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As a young reporter, I viewed PR professionals as something to work around. At least, that’s how I viewed them when I was feeling charitable.

To be sure, there were PR folks I liked and trusted, but my broader perspective was not uncommon among journalists — and it’s one that remains rooted in some truth. Then as now, there were some PR professionals trying to prevent journalists from doing their jobs. They could make it difficult to get access and candor. They put processes in place that were cumbersome or even ridiculous.

But as a young reporter I didn’t fully appreciate the ways PR professionals could and did help journalists do their jobs. And while journalists and PR professionals are not – and should not be – too cozy, it’s clear that the relationship between public relations and journalism could be important in fighting one of the more pernicious threats of our time: fake news.

Fake news is a common enemy for journalism and PR. It also was the subject of a research report Greentarget released late last month, just a week before voting day in one of the most tumultuous U.S. elections in decades.

The ‘Reality-Based Press’

In a recent column assessing news media efforts of the past four years, the Washington Post’s media columnist Margaret Sullivan used the term “reality-based press” to describe the news media that relies on traditional journalistic principles. It’s troubling that such a term is even necessary – and Sullivan’s not the only one using similar language — but it helps understand Greentarget’s point of view.

While the news media’s record is far from unblemished, the credibility it earns by being right more than it’s wrong and by trying to live up to a set of standards is important. In an era when it’s never been easier to disseminate information, or harder to tell information from misinformation, grounding journalism in reality – by reporting facts that journalists have made every effort to verify and substantiate – is critical for a host of reasons, including the credentialing of media outlets.

Readers, in their capacity as citizens, voters and businesspeople, need to be able to trust what’s reported by these outlets. Their trust is vital to the functioning of our democracy, our market economy and our daily lives. Without reliable information, we can’t make informed decisions about who to vote for, where to invest or, for instance, how to wear a mask to protect against a deadly airborne virus.

For public relations firms like Greentarget, which seek to give thought leaders the opportunity to express their points of view, the existence of a credible, reality-based news media is crucial. Fake news as it’s most aptly defined — false, fabricated or unverifiable stories – creates chaos and has a collective effect of delegitimizing media outlets.

Journalists Look Past (and Before) Trump When it Comes to Fake News

These issues spurred Greentarget to survey journalists. We focused in part on whether a change in Washington would help beat back fake news in the eyes of journalists. We figured that there wasn’t anyone better suited to assess the situation – but the survey results were simultaneously distressing and hopeful.

Journalists were fairly pessimistic about whether a Trump loss would improve things, despite Trump’s unprecedented battles with the news media, marked by consistent accusations of fake news against journalists and relentless misinformation from the president himself. But the journalists rightly pointed out that the roots of fake news predate Trump and predicted that the problems would outlast him.

Journalists were adamant that fake news negatively impacts journalism and largely feel that fake news is more dangerous than no news. But the journalists we surveyed also were clear that they thought they should be the ones to fight fake news – that despite the brutal job losses and financial hits to the news media over the past 15 years, journalism remained the best antidote.

Journalists Inspiring … PR Professionals?

In some ways, their gumption is inspiring, because it indicates that journalists simply refuse to give up despite the challenges they face. But considering public sentiment – Gallup reported in September that six in 10 Americans have little or no trust in the media – good faith efforts by journalists to turn the tide simply might not be enough.

Most of the reporters and editors we surveyed said fighting fake news shouldn’t be the responsibility of the government, perhaps not surprising given journalists’ ingrained devotion to the First Amendment. But other parties, including digital platforms like Facebook and Google, which have extraordinary power to disseminate information, could play a huge role. Interestingly, 56 percent of the journalists we surveyed pointed to social media as the single greatest threat regarding fake news distribution.

That made us wonder if public relations could play a role. Some research has revealed passivity among PR practitioners in addressing fake news. In light of our survey results and current events, we at Greentarget simply, but vigorously, reject that approach.

What PR Can (and Should) Do

There are ways our industry can and should help. That’s why as part of the report and separately we’re releasing the pledge below as part of our commitment to fighting fake news – and we hope other PR professionals will abide by it as well.

