Also, many in PR are often too quiet about actions by an overzealous media attempting to make headlines and sell ink. Media oftentimes can endanger a client's business interests to the point of no return. Some reporters, believing they are doing a public service, or thinking a "hard hitting" exposé will get them broadly noticed have zero boundaries at all; pure ruthlessness, often believing they can dictate morality and attack someone, while few call into question the tactics of the reporter.
The media is supposed to be impartial players in the news reporting process. Reporters should give the public objective facts and not impose his or her opinion. Unless the role of the media, is as Howard Kurtz so aptly states regarding a similar incident involving Ken Silverstein to "lie, deceive and fabricate to get the story?"[ii]
Certain elements of the media seem to have no restrictions when it comes to destroying people, businesses and those they deem not to agree with. To me, it comes as little surprise that Payne is someone supposedly close to the Republicans in an election year. Most of American media today leans left and anything on the right is fodder for ideologues with a bully pulpit... that pulpit being a keyboard and the Internet.
Clients pay for positive outcomes, but also for protection from potential negatives. One cannot approach media feebly or even be lulled into thinking they are friends looking to serve the cause of justice. Journalists often claim a mantle of self-righteousness, self appointed and self governed; it neither makes them right nor gives them the right. The public can decide right from wrong based on objectivity.
I recall my recent experience when a Journalist at top tier investigative TV news program called me. The reporter relentlessly pursued an interview with my client, and we were not accepting any. I was running out of ways of saying "no" kindly. He called my client's office when he could not get me to move. He insisted on speaking with my client, yet I told him again politely "He's not interested." Making a long story short; he cursed, threatened, and bad-mouthed me, then he called for weeks on end. He could not get his way "" and was shocked.
Lobbyists, lobbying firms, PR agencies and the like exist to help influence public opinion. As long as the world has existed there have been people serving in those roles. Even God had Moses use his access to his "brother" Pharaoh to lobby the cause of the Hebrews. While of course Presidential libraries must not be built on bribes; being paid to perform a service and providing access are not bribes.
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