Communications as Ikor

Strategic Corporate Journalism  < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

흥미있는 책 하나를 소개할까합니다.

두어달 전에 나온 책인데, 그 제목에서 내세운 새로운 개념이 참 흥미롭습니다. “전략적 기업 져널리즘의 힘(The Power of Strategic Corporate Journalism)..아마 처음 들어들 보셨을 껍니다. 이 책은 작년에 발간 되었던Spin Cycle : Inside Clinton’s Propaganda Machine과도 혼동이 될 것 같은 비슷한 이름을 가지고 있습니다. 위의 두 책이 모두 Spin이라는 단어를 쓰고 있습니다. 많은 Media Relations관련 책들에서 굉장히 흔하게 쓰이는 단어가 바로 이 스핀(Spin)이라는 단어입니다. 실제로는 “실을 잣다”, “(팽이등을) 회전시키다” 등등의 의미가 있습니다. 그러나 저희쪽에서 쓰는 의미로는 “회전시켜 방향을 바꾸다”라는 말이 더 가치가 있겠지요.

 

이번 소개하는 이 책에서는 이러한 종래의 MR(Media Relations)인들이 가지던 Spin의 개념을 넘어서기를 권장하고 있습니다. “Beyond Spin”- 의미 있는 말이지요. 그러면서 작자들이 제시한 신개념이 ‘전략적 기업 져널리즘’이라는 단어입니다.

 

이책에서 작자들은 기업 내부의 Corporate Communication조직의 성격이 완전히 오픈되고 민주화 되어야 하는 시대가 왔다고 봅니다. 그리고 CC담당자들의 역활이 단순한 MR을 넘어서 양질의 정보의 발견, 가공, 제공, 강화하는 적극적인 정보조직의 일원이 되어야 한다는 비젼을 제시하고 있습니다. 기업의 커뮤니케이션 전략에 져널리즘의 원칙들을 혼합하여 더욱 먹기좋은 정보를 구축하는 역할을 우리 PR인이 해야 한다!!- 당연하지만 비젼적인 이야기를 자세히 하고있습니다. 그러면 어떤 원칙들이 그러한 전략적 기업 져널리즘의 의미를 구축하는가는 아래의 글을 읽어보시면 알수 있으실 껍니다. 

 

PR의 조직은 기업조직 내부에서 가장 원할하고 효율적으로 조직 관리 되어져야 할 핵심입니다. 또한 그 조직의 역할도 가장 먼저 발전적 변화를 선도해야 합니다. 이러한 예는 선진국의 대기업들게게서 너무나 흔하게 찾아볼 수 있습니다. 강력한 PR조직 만이 글로벌 경영을 가능케하는 전제 조건입니다. 커뮤니케이션 할수 없는 기업은 살아있다고 볼수없기 때문입니다. 그러나 이제는 너무나 당연한 하나의 기본 조건으로서의 커뮤니케이션을 넘어, 정보를 다루는 더욱 포괄적 정보 커뮤니케이션 활동이 우리 PR인들에게는 절실히 요구되고 있습니다.

 

그런 의미에서 이 책 Beyond Spin은 우리가 새천년에 가져야 할 직업적 비젼을 제시하고 있다고 보는 것이 맞을 것 같습니다. 기업을 둘러싼 모든 정보환경의 중심에 저희 PR인이 서있다는 그림을 머리에 그리며 크리스마스 이브인 오늘 행복해 하고 싶습니다. 우리에게는 큰 비젼과 사회에서 요구하는 절실한 역할이 있다는 기쁨.. 산타가 가져다주는 선물같이 느껴집니다.

 

여러분 메리 크리스마스 보내십시오.. 미끄러운 길 조심들 하시고요.. 

행복하십시오.. With PR !!

 

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Beyond Spin:

The Power Of Strategic Corporate Journalism

 

Once upon a time, American companies behaved like dictatorships, with the bosses at the top directing the workers down below.

 

Their corporate communications offices acted like the Soviet Union’s Pravda,spouting the party line to employees who had few other sources of information.

 

These days, however, companies behave more like democracies, with dispersed authority and wide empowerment of employees. Corporate communications,however, hasn’t kept up. Some CEOs still like to think they can control the flow and content of information, telling workers only what they want them to know, when they want them to know it.

