Press Agents and Publicists
by:
Charles Lamson
It has often been said that 20th century public relations primarily grew out of 19th century press agentry. In some ways this is true. Certainly, many early PR practitioners got their start as press agents. Although few of these early PR pioneers were as flamboyant as the great showman P.T. Barnum, many were publicity writers whose main target had always been the press. The greatest of the publicity consultants was Ivy Ledbetter Lee (This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations by Doug Newsom, Judy VanSlyke Turk and Dean Kruckeburg, pg. 29).
Press Agentry Press Agentry really began in about 1830, with the birth of the penny press, when newspaper prices dropped to a penny each circulation and readership boomed. However, so did the price of newspaper advertising. To reach the huge new audience without paying for the opportunity, promoters and publicity people developed a talent for "making news." The object was simply to break into print often at the expense of truth or dignity. Press agents exploited "freaks" to publicize circuses, invented legends to promote politicians, told outrageous lies to gain attention and generally provided plenty of popular entertainment if not real news (This is PR, pg. 29).
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The cardinal virtue of press agentry was its promptness. It was often so prompt that its practitioners spent practically no time verifying the accuracy or news value of its content. But ultimately, the effectiveness of a press release depended on its creator's imagination and imagination remains a necessary talent for effective PR today (This is PