a similar conclusion, but introducing a very interesting element when talking about familiarity. Journalists tend to hold negative stereotypes and ideas about PR practitioners, but at the same time, those practitioners with whom they had a closer relationship, or at last some kind of regular contact, were considered significantly more ethical. Increasing the contact with a certain journalists will not result in a more positive image of PR in general, but it might have a positive effect on the specific level, regarding that concrete relationship.

Swartz (1983) tried to explain those negative perceptions generally held by journalists from an occupational perspective, focusing on the fact that many journalists careers go from the journalistic world to the PR side (normally involving higher salaries, better working conditions, etc.). Thus, those negative perceptions have a lot to do with these status issues, since journalists tend to think about themselves as being above commercialism and market driven interests, considering this shift from one side to the other a kind of betrayal.

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Kopenhaver (1985) goes in the same direction, when stating that journalists see PR

practitioners as "obstructionists" who just disguise their corporate messages as news, just line Cline (1982), who conducted a content analysis on academic texts on mass communication theory, finding out not only that PR professionals were portrayed as less ethical and professional, but also that the predominant metaphor associated with PR was a concept as graphic as prostitution.

Habermann, Kopenhaver and Martison (1988), or Pincus et al. (1993) also found evidence of how journalism academic world is somehow anti-public relations, in the sense that those negative issues expressed by journalists have a lot to do with that negative image held in the academia. Turk (1986) uses the term "journalistic folklore" to define those issues and values which are normally associated with good practices in journalism, including those of entrepreneurship and initiative. Thus following PR practitioners’ directions is considered to go against those journalistic values, since it involves indoctrination and manipulation.

Sallot, Steinfatt and Salwen (1998) carried out a research which dealt with these mutual perceptions and news values, coming to the conclusion that those news values were mainly the same for those groups, although journalists’ awareness of this fact was lower, implying that journalists often perceive PR practitioners as “having self-serving motives for offering this unsolicited assistance” (p. 374), while PR practitioners tend to align themselves much more with the values and ways of working of journalists.

However, trying to identify a general tendency in terms of mutual assessments through the existing literature is a quite difficult task. Some studies, mainly carried out in different national contexts than the United States, suggest a different characterization of the PR profession and practices. Mellado and Hanusch, who developed a research on Chilean journalists and public relations practitioners (2011) suggested that in different cultural contexts (such as Latin

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American countries), that perceived antagonism and those negative opinions towards public

relations practitioners do not take place, at least not to the same extent than in Western countries. However, recent studies in Western countries such as The Netherlands (Neijens and Smit, 2006), also go in the same direction, taking even about the myth of the supposed antagonism between professionals from those sides.

Hofstede´s cultural dimensions theory might serve to explain those differences. This theory uses a series of cultural dimensions to define societies, in terms of individualism, masculinity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, or long term orientation. Those dimensions vary from one cultural context to another, and may explain why in Anglo-Saxon cultures results were much more clear on the negative perceptions towards PR people and practices. Societies scoring very high in the individualism scales might create different perceptions of group membership that would lead members of one group to think about the members of the other group as their counterparts or opponents.

However, such as Neijens and Smit suggest, there is another characteristic linking all those studies which propose negative perceptions of the PR professionals and practices, and that is the fact that most of them were carried out during the 80s and 90s. More recent studies, even in Western countries, propose a different scenario. In their research, Neijens and Smit found out that Dutch journalists did not maintain a negative attitude towards practitioners, contradicting existing literature on that antagonistic relationship. As they state, their results support the idea that “the situation has changed and mature professional relations have replaced animosity” (page 239). Nowadays journalists seem hold a more mature characterization of practitioners, and also seem to be more aware of the market dynamics ruling information world, so their negative perceptions on PR practitioners have more to do with practical issues, than with their general perceptions on the profession, their role in the society, and their market driven interests.

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Power dynamics in the source-reporter relationship.

The literature review carried out by Cameron, Sallot and Curtin (1997) includes as well a section covering those studies devoted to these power dynamics, although that literature is substantially less numerous than the one related to perceptions and mutual assessments. Only a few studies are reviewed, such as the survey developed by Olson in 1989, dealing with issues such as salaries, job satisfaction, independence, potential for career advancement, etc.

Nevertheless, not much has being written about the power dynamics involved in this relationship, (including strategic relations between companies, potential for future investments as advertisers, partnerships, etc.), and only by looking at the political communication research tradition some theoretical models can be proposed.