Some of the pledge has been part of Greentarget’s ethos since our founding – and we believe our work to provide reporters with credible sources who can help make sense of what’s going on helps journalists regain the credibility that is essential to combatting fake news. But we’re choosing this moment to formalize our thinking – and we’re going a step further by committing to working toward broader media literacy. That includes working with a group of Chicago high school students in 2021 to help them understand the fundamentals of public relations – and how to identify fake news.

Our research report is indicative of our organization’s commitment and its evolving thinking. Journalists might feel like the responsibility of fighting fake news rests solely on their shoulders. But given the stakes – not only for our industry but, more importantly, for our democracy – it’s time for the PR industry to step up.

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It is time for business leaders to develop enlightened positions on social issues that are also authentic, constructive and on-brand for a new generation of ‘citizen consumers.’

To say that 2020 has been a challenging year would be a gross understatement. 

But the unprecedented chaos and confusion, our annus horribilis, has delivered a string of revelations for business leaders – revelations that will have lasting implications.

One of the most profound: Leaders in the private sector can no longer comfortably avoid taking an unambiguous and very public stance on what had been traditionally viewed as “social sector issues” such as climate change, racial injustice and economic disparity. 

The reason is simple enough yet – still – not widely accepted: Social challenges are business challenges. From the violent union struggles and workers’ strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; to the Great Depression and Cold War eras; to the civil rights and women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s; right up to the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter protests of the current day, business leaders have, time and again, been assigned a hard but necessary task, and that is to design strategies to respond to wide-scale social conflicts that impact those who produce and sell products and services as well as those who consume them – i.e., people.

There was a time when the C-suite grudgingly stepped up to meet an obligatory commitment to social responsibility simply to stay clear of bad publicity – and to keep the CEO out of the proverbial hot seat. But things have changed – dramatically. There are new, earnest expectations, articulated and memorialized by Business Roundtable in 2019, for businesses to true up on social responsibility in the belief that what is good for the planet and the society upon it is, in fact, good for business.

Therein lies another challenge for business leaders: How does a company effectively develop and communicate a position on key issues in a way that is constructive and not just reactive or performative? And is it even possible to do this while staying on-brand?  

Answering that question, nearly a decade after Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer said CSR should be framed as a shared value that will deliver on unmet social needs, is more pertinent now than ever.

“I see this [conundrum] not as a dichotomy, but as a continuum with different poles,” said Caroline Grossman, executive director of the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “At one end, CSR is about positive impact on the planet’s most pressing problems, and at the other end it’s greenwashing. Risk mitigation falls somewhere in the middle.” 

Getting to a meaningful place on this spectrum is about asking questions, sometimes tough questions – the most interesting of which focus on understanding why this new approach to key issues is, actually, good business.

Drawing from the Past – and Other Industries

Companies, specifically C-suites within those companies, should incorporate key questions as a strategy exercise or strategy reorientation. 

This approach has become increasingly common across industries, said Grossman, whose research center supports people committed to helping solve complex social and environmental problems. “Some dramatic examples are companies founded on innovation that itself has the potential for outsize impact.”

Take plant-based meat. Grossman points out that Beyond Meat had a successful IPO last year and, as of this writing, is trading well above the offering price (even after a recent plunge). Impossible Foods, based on current research, is not planning an IPO but continues to attract investors. Both companies are also drawing attention from companies like Walmart, Kroger, Burger King and Amazon, and McDonald’s just announced a new “McPlant” line for 2021.

“I don’t think these retailers and restaurants stock plant-based meat because of CSR but because they think it is good business,” Grossman said.

Tables Have Turned

In the latter part of the last century, the most successful American corporations were uniquely positioned to drive consumer habits. One need only think of Nike, Google and Apple when it comes to what is now socially expected of us when it comes to deciding what athletic shoes we should wear, what email service we should use and what smartphones we should palm.

