Phil Szomszor argues that we should be investing more energy in understanding the dynamics between content creators

“Brand journalism is a horrible oxymoron”

"Brand journalist”. Can you imagine having that on your business card? It’s the kind of job I would imagine the now unemployed Stewart Pearson from The Thick Of It is doing. ‘Brand journalist’ is not a title invented in Stewart’s dream yurt, but an increasingly discussed term. It’s the future of the media. Or is it journalism? Or PR?

Former FT journalist and Silicon Valley watcher Tom Foremski wrote, “I have little confidence in PR people becoming ‘brand journalists’ for the simple fact that PR is not journalism. There’s no such thing as brand journalism, or innovation journalism, or anything-else journalism. Journalism is journalism.”

For the most part I agree with Tom. Part of the problem is the term. Brand journalism is an oxymoron – and a pretty horrible-sounding one too. Branding is by its nature promotional and journalism should be balanced and probing. The background to all this is that media is becoming fragmented, brands are discovering that they can create their own content that consumers/business customers will engage with, and people want to interact with media.

Funnily enough, I don’t think the media’s ever been that comfortable with the interactivity element of citizen journalism, or blogging for that matter, and feels a bit threatened by the whole thing. It really shouldn’t. Journalism is essential for reporting, verification and analysis.

The media itself is very, very happy to get into bed with businesses to fund content, while journalists are flocking to work in PR departments or agencies. The problem is that simply hiring a journalist doesn’t make content compelling. Yes, there are some companies doing a good job of brand journalism, such as Robert Scoble at Rackspace, but by and large volume seems to outweigh quality.

The fact is that the dynamics have changed. We can all see that the media doesn’t control the message any more. There’s a complex interdependency between three groups: the media, organisations (e.g. businesses, government, charities) and individuals.

All of these groups create content, conversations and stories – let’s call it ‘stuff’. Stuff is created, shared and endorsed by various parties. A group of people might attend an event organised by a business and tweet about it. The event is also written up by a journalist and live-blogged by the brand (probably employing the journalist’s former colleague!).

We see this in practice over and over. Whether it’s election debates, the X Factor, or a product launch, these three are almost always present, vying for attention but mutually dependent. In fact, I think it works best when these groups actually feed off each other. A company’s blog - which is often a dressed up piece of marketing collateral - doesn’t often get comments. How many more people would view that blog if it was discussed in a newspaper column?

Some people will like the stuff they read, hear or watch; others won’t. The question is how to decide – and measure – what is the most influential stuff. For me, a big factor for the communications industry is trust.

So, when an organisation puts a story on its website, does the customer take it seriously? When the media breaks a story, do its readers believe it’s true? And when customers tweet about their experiences or comment on blogs, do companies respond, and do other customers take heed?

When it comes down to it, the question of brand journalism becomes irrelevant: the role of public relations is to try and marshal these three groups, measure what’s working and help various parties earn trust. It’s something we all need to work on together.

Phil Szomszor is head of business and digital at Firefly Communications