Erikson and Ostman (2013) in a study examining the power relations between journalists and different political actors in Sweden, propose through their literature review three main models. The first one is the so called dependence model, in which official and elite sources are considered essential for news output (Manning 2001, Strömbäck and Nord, 2006). The main idea here is that the power relationship is unbalanced on the side of PR practitioners due to those needs of information that journalists have. In terms of negotiation, the journalistic side would be in a clear disadvantage, always "depending" on the other side to fulfil their needs.

The second main perspective on this journalists-source relationship proposed by Erikson and Ostman (2013) in their review is the "adversary model" which emphasizes the conflicting interests and clashes that normally occur in this relationship, due to this critical and interpretative nature of journalism (Salgado and Strömbäck 2012). This model deals with this idea of journalism as a "watchdog" against politicians’ attempts to manipulate public opinion (Clayman, 2006).

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However, a third model can be stated, again dealing with this idea of dependence, but

from a more reciprocal point of view. Professionals from both sides have needs involving their counterparts, in an "exchange model" (Blummler and Gurevitch, 1995) in which there is "mutual dependency" (Lewis et al., 2008). Shin and Cameron (2005) propose a continuum going from advocacy to accommodation. Advocacy is used to define one party's attempts to impose its needs and goals to the other one (adversarial relationship), while accommodation has to do with the willingness to accept or at least consider the other part´s needs and goals. With the term “mixed motives” these authors define a situation in which “each side retains a strong sense of its own interest, yet each is motivated to cooperate in a limited fashion” in order to obtain the best results for both parts. Cooperative antagonism or collaborative advocacy are some of the terms proposed by Shin and Cameron in order to define this source-reporter relationship.

As it has been already mentioned, these three models were originally stated in terms of political communication, although it is proposed that they would fit equally in a business or corporate communication context. Going a step further, the perceptions of journalists about these power dynamics have a strong impact in what Cameron, Sallot and Curtin define as "acceptance of source material", which is one of the main goals of PR and corporate communication practitioners.

Methodology

With a quite important part of the previous research devoted to quantitative approaches, especially if we look at the mutual assessments and perceptions literature, and three theoretical power dynamics models, this study will present a qualitative design which might throw some light over some of the incoherencies that a review of the existing literature on the topic reflects. Even some of the authors of that majority of quantitative studies on the topic, such as Pincus et al. (1993), tend to point out the necessity for “qualitative methods such as face-to-face or focus

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group interviews, designed to supplement the quantitative data already collected and analyzed

may provide insight to the factor most influencing the formation of journalists and the public relations professionals mutual perceptions” (p. 44).

Thus, and in order to have a clear image of how the influence of PR and Media Relations practitioners works, a series of in depth interviews with journalists were carried out, to gain insights on the source-reporter relationships that determines the acceptance or rejection of source materials. In terms of nationality, this study focused on Spanish journalists, since due to practical reasons, it was not possible to gather a representative sample that included enough individuals with different national and cultural backgrounds so that differences on those terms could be stated. Taking this into account, the final decision was to restrict the study to a single country.

A number of journalists from written media with different characteristics was contacted, and through the snow ball sampling technique (a few people was contacted through personal networking and asked both to participate and to contact a few of their colleagues), a final sample of 17 journalists was defined, with 10 males and 7 females.

Those journalists worked for three general information newspapers (El Mundo, 20

Minutos, and La Gaceta), one economy daily newspaper (Expansión), two cultural publications,

including a cultural weekly supplement (Gonzo) and a cultural monthly magazine (Yorokobu), one videogames publication (Nintendo Acción) and one cinema magazine (Cinemania). Interviews were done through Skype software, recorded and transcribed. Table 1 shows the distribution of that sample in terms of media.Interviews, which lasted between 50 minutes and two hours and 20 minutes, were structured in three main blocks. The first one focused on the general influence of PR and Media Relations practitioners on the information process. Cameron, Sallot and Curtin (1997) use the concept “acceptance of source materials” by journalists as a

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way to measure the degree of success of Media Relations practitioners, so in that sense,

journalist were asked to estimate that proportion of contents coming from this kind of sources, and to explain their ideas on that presence.

Table 1.

Distribution of journalists in terms of kind of publication

Kind of publication Number of journalists interviewed

General Daily Newspapers 7

Economic Journals 4

Cultural Publications 3

Videogames Publications 2

Cinema Publications 1

Questions on this first bloc had to do with the kind of relationship interviewees had with PR people they had, the amount of corporate related stories which ended up published in their medium, or in their section (1), and their perceptions on this influence as a positive or negative thing (2). To see that, questions were focused on practical aspects, such as the amount of press releases received, the proportion of those which are finally used (3), the way in which those press releases are used, or the reasons why those are selected and others rejected (4).

