Corporate News: Telling Us Everything We Need to Know

Chris Jewett
cj083711@ohio.edu

Corporate news is not new.  It goes back at least 100 years to its beginning as the source for local news in so-called company towns.  These towns developed around a primary local business such as steel mills, coal mining or chocolate.

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These businesses were the epicenter of the local economy.  Basically, everything that happened was in some way dependent on the main source of employment.  As such, they had some control of most activities in the area, including the company store and often being the primary supplier of the news.  This was true in the small mining towns throughout Appalachia as well as Hershey, Pa which was referenced in this weeks reading: The Invasion of Corporate News.

As was discussed in the article, this type of corporate news was generally full of all types of stories of local interest.  Mixed in with that news was material that was little more than advertising for the company hidden inside a story.

Another method for a company to reach potential customers and to let the world know what they are up to is through the media.  Generally, this is through some type of public relations operation.  Here is where things can go a couple different directions.

For the small to medium size business with modest means, an in-house PR team may not be an option.  They do, however, have options.  As an example, a simple search turned up a company called Meltwater.  They offer companies services to help present companies to the public and potential customers via the media.  They also, give advice as to the best ways fashion stories so that the media will want to cover them.  This appears to be an ethical way for a company to ethically market their business.

The greatest potential for crossing the line between ethical and unethical activity seems to arise with large corporations and those with deep pockets.  They have the ability to employ PR organizations capable of creating and presenting high-quality marketing materials and press releases.  Company PR chooses the topics to be presented and any supporting facts they wish to present.

With almost unlimited access to the public through social media and other digital platforms, they have the ability to bypass traditional journalists.  The danger here lies in the fact that there is no opportunity for challenges to be made to the information presented or for an in-person interview to be conducted.

One of the most amazing things I saw from the reading was the Advanced Energy for Life campaign.  In this article, there was a reference to the United Nations goal of cutting global poverty by half by 2015 and then stating that there were still 3.5 billion people in a state of energy poverty.  That at best is a poor comparison.  At worst, it's a purposely misleading false equivalency.

As social media and digital platforms continue to demand a larger percentage of media consumption, the consumer is going to have to become more vigilant in verifying the stories that are presented to them.  There is no doubt that companies delivering this type of news are only going to get better at it.