During the last six months, however, there has been a noticeable shift. After a ponderous and reactive response in the first weeks of the pandemic and then widespread protests, the social – social concerns, social issues, social anxieties – became a bigger influencer of big business. 

As a placard at a Black Lives Matter protest in Chicago this summer read: “no justice = no peace and no profit.” [Emphasis added.]

Ideally, however, business leaders are not acting solely out of financial self-interest. Recent events should be spurring them to consider the concept of social responsibility as a vital part of business – an essential, indeed intrinsic, component nested within any for-profit enterprise. 

Currently, there is strong support from consumers and investors for positive social/business impact. in Aflac’s 2019 CSR Survey, 82% of consumers said that companies bear responsibility for “making the world a better place,” ahead of the 75% who selected “making money for its shareholders.” Nearly all investors surveyed, unsurprisingly, placed importance on making money for shareholders (93%), but a similar portion of investors said that making the world a better place was important.

“I believe every business is inextricably linked to social responsibility. It is now part of our culture,” said Diane Primo, CEO of Purpose Brand Agency, an award-winning public relations, branding and digital marketing firm. “Even asset managers, investment bankers and financial giants are evaluating companies that do not comply with extensive ESG matrices.”

Primo’s insights reveal something else. Present-gen consumers have awakened to the fact that they hold real power – buying power – and they are quickly giving way to what will surely be a new demo for the 21st century: citizen consumer.

“What consumers care about, and how much they care, is redefining social responsibility,” Primo said. “Shared activism in combination with digital engagement is shifting culture quickly. We witness shifting perceptions as Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 spread and corporate responsibility evolves.”

This “evolution” was one of the reasons GreenHouse and Greentarget, in partnership with LAB/Amsterdam, launched Immediate Frontier. An independent research and innovation initiative, it was designed in part as a model for leaders to better see how to engage with the concept of CSR in a new, more holistic, less compartmentalized way. 

Some business leaders are ahead of the curve, Primo said.

“Public companies are already undergoing significant change,” she said. “As powerful consumer action groups team with investment groups to modify sales and reduce capital flows, change will happen – and quickly.”

X (and Boomers) Includes Y and Z Now

The fact that more leaders are willing to tackle issues that would not have seemed relevant to a for-profit entity’s business goals previously seems all the more natural, indeed necessary, as one contemplates another revelation: These social issues, now front and center, are leading the way to entirely new value propositions for corporations – and serving up impressive business outcomes.  

But present-gen leaders – Gen Xers and, in some cases, Boomers – shouldn’t bear this burden alone, nor are they capable of taking it on, experts suggest. Next-gen leaders deserve a seat at the table. 

Grossman, who teaches a CSR course at Booth, said young leaders take a long view and have sprung into action when it comes to the pandemic and helping Black-owned businesses.

“The next generation is demanding that business does things differently,” Grossman said. “[They’re] challenging leadership to take issues of diversity, equity and inclusion into account.”

Students are eager to jump in to think about social issues in a business context, and vice versa. And, Grossman said, the leaders at companies that sponsor the course at Booth are listening to fresh, new perspectives and straight-up challenges that students bring to the experience.  

“It’s critical for me to connect with all of [Rustandy’s] stakeholders – students, faculty, alumni, social sector practitioners and business leaders,” she said. “But it turns out that it’s the students who always ask the toughest questions.”

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New research by communications firm Greentarget examines fakes news’ effect and origins, prescribes action for preserving the integrity and value of journalism.

Chicago, October 27, 2020 – A polarized media environment and cries of “fake news” – often from the highest levels of government – that greet publication of even the most rigorous reporting have eroded journalists’ hope for their profession’s future, according to a new study released today by strategic communications firm Greentarget.

The outcome of the November election won’t change that outlook, the journalists who took the survey say – but at the same time, they firmly believe journalists themselves are in the best position to fight the threat of fake news.

Fake News 2020, a research project conducted in July, August and September 2020, queried more than 100 journalists, half of whom have worked in the profession for more than 20 years. The report addresses the origins and definition of fake news, as well as potential remedies for its creation and dissemination. And it shows that despite President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on the press, journalists don’t expect broader improvement if Joe Biden wins next month’s presidential election.