After that first bloc of questions, interviews covered the power relations dynamics which are involved in this relationship. The different theoretical power models were briefly introduced to the journalists interviewed, by using the Shin and Cameron (2005) continuum between total advocacy and total accommodation, related to those collaborative and adversarial models traditionally proposed in the literature. Questions had to do with topics like which parts need the other side more (5), and journalists were asked to state their ideas on different assumptions that were presented to them, such as their needs to fill space (6), causing this dependence on the materials provided by PR practitioners and departments (Manning 2001, Strömbäck and Nord,

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2006), or, the role of the press as a 'watchdog' (Clayman, 2006; Salgado and Strömbäck 2012)

against any attempt to manipulate public opinion (7), also when that attempt is carried out by a commercial firm, and not only politicians.

The final part of the interview covered the mutual assessments dimension, and the questions directed to journalists had more to do with their ideas and evaluations of their own work, in comparison with their evaluation of the professionals on the other side. These final questions were developed by looking at the 70s and 80s studies which constitute the main body of the mutual assessments research tradition. Journalists were asked about their perceptions on their professional and social status Aronoff (1975), news values alignment (newsworthiness and publication criteria) between both sides professionals (Jeffers, 1977), professional mobility, specifically journalists moving to PR or Corporate Communication positions (Swartz, 1983), or market driven interests (Kopenhaver 1985). Thus, journalists were required to evaluate both professions in terms of their contribution to society, social status, or retributions (8), paying special attention at their ideas on news values alignment between them and practitioners (9), alignment with the values of the company of both journalists and practitioners (10). Furthermore, they were asked to explain their ideas on journalists crossing to the other side, and working as practitioners, concluding with a question on the possibility of doing so themselves (11).

The transcriptions of the interviews were coded through Atlas software, so that the three main blocs that constitute this research could be analyzed separately. A code was assigned to every single interviewee, and two categories were created, generalist and specialized journalists. Furthermore, their answers were firstly divided into three blocks, and then each one of those blocks was again coded into different parts, corresponding with the 11 final topics covered by the questions and that have being remarked in the text with the numbers from 1 to 11 between brackets. Table 2 summarizes the distribution of the topics in the questionnaire.

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Table 2.

Topic list and questionnaire summary

Construct Source Definition Questions Influence of PR sources on the media Sallot and Johnson (2006). Cameron, Sallot and Curtin (1997). General influence of PR and Media Relations practitioners on the information process. “Acceptance of source materials” by journalists as a way to measure the degree of success of Media Relations practitioners

1. How much information coming from PR sources ends up published in the media? (in a general sense)

2. How much information coming from PR sources ends up published in your specific media or section?

3a. What is the proportion of press releases that ends up published?

3b. What are the main reasons for accepting or rejecting a press releases?

4. Do you perceive the influence of PR as positive or negative? Power Relations Shin and Cameron (2005). Manning (2001). Strömbäck and Nord (2006). Proposed continuum between the advocacy model (both parts try to impose their needs and goals to the other one) and the

accommodation (willingness to consider other part's needs and goals)

5a. Who do you think that has a higher dependence on the work done by the other side professionals?

5b. Who has the last word in this source-reporter

relationship?

6. Who do you think that has a higher dependence on the work done by professionals from the other side, journalists or practitioners? Power Relations II Lewis, J. Williams, A. & Frankin, B. (2008) Eriksson, G., & Östman, J. (2013) Watchdog metaphor, control role of journalism towards institution's attempts to manipulate publics opinion

7a. Have you heard about the watchdog metaphor?

7b. Do you share this point of view about this role of

journalists in society? Perceptions and assessments Aronoff (1975). General perceptions of journalists towards the PR profession

8. Do you think practitioners share the values held by

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Jeffers (1977). Swartz (1983). Kopenhaver (1985). and practitioners (involving news values, professionalism, status, contribution to society, mobility)

9a. Do you think

practitioners enjoy a higher or lower professional status than journalists? Why?

9b. Do you think journalists make a more important

contribution to society than practitioners? Why

10. What do you think about journalists crossing to the other side and accepting a job as practitioner? Is that a betrayal?

11. Have you ever

considered doing that yourself?

Results

After having carried out the 17 interviews with Spanish Journalists from different written media, the results were transcribed, coded and analyzed following a three blocks structure, the same three chapters in which the results from the analyses will be presented in the next section.

Influence in the media

The first part of the interviews had to do with journalists’ perceptions on the general influence that PR and communication professionals have on what finally ends up published by the media. On a first instance, and when taking about the general proportion of press releases and information coming from this kind of sources, a vast majority (n=14) of the interviewees

agreed on quite high rates. However, when been asked about their own working place, meaning their particular medium, or their particular section, the tendency was slightly different.