 

They’re wrong, of course. The new technology has given employees countless sources of information. The water cooler gossip circle has spread via faxes, voice mail, cell phones, pagers, e-mail and the World Wide Web, not to mention the daily newspaper and the six o’clock news.

 

Misinformation and rumor spread as quickly as the morning’s headlines, and employees can quickly become skeptical – or even cynical-if the corporate powers try to feed them some unlikely scenario.

 

That’s why corporate communications departments need to evolve from Pravda into something more like The New York Times, offering in-depth, factual,timely information to benefit today’s knowledgeable workforce.

 

In their new book, Beyond Spin: The Power of Strategic Corporate Journalism (Jossey-Bass Publishers, October 1999, ISBN: 0-7879-4550-1, $27.00, Hardcover, 288 pages), co-authors Markos Kounalakis, Drew Banks and Kim Daus make a compelling case for establishing a corporate  communications office that offers the kind of information available from top-flight journals and deadline-driven broadcast media, and the authors provide step-by-step guidance for how to do it.

 

The authors call their new platform Strategic Corporate Journalism – the blending of journalistic principles with organizational communications strategies. Here are some requirements to make the new Strategic Corporate Journalism work for your company:

 

* Credibility. Trying to put a spin on information just leads to a disillusioned workforce. “As with the free press in this new world,” the authors write, “credibility is the only currency a corporation has with its shareholders, customers, suppliers, partners, and employees. The knowledge-based corporation may not be financially bankrupt if it does not follow these principles and practices, but it can lose the intellectual capital that is necessary for innovation and to maintain a competitive edge.”

 

* Competition. “This idea that an internal news organization should compete with the plethora of external and structurally independent information sources is sometimes difficult to accept. But the seamlessness and transparency of the information flow today does not label information that arrives as internal or external – it only allows for the information to be assessed by its recipient as either more credible or less credible.”

 

* Timeliness. Employees want to get the corporate news first. They particularly don’t want to hear about bad news from external sources. “If layoffs are being planned or conducted, it is no longer acceptable to employees that they discover this on the radio while driving into work or in their morning paper as they sit down to breakfast.”

 

* Accuracy. Misinformation is the only thing worse than no information at all. But accuracy can be complicated. “As in the world of daily journalism, getting the facts straight and getting them first is not necessarily the same as getting the story right. The context has to be correct. The story needs integrity. ‘Get it first…but get it right’ is even more critical in a competitive business context because it can make a difference in a corporation’s survival.”

 

* Free press. While a newspaper editor and publisher may encourage a reporter to seek out a controversial story or kill a bland one, this relationship can be harder to come by in Strategic Corporate Journalism. But it’s crucial to success. “Where a corporation’s purpose is clear and the publisher is aligned with that corporation’s purpose, mission, and values, then the publisher needs to be given the freedom and management acceptance to pursue the independently-decided necessary stories,” the authors write. “If management is pushing the publisher to do a feel-good piece on something that is irrelevant to the purpose or contrary to the values of the corporation, the publisher needs to have the guts, authority, smarts, and editorial clarity to counter the request when appropriate.”

 

* By-lines. “One way to promote accuracy is through a journalistic method of ‘by-lines’ whereby accountability for truth and accuracy of information is directly assigned. A look at the majority of corporate websites reveals news and information that has no authorship. This allows the corporate party line to be processed and pasteurized until all the flavor and nutrition have been extracted.”

 

* Multi-sourcing. “Reporters in the journalism world are encouraged to get multiple sources for their stories in order to guarantee accuracy….Cross-checking engineering, financial, and marketing perspectives, for example, usually uncovers corporate ‘inaccuracies’ that, if published one dimensionally, lead to spin. Accuracy is the goal and credibility is the reward for these types of corporate forays.”

 

Beyond Spin gives corporate communicators a whole new bag of tools with which to improve the quality of information provided to their coworkers. Corporate leaders would be wise to make use of them.

 

About the book: Beyond Spin: The Power of Strategic Corporate Journalism (Jossey-Bass Publishers, October 1999, ISBN: 0-7879-4550-1, $27.00, Hardcover, 288 pages) is available in bookstores nationwide, by calling 1-800-956-7739 or via www.josseybass.com.