“These survey results are significant because they gauge the sentiment of a broad swath of professional journalists at a crucial moment in history,” said John E. Corey, founding partner of Greentarget. “We work with some of the most talented and experienced  journalists in the world on a daily basis – and even we were taken aback by the level of pessimism and the lack of clarity around how to address and ultimately correct the growing prevalence of mis- and disinformation.”

“That was part of the reason why we went beyond simply reporting these results and conclude our report with actionable guidance that everyone in the news ecosystem –journalism schools and think tanks, public relations practitioners and newsrooms – can and should embrace. We did this because we understand the critical role journalism plays in the healthy functioning of democracy and the free market.”

Fake News 2020’s Top Findings

  • Fake News Has Hurt Journalism: 80 percent of respondents strongly believe fake news has negatively impacted their profession, and 14 percent say they somewhat believe that it has. Further, the journalists surveyed say fake news fosters multiple prejudices and distorts the public’s understanding of current events.
  • Don’t Expect It to Get Better Under Biden: One in four respondents say Trump has had a significantly negative impact on journalism. But just 46 percent feel optimistic about journalism’s future under a new president, and 43 percent say they are indifferent on the question. The survey, conducted when it was clear that Biden would oppose Trump in November, clearly indicates that after years of attacks on journalists’ credibility and a steady erosion in trust, a sense of fatalism has settled in.
  • Journalists Still Want to Fight the Good Fight: Despite their pessimism, journalists surveyed believe they (reporters, editors and news councils or journalism organizations) are best positioned to vet fake news and identify misleading information. Only 12 percent think the government should call out fake news. Relatedly, only about four in 10 support or strongly support using the law to curb fake news.
  • Fake News Remains Difficult to Define: Part of the problem is that fake news can mean different things to different people – even journalists. About a third of our respondents say fake news is disinformation (false information knowingly spread with the intent to deceive), while another third say it is misinformation (false or misleading information spread by those who believe it to be true). Twenty-two percent equate fake news with propaganda.

 How to Combat the Fake News Epidemic

The report concludes by laying out a series of actions PR professionals can take to fight fake news. The measures include supporting reporters and editors, stressing ethics and transparency, putting the audience first and broadly advocating against fake news.

Greentarget pledges to follow these steps and encourages other PR practitioners to do the same.

“Long before fake news was part of the common vernacular, the principles of journalism – and the role they play in contributing to smarter, richer and more balanced conversations – have been fundamental to our business,” said Lisa Seidenberg, Greentarget’s vice president for media relations. “We know how important journalism is in our work to help organizations establish unique positions of authority, and we encourage all PR professionals and influential voices in the news ecosystem to support rigorous, responsible journalism. The success of our work depends on the steady flow of reliable information and stemming the tide of fake news is good for our industry and, more broadly, our society.”

A full version of Fake News 2020 is available here. For more information, contact Lisa Seidenberg at lseidenberg@greentarget.com or (312) 252-4108.

About Greentarget

Greentarget is a strategic public relations firm that helps leading law firms, accounting firms, management consulting, real estate and financial services organizations create unique positions of authority through skillful participation in the conversations that matter most to their key stakeholders. With 60 professionals in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London, Greentarget combines earned media, research and market intelligence, content and publishing, digital strategy and amplification, and special situations counsel to help clients grow market share, attract leading talent and achieve a higher purpose. For more information, visit www.greentarget.com.

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Advising business leaders in 2020 means helping them see through the fog of a pandemic, run their businesses from afar and keep themselves safe, not to mention sane. For the marketers who support advisors, it’s critical to stay abreast of those leaders’ fears and challenges, the shifting and often distorted market dynamics they’re facing, the opportunities they’re discerning, and even their personal travails.

Enter voice of the client (VoC) research, a tool for helping professional service firms get multi-faceted understandings of clients’ needs, expectations and most importantly, their pain points.