The idea of relying in excess on this kind of content as a negative thing is pretty general, since the presence of PR information tends to be identified with external pressures and relationships which are extrinsic to the journalistic work. The general idea among the answers of the interviewees is that there is a lot of it, but not in their own medium, since as it was stated by

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one of the generalist daily newspapers journalists interviewed, “we try to do a good job here, but

out there... things are pretty different”.When directly asked if they judged this presence was or not negative for their medium, most of the answers (n=12) coincided when pointing out that it is not desirable. As another generalist newspaper journalist commented, including this kind of content may lead to a loss of credibility for the media.

I see it as a negative influence, most of the times these stories end up published because of personal relations, favors... and in my opinion those constitute advertising content occupying a place which should be for information, and that is always negative for that medium. It goes against the credibility of the rest of the content.

(Respondent 2, male, general information newspaper)

There is an ongoing tension between journalists and editors when dealing with this kind of contents. Journalists tend not to like them, since they consider them not journalistic or even propagandistic, but it is at the editors level when most of the editorial or economic pressures take place, so they are just forced to include this information by those right above them in the hierarchy, but most of the times, against their own will. “Most of the times, this kind of stories, which need to be included because of editorial reasons, or favors, or things like that, are simply non-desired tasks in which you try to spend the minimum amount of time”, commented one of journalists working for a generalist daily newspaper.

However, journalists working for specialized publications judge that influence as much more important than those working for generalist media. While pressures from practitioners in order to gain visibility for their firms tends to happen independently from the kind of publication, its degree of specialization or its periodicity, those pressures are not equally fruitful in every case. Specialized publications tend to have a much higher degree of dependence in this kind of sources, due to a series of characteristics which differentiates them from generalist publications. Most of the times, these publication have to do with consumer goods, meaning they deal with

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quite specific industries, namely the book editors industry, the videogames industry, or the

automobile industry, just to cite a few examples. In that sense, advertising in this kind of publications rarely comes from anywhere else than those specific sectors. A comment by a journalist working in the videogames press serves to illustrate this situation.

You can write a bad critic about, for instance, a videogame in which a company has spent millions. Well, this may make them think about it twice when including your media in their next advertising campaign. It is that easy. It needs to be taken into account that this kind of publications survive just because of advertising, and this advertising is very specific. In a videogames publication advertising will only come from the videogames industry, so having a bad relationship with a big company of your sector is not really an option, and there you have the trick. How are you going to speak in a bad way about something that allows the survival of you publication? Who dares to say that Call of Duty is a bad game? Furthermore, who dares not to say that Call of Duty is an amazing game?

(Respondent 3, male, videogames publication)

On the other hand, generalist media journalists speak about a quite different scenario. Those generalist publications are less subject to specific advertisers, since there is a higher degree of heterogeneity. Generalist media often include in their pages advertising from a variety of industries and sectors, since the target reader is much more general than the one from specialized publications. Thus there is not such a strong dependence on big advertisers, since they work with a wider range of them than specialized publications. Nevertheless, this does not mean that generalist media are not subjected to this kind of pressures by advertisers, but that sometimes, those media with muscle enough can respond to them.

In that sense, one of the interviewees working for one of those big generalist daily publications reported a situation in which there were pressures from a firm as important as Coca Cola, in order not to publish certain information on the closing of a number of their factories in Spain during 2014. Coca Cola’s investment in advertising in that specific media was important

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enough so that a threat could be directed to the editors about a total withdrawal if that

information, on the strikes generated by the closing, were to be published. The answer of the management of the publication was to restructure that day’s edition, removing Coca Cola’s advertising but maintaining the stories and comments on the closings of the factories. Furthermore, an editorial was published informing the readers about the situation and the withdrawal of all the advertising by the firm in all the publications of the editorial group.

As it was explained by the interviewee who commented this anecdote, this is not a common situation, and it reflects also the power position of that specific media, but it still serves to reflect this important difference in terms of independence from advertisers. In the case of a specialized publication, and as explained by one of the interviewees writing for cultural publication, the much more reduced number of advertisers makes resistance to this kind of threats unimaginable.

Power Relations

A second block of questions had to do with the power dynamics involved in this source-reporter relationship. In this sense, one of the first distinctions that came out of the interviews and which should be pointed out has to do with who initiates the contact, with two different possible scenarios.

A first and much more usual one, in which the contact is initiated by the source, that includes everything from press releases, to emails, phone calls, instant messaging, etc. and that normally implies some kind of interest by the firm in having some information related to them published, and a second one, in which the journalists are the ones making the first movement, and that generally implies a defensive reaction by the firm. Generalist and specialized journalists again differ in the ways they interact with practitioners in both types of contact.

