You learn a lot of interesting stuff when you are working for an international PR company.
Obviously, the day-to-day work handled by our French, Germany and UK offices, such as drafting press releases and articles, varies greatly in style. Even some typing conventions aren’t the same – at first I thought that double spacing between sentences was a mistake…
But perhaps one of the biggest differences between media relations here in Germany and in the English-speaking world is around quote approval. Indeed, I was quite surprised when I first learnt that this practice isn’t very common outside of Germany.
The fact that German newspapers and magazines ask for authorisation of quotes before publishing them doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs and politicians get to censor their texts. Here are some interesting examples from Handelsblatt and taz of how journalists treated over-enthusiastic/self-appointed ‘editors’. Cases like these make quote approval a regular topic of discussion in the German media and when the New York Times announced it had had enough of US politicians insisting they should sign off their quotes, several journalists once again expressed their views on the topic.
These opinions are quite diverse, with those on both sides of the argument making good points. But there are two things I found especially interesting about the debate: firstly, only journalists have expressed their opinions and, secondly, there seems to be more or less no middle ground between those who are for and those who are against the practice.
So I wanted to use this opportunity to express my point of view. Quote approval is both a tough and delicate job for PR professionals. We obviously have to do the basics, like check our own notes from the interview to see if the content matches, as well as do the fact checking – which is especially crucial in the field of tech. We also have to liaise with every relevant person and department at our client to ensure they’re all happy with the content. This can be a lot of people, especially if it’s a public enterprise: management, marketing, tech specialists and, in some cases, the legal department.
During this process we sometimes have to justify every quote. Everyone likes to tinker, but if too many people want to make edits during this approval process, the quote can soon become completely unrecognisable, with new phrases inserted and sentences that were said struck out. But just as unforgivable as rewriting a journalist’s work is allowing them to publish an interview containing factual errors. This means there can be no shortcuts when it comes to the approval process.
Personally, I still think the practice of quote approval is a good thing but it will always mean us PRs have to tread a very fine line between making sure our clients aren’t misquoted or misunderstood, while at the same time not telling journalists how to do their jobs.
Comments