Built through client interviews, focus groups or surveys, VoC research arms marketers with a wealth of insights. It delivers individual insights that fuel business development, organic growth and client retention. And it produces broader qualitative data the firm can use to identify market challenges and opportunities.

The pain points unearthed in VoC research also fuel stronger thought-leadership research. After discussing their own business and professional challenges, interviewees generally get more candid and insightful on industry topics and trends. The resulting insights add depth, credibility and authority to a firm’s thought leadership – and turning it into a valuable business development tool.

Voice of the Client Research: Interview Best Practices

Research into client pain points aims to first understand what keeps the client up at night and where they seek guidance. The interview findings inform how the firm serves its client’s business, but the priorities and opinions of each individual interviewee matter too. Topics, for example, could be:

  • Attitudes about where their business was, where it is now, and where it’s going
  • Constraints that prevent them from accomplishing more, personally and organizationally
  • What better outcomes would look like from both personal and organizational perspectives
  • Assessment of the most pressing and emerging business and legal risks and opportunities

For example, when a law-firm client wanted to evaluate the ways it assigned and delegated work, we conducted interviews with clients that produced blunt insights on where the firm’s approach diverged from its clients’ business objectives. The firm responded by reconfiguring the project management process and tailoring roles and responsibilities according to project scope.

While pain points are the primary focus of the interviews, the conversations often lead to insights on where the advisor or firm have fallen short. The conversations can evolve into discussions of the subtleties that advisors can’t see from the outside – how a particular business’s needs are different than others in its industry, for example.

Clients may not be expecting those discussions. But business leaders always appreciate transparency and candor. And while the conversations occasionally get awkward, pushing through the awkward moments breaks down communication barriers. Knowing their outside advisors care enough to ask makes clients eager to open up.

Picking the right interviewer

It’s important to think about who’s asking the questions. Putting interviews in the hands of a trained researcher always pays dividends; aptitude in eliciting candor, probing for fresh insights and analyzing the interview content will ensure nobody’s time feels wasted. And interviewees tend to be more candid with a third party.

At the same time, the firm has to be a collaborator – connecting the interviewee with the interviewer, introducing the project and process through an initial email or phone call. The advisor or firm rep should also thoroughly brief the interviewer on any pertinent issues. For the interviewee to feel at ease, the interviewer should understand the relationship history and any hot button issues.

The right approach for your clients – and for you

There are several options for undertaking this type of research. Selecting one approach versus another depends upon the topics and objectives at hand:

  • One-on-one, in-depth interviews often make the most sense for pain points research. There are situations where clients will dish frank insights if they feel they’re engaged in conversation with an audience of one and that person is a trained moderator who they can trust to report the conversation accurately – and with the right discretion.
  • Focus groups, online or in-person, can reveal challenges and serve as forums for testing potential solutions. In some cases, it’s preferable to have a group of peers weigh in on business pain points in an iterative discussion, particularly if a firm wants to get a sense for differing priorities among executives in different roles. The CFO and CMO may be thinking about the same problem with very different levels of urgency, for example. 

    Working on behalf of a financial institution, Greentarget moderated an online discussion between attorneys, claims administrators and the judiciary regarding pain points in class action settlements. Each group provided a different level of awareness about our client’s capabilities (and letting them interact with each other enhanced the discussion). Our findings gave the client a road map for determining which of their services and audiences – clients and prospects – deserved greater focus and attention.
  • Online surveys can also foster pain point conversations. Greentarget sees stronger data sets overall – with more decisive opinions – when we kick off a survey with a series of thoughtful questions around how respondents are feeling and where they are most desperate for guidance. In a recent survey about business operations in Latin America, we uncovered a business challenge that had not been directly addressed in messaging by any of the respondent’s outside counsel. It was easy for our law firm client to address the issue – but they didn’t know about it until we asked the right questions in the right setting.

Turning interviewees into advocates

Finally, engaging clients in one-on-one or small-group interviews, even surveys, can generate advocacy. There are a couple of important considerations for professional service providers here – and they should be considered in advance, lest an interviewee feel his or her insights were wasted or commoditized.