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In these cases in which the contact is initiated by the source, journalist from specialized

media tend to see their relationship with practitioners more as a collaborative process than journalists from generalist media. Their media normally have a higher degree of dependence on the content provided by communication departments and agencies, not only in terms of advertising, but also to ensure the information flow coming from this kind of sources, something which might be as well crucial for small publications.

You may leave out a press release coming from a certain firm, because you think it is not newsworthy, or not appealing or interesting for your audience, but this may have consequences. You may lose access to future interesting stories if you do not publish what they want you to publish at a certain moment. So you have to think twice before ignoring certain press releases, even though those press releases might be crap.

(Respondent 11, female, cultural publication)

In the case of specialized journalists, and when confronted with the different power models proposed, they tend to identify their situation with the collaborative approach much more than with the adversarial model. However, and ideal situation for them would imply a certain degree of tension.

I would not say opponents, but the relationship should involve at least some kind of tension. It is a collaboration in which each of the parts wants the best for itself, we look for different things but we need to cooperate, but always maintaining some distance. That is a healthy situation, but in my opinion that rarely happens.

(Respondent 7, female, cinema publication)

Specialized journalists identify and actual situation in which too much collaboration leads to a great loss in terms of credibility for their media. One of the interviewees working for a videogames publication explained how an excessive degree of collaboration “[...] turns you into a tool for them, another piece in the production and promotion machinery. A parrot who repeats

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what they say. And that is absolutely negative for the journalistic profession”. Journalists from

specialized media's dependence on PR sources gives practitioners the power position in the relationship, and when asked about an ideal situation, specialized journalists tend to look for a less collaborative situation, which they think that would be healthier for their media. On the other hand, journalists from generalist media tend to speak about a quite different situation, in which attempts by communication departments and agencies to have a certain message published go unnoticed in the vast majority of the cases. Journalist tend to hold the power position in the relationship in the case of generalist media, were the possibilities in order to fill pages are clearly many more than in the case of specialized publications.

According to what was expressed by several specialized journalists, critic approaches are much more common in the case of generalist publications, since the degree of dependence in terms of advertising, or in terms of future access to information and sources, is way lower than the case of specialized media. Coincidentally, many journalists from generalist publications see their relationship with practitioners in much more adversarial terms, and when asked about an ideal situation, they normally refer to a higher degree of collaboration.

Finally, the second possible scenario includes all those situations in which the contact starts on the reporters’ side, normally scandals or at least negative situations for the image of a firm. In this cases the relationship is perceived as much more adversarial. Probably due to this reason, this situation is not very common in the case of specialized publications, but it happens much more in the case of generalist media. There is a scandal and journalists want to know the official version hold by the firm, while the company normally maintains a defensive attitude. It is in those cases when journalists perceive this power relationship much more in terms of an adversarial relationships, in which they are supposed to develop that watchdog role towards firms in the same sense that political journalists carry out that function towards governments or institutions.

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Perceptions and assessments on practitioners

The third part of the interviews was focused on assessments and perceptions held by journalists towards practitioners and their work. However, as a first step, some questions were posted on their ideas on the PR and Media Relations profession as a whole, and specifically about its role and contribution to societies in comparison with the journalistic profession. A vast majority of the interviewees did not express negative ideas towards it (n=16), and its role. Journalists understand that this is an unavoidable relationship for them, and value the work of practitioners, holding at the same time less idealistic perceptions on the journalistic profession. One of the cultural journalists who participated in the study explained it in a very clear way.

I think we all make our contribution in different aspects. To be honest, when I was a student at the university I had a different point of view. I was much more idealistic about being a journalist and about our role in society. From the academia, journalism is normally much idealized. In the end journalism has to do with similar principles than those of advertising. And in some sense journalism is less honest, because it is not sincere about this latent reality behind daily information. Advertising or PR are much more honest fields. We all want to sell, but from the advertising side they do not try to hide that. A journalist will justify his work by speaking about its social importance, being the fourth power and so on. But in the end, your hands are tied. No media are free of political and economic powers. Journalism has its role in society, and that is not better or worse than others.

(Respondent 7, female, cinema publication)

Furthermore, when asked about the possibility of turning to the other side, accepting a job in a communication department or agency, following the steps of an important number of journalist, a vast majority of the interviewees do not perceive such a thing as a betrayal or anything close to that (n=15). This transition is not linked in journalists´ minds with negative ideas. Negative comments on the interviews focused much more on practical aspects than on

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intrinsical aspects of the PR profession. Journalist complaint about practitioners lack of

knowledge of the journalistic times and ways of working. One of the journalists interviewed, working for a general information newspaper, explained it the following way.

