We Syracuse communications alumni are a loyal and sometimes cocky bunch.
We love our school and think it’s the best. We are often proven right. But when our beloved alma mater falls short of our expectations, we blow up each other’s texts with takes of embarrassment.
Political zealots could learn something from us. While true to our school, we’re not afraid to point out flaws and wish for better. This happened again this weekend.
The university was the focus of a New York Times column (read it here) on college financial aid, and Syracuse’s refusal to participate in the reporting of the piece, other than providing a statement, led to an unflattering, attention-grabbing headline and original graphic and overall uncomfortable, at best, portrayal. The Times would be considered a “key outlet” for SU, given its center of gravity in New York State and college-inclined readership.
I really try not to criticize decisions made after likely long conference calls and layers of leadership that I’m not a part of. But in this case, others have, and asked for my professional opinion. I told them I don’t know what happened here but I know what it looks like – something I see all the time:
The approach of a statement as a substitute for actual media relations has become an endemic fact of life across sectors, certainly in higher education but also very much in government and businesses or all sorts. I wrote about this two years ago and if anything, the situation has gotten worse. The university essentially submitted a PO for this very column by not being collaborative. This is what background and interviews are for. Tell the story, unless you can’t, for reasons such as litigation. Too many institutions think they are protecting themselves using only a statement as cover. We have seen cases like this where institutions convinced themselves it would be a “hit piece” and they would be better off with only a paragraph. In certain instances that’s right (a professional who has done this thousands of times over decades with many clients may be able to predict it accurately). But they are frequently wrong and their approach, and absence of voice, backfires.
Media relations used to be about, well, actually working with journalists. It was about not just avoiding saying the wrong thing but, instead, making sure you say the right thing. It was about skillfully using background and on the record conversations to educate journalists and balance a story. We used to deliver, and clients would listen to, the adage “if you don’t speak for yourself, others will gladly speak for you. And they won’t say what you want them to say.” But all of that increasing the chances of becoming moot when you only rely on a statement.
I never took a PR class at Syracuse or anywhere else. I was a broadcast journalism kid. But I’ve talked with many PR students from SU over 30+ years and have found them to be intelligent and curious. So I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that nobody’s teaching them that the way to handle a tough inquiry from a columnist is to say “F*** it. Just send a statement.”
Regardless of our university’s intentions in this case, I wish that message wasn’t being sent to them, and all audiences, either.