First, the firm should have a clear follow-up plan. Keeping in touch with the interviewees through individual outreach, even with just a summary of the interview content, can prove important in generating their long-term advocacy. Second, in cases where VoC research is part of a thought leadership initiative, the firm should have a clearly defined role for interviewees in the resulting article or report. In some cases, it may have an opportunity to quote them as experts.

Steve Jobs once urged companies to get as close as possible to customers, “So close that you can tell them what they need before they realize it themselves.” Getting to that level of intimacy takes more than treating clients to the occasional dinner – especially in the social-distancing era.

Asking the right questions, in the right moments, knowing how to process the answers and acting on the results helps a firm stay a step ahead of its clients’ needs.

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In the age of information overload, connecting with an audience requires knowing exactly what they want – and how to give it to them.

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The idea was straightforward but big: Identify the norms that govern the ways we work and the spaces we work in to better understand how those norms shape workplace wellness. The goal was to help corporate America reduce employee burnout, attract talent and build healthier organizations.

To accomplish this, Greentarget and two partners planned to convene a roundtable of experts from an array of industries through the new Immediate Frontier initiative. On February 4, we announced that the roundtable would happen in late April.

In between, of course, the world changed on us.

Without the ability to bring a group of experts together and amid the chaos of the abrupt work-from-home transition, we seriously considered spiking the project. But then we realized that finding solutions around work, wellness and space had just become more important than ever.

We just needed a new approach – so we created one. We call it qualitative, consultative research.

And that approach is fueling Work, Wellness & Space, the inaugural research offering by Immediate Frontier. The project, which is a partnership between  GreenHouse::Innovation and Greentarget in special collaboration with Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam, launches today.

How We Got to the New Approach

If our task became more important in March, it also became more difficult. Decision-makers around the globe didn’t just face an economic disruption in the wake of COVID-19, they also faced momentous questions about how work would continue in the months and years ahead.

We could have pivoted to a traditional quantitative survey, but we knew (even from brief conversations with decision-makers in March) that direct conversations would be the best way to thoroughly explore attitudes and opinions. We considered a video roundtable, but finding a mutually agreeable time when many participants were dealing with critical business issues seemed tone-deaf and unlikely to work.

Instead, we set about a series of one-on-one qualitative interviews with experts in commercial real estate, architecture, medicine, design and several other fields. But from the earliest moments of our earliest conversations, we saw that these weren’t just interviews. They were consultative discussions.

How the New Approach Works

A good analogy is traditional beat reporting, in which a reporter, after months or years covering similar topics, develops knowledge bordering on expertise, enabling her to ask better questions and write more fully developed, insightful stories. Over the course of two months, our team began that journey through a combination of seeking out top experts, asking informed questions and knowing our stuff better every day.

We pulled this off through close collaboration with our Content & Editorial Strategy team, which has a strong background in journalism, and our Research & Market Intelligence team, which has years of experience in qualitative research. The new approach also benefitted from the willingness of our research participants to hop on Zoom within a few days’ notice.

This all led to something we hadn’t expected, something we think we can replicate. While providing guidance in research reports is something we’ve done for years, we were able to test possible guidance before findings were released by bouncing one expert’s view off others. And by bringing actionable insights from one related field to another – e.g., telling a commercial real estate executive what we heard from a healthcare executive and discussing why and how that mattered – we connected some interesting dots.

The Result

This approach has fueled a research report – the first chapter of which we’ll release today – covering a bevy of work, wellness and space issues. As decision-makers around the world think about what their offices will look like, how workspaces will function and how employees’ wellness can be reimagined, the work we’ve done through qualitative, consultative research has provided an important perspective on what appears to be a generational inflection point. It has also afforded the ability to iterate and advance the conversation as the impact of the pandemic evolves in tandem with the release of our research report chapters.

We believe our findings could help pave a way forward – one that perhaps leads to greater workplace wellness. We’ll release the results each week between now and Labor Day.

We hope our insights spark broader conversations that help decision-makers at a critical time and that improve the interplay between work, wellness and space for years to come.

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