The problem most of the times is that the vast majority of press releases or proposals of any kind that I receive are completely unrelated with what I do, or to what might be interesting for my section. And when you tell them (practitioners) about that, they do not listen to you. That is why I delete directly 40 out 50 emails that I get a day. And in many other cases you find press releases with a really poor writing style, mistakes... and generally with a very little news value. Most of the times that a topic like this is published, the reason behind comes from the editors level.

(Respondent 8, female, general information newspaper)

Moreover, in the case of several generalist journalists (n=4), it was pointed out that the almost unexisting interest for audiences in terms of news worthiness that most of these stories have, adds more obstacles to its acceptance, and when they are published, they normally occupy the less privileged places. The rates of acceptance of these source materials in the case of specialized publications are much higher, but still specialized journalists complaints go in the same direction.

The journalist is normally undervalued. They think that by sending you a press release they give you everything already done, easy for you, and that´s all. If the communication department or agency has not made a previous research work on what kind of news are normally published by a certain media, or what kind of content a journalist is more likely to find interesting, then it will be pretty difficult to make it work. The good PR departments try to offer you a story somehow related to their product, but with a good link with an interesting topic, current affaires or similar things. But that is not the rule at all. Most of PR people do not know about how we [journalists] work, what might be interesting for us, and there it is where they fail most of the times. They simply think we are happy about publishing a press release because we do not have to work that much, and that is a wrong assumption.

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Apart from this general lack of knowledge of both the information process, and the

people involved in it, another common complaint is related to the task of PR and Media Relations as mediators in terms of providing access to other sources inside firms.

There should be someone you could talk to in order to request for example, an interview with someone from the company involved in whatever project you might be interested on. And I mean to talk to someone directly involved in something, not with an intermediary. I want access to the real source, and PR people should play this role of giving you access to the source. They should not try to substitute the real source, and sometimes that is what happens. They distribute a message through their communication department and you as a journalist should just repeat it. That is not positive for the credibility of any of us.

(Respondent 2, male, general information newspaper).

Journalists from both generalist and specialized publications reject unidirectional practices such as the mere dissemination of press releases, and appreciate personalization of messages and stories. According to what it was explained by some interviewees from different media, being a journalist seem to be a conditio sine qua non in order to do a good job as a Media Relations practitioner.

Conclusions

One of the main Ideas that can be extracted from these interviews is related to a factor that has been rarely covered by literature, the different nature of publications, and their specific characteristics in terms of information needs and economic status determined by that nature. Namely, a first and very basic distinction can be stablished between generalist and specialized media, since the dynamics and processes in those two kinds of publications seem to determine the source-reporter relationship and the outcome of it, much more than any other factor.

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Specialized media tend to be much more subject to the influence of firms strategies

and interests, due to their bigger dependence on those firms in terms of advertising, and those journalist perceive their relationship with practitioners much more as a collaboration. On the other hand, generalist publications normally show a higher degree of independence, as long as their potential advertisers are much more diverse. There is not that much dependence in a small group of advertisers, just like in the case of specialized publications, so tensions are more likely to appear, and practitioners are more likely to be perceived as opponents.

Cases like the Coca Cola withdrawal from a generalist newspaper due to the publication of certain stories serve to instantiate these differences in terms of power balance. This situation would be unimaginable if it took place with a specialized publication as the subject. A strong editorial group supports media independence, and it normally means a stronger position when negotiating in a case of conflict such as the one presented. Smaller and specialized media have such an intense dependence on their advertising partners that conflict is simply not a possibility.

However, and although perceptions on an ideal situation in terms of power balance differ from generalist to specialized journalists, both groups tend to refer as positive the other side of the continuum between the adversarial and the collaborative approaches. While generalists perceive the source-reporter relationship in terms of advocacy, where the two parts involved try to impose their own needs and goals to the other side, they tend to think about collaboration as a more desirable situation.

On the other hand, in the case of specialized journalism, the normally higher degree of collaboration, due to the specific characteristics of this kind of media, creates a situation in which journalists think about adversarial approaches as much more healthy for the development of the journalistic profession. Both extremes tend to identify the ideal situation somewhere in a

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middle point between those adversarial and collaborative models. These ideas go in line with

Shin and Cameron´s (2005) ideas on a continuum going from a total accommodation model to a total advocacy model. The terms cooperative antagonism or collaborative advocacy proposed by this authors to define the nature of the source-reporter relationship seem to fit perfectly with the situation described by Spanish journalists.

Furthermore, a second distinction, which has been mostly ignored by former researchers, needs to be stated between the two main kinds of contact that occur between professionals from both sides. In those situations in which the contact is initiated by the source, collaborative approaches are more likely to happen, since collaboration constitutes in these situations the desired relationship involving benefits for both parts.

However, in those cases of crisis and scandals, when a much more defensive approach is normally taken by practitioners, collaboration is no that likely to happen. It is in those cases when the watchdog metaphor of journalism (Clayman, 2006, Eriksson, & Östman, 2013) fully operates, and the advocacy model in which both parts push in opposite directions seems to be the most accurate. This crisis communication involving media is not always considered when analyzing Media Relations, since much of the literature focus on the acceptance of source materials. Nevertheless, journalists also refer to it as part of their interaction with practitioners. These two dimensions of Media Relations imply different approaches for both practitioners and researchers, and have a clear impact on the power dynamics involved in the source reporter relationship.

In terms of perceptions and assessments, Spanish journalist do not hold a general negative image of the PR and Corporate Communication profession, while not having at the same time a too idealized vision of their our role in society. In this sense, this research suggests a very different situation that the one proposed by an important part of the literature on the topic

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(Aronoff, 1975; Jeffers, 1977; Swartz, 1983; Cline, 1982; Kopenhaver, 1985; Turk, 1986;

Habermann, Kopenhaver and Martison, 1988; Pincus et al., 1993; Sallot, Steinfatt and Salwen, 1998), mainly developed in the United States and Anglo-Saxon countries. Spanish journalists seem to understand the complementary nature of both professions, going much more in line with the findings of more recent studies carried out in different cultural and national contexts, such as Mellado and Hanusch in Chile (2011) or Neijens and Smit in the Netherlands (2006).

Most of the negative comments done by journalist about practitioners have to do with practical issues and the lack of alignment with the journalistic values showed by practitioners. Journalist from every kind of media coincide to remark this idea about the necessity of knowing how things work in that specific newsroom, including very simple things such as closing times, section distribution (who works where and which topics are interesting for the different sections), or information flows (which fluctuate depending on the season for instance).

Practitioners fail when directing their messages according to journalists, since they tend to include every email address they have available for the dissemination of press releases. Not directing a certain message to the right person or the right section is still one of the most common reasons why corporate messages are not accepted for publication. Thus, and as suggested by Pincus et al. (1993), “public relations practitioners should devise tailored contact strategies, depending on the type of editor whom they are communicating”.

The general perception among the journalists interviewed is that the best practitioner is that one which has experience as a journalist, so the transition from one side to the other is not perceived in any sense as a betrayal, since it implies a better functioning relationship in the long term. Only a very small number of the journalist interviewed (n=2) expressed their rejection towards becoming a practitioner at some point, but the justified that based much more on practical than on ethical reasons, such as considering it boring or unexciting.

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Discussion

Just like at the beginning of this research, most of the literature covering the topic of the influence of PR and media relations on news media deals with numbers and percentages (like the 44% reported by Sallot and Johnson in 2006) which are too vague and general in the nowadays extremely complex media landscape. This research suggests that certain characteristics of media, specially its degree of specialization in this case, result in very different power dynamics, which lead to a higher or lower degree of influence. Thus, studies focusing on the media or journalism from a holistic point of view would never be as accurate as those with more specific approaches.

Studies such as the one developed by Pincus et al. in 1993 on the differences between the perceptions of editors from general news, business and sports news differ, go in line with the results of this research, which suggest that lines between different journalistic practices should be drawn in order to have a more clear image of the power dynamics, and mutual perceptions and assessments involved in the source reporter relationship.

Hanusch (2012) followed the same direction when conducting a study focusing on the attitudes towards public relations of journalist from travel publications, paying special attention at the specific characteristics of that field that created a very high degree of dependence on PR sources, a situation which is again reflected by journalists from the specialized publications included in the sample of this research.

However, in the case of those journalists working for economic journals, which were included in the sample as specialized journalists, their answers in relation with the influence of practitioners and the power dynamics involved in the relationship go much more in line with those professionals working in generalist publications. The Pincus et al. study of 1993 which compared general news, sports, and business publications, also established that general news

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editors where those maintaining more negative ideas towards practitioners, while in the case of

sports, those perceptions where significantly much more positive. Business editors' perceptions, just like the business journalists in the present research, came to fall in the middle of the other two groups.

A closer look at the specific characteristics of the economic publication serves to explain these results. Being a business and economy specialized publication, Expansión, the diary included in the sample for this study, is also a daily publication. Among their target readers there are business men and women, and generally speaking highly educated and with a high purchasing power professionals, so advertising in this media includes a quite wide range of products, from banking and investing products, to different kinds of luxury consumer goods. As a result of this, their degree of dependence towards certain firms is much more similar to that one of generalist publications than those of specialized media.

When looking at the suggested by former research negative perceptions of journalists towards the Public Relations practice, this results of this research suggest a completely different situation. As stated by Mellado and Hanusch (2011) a clear focus in research on the relationship between journalists and PR practitioners has been on North America and European countries, suggesting that cultural factor may constitute one of the reasons why research in other parts of the world, in this case Latin American countries, goes in a different direction. Hofstede´s cultural dimensions theory could be used to explain why differences in terms of the degree of collectivism Vs individualism, group membership perceptions or power distance may cause these uncoincidental results in different parts of the world.

However, also countries with similarities with Anglo Saxon societies in terms of those Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, such as The Netherlands, present evidence of more positive assumptions and attitudes towards the PR profession than those suggested by the American

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tradition of the 70s and 80s. Neijens and Smit (2006) found out that professionals from both

sides did not perceive anything negative or unhealthy in their relationship, proposing again that cultural factors might be one of the key factors explaining these results, but adding another idea, on a more mature understanding of the roles and contributions of both sides’ professionals. A less idealistic perception of the journalistic profession contributes to generate awareness of the whole picture, including PR work in the source level, resulting in less negative images towards the profession as a hole.

As Shin and Cameron (2005) expressed “reporters may be constrained by organizational factor in their journalistic practice more than in previous eras because news organizations are increasingly under corporate umbrellas” and journalists are also increasingly aware of this situation. Based on this hypothesis on a more mature understanding of the relationships involved in the information process, the repetition of former studies on American journalists’ perceptions would result in quite different conclusions if carried nowadays. Journalists from the second decade of the 21st Century would probably rank PR practitioners much higher than in the 16th position in terms of professional status if Aronoff's study were replicated. This might be a good suggestion for future research, to determine the influence of that maturation process that the profession seems to have experienced in the last decades.

Limitations and future research

The first limitation of this study that should be pointed out has to do with the size of the sample. This research was developed as part of a three months Master Thesis track and with such a time constraint, the number of interviews carried out was quite limited. Transcribing the full length of recoded audio from the interviews constituted a very time consuming task which was carried out by a single person, and this fact limited substantially the number of participants in the study.

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In terms of the research design, the qualitative method used, including open-ended

questions, also constitutes another limitation. Although a quite fixed questionnaire was used, answers did not always fit in such a fixed structure. Interviewees tended to extensively explain their ideas on the topics, sometimes giving responses to still unasked questions or introducing other related topics. This gaps, differences in order, and overlapping due to this qualitative design, were corrected to some extent through the process of coding, as explained in the methods section. However, and in terms of reliability, this research is limited in this sense by its qualitative nature.

Another important limitation has to do with the selection of the sample. Most of the journalists interviewed commented that in a quite important number of cases, the pressures to publish certain stories due to partnerships, advertising relations, of even personal favors, happen at the editorial level. The person receiving the call from the practitioner is in many cases the chief editor, and not them, so although journalists are aware of the existence of those pressures; it is at the editors’ level where they take place. In order to have a complete image of the equation, future research should also include editors, who hold a better understanding of the corporate relations involving PR sources.

At the same time, future researchers should also try to throw some light on the influence of cultural factors involved in the source-reporter relationship. Although studies have being carried out on this field (covering many different aspects) in a few different cultural contexts, there is a general lack of coherence in terms of methodology, and those incoherencies might be in the list of reasons why so divergent results have being reported. A cross-cultural study with a similar structure for every national context would be very helpful in order to see to which extent certain cultural features, such as those Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, play a role in the equation of the source reporter relationship.

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The different features that characterize media should also be considered by future

researchers. Certain kinds of publications, such as consumer goods press, may have intrinsic characteristics which determine the nature of the source-reporter relationship. A more in depth analysis of those different journalistic practices in different media, such as the distinction established in this research between generalist and specialized media, is required in order to draw more lines, defining different journalistic activities and its characteristics (travel publications, sports publications, technology, sports, etc.), and approaching them as independent realities, no as part such a vague entity as the press or the media.

Finally, and having reviewed studies pointing in the direction of a negative image towards the PR profession transmitted to journalists in the academia and through educational texts (especially during the 80s and 90s decades), further research should look at those academic texts in more recent times in order to verify that hypothesis proposed by this research on the more mature understanding of both profession's role in a second decade of the 21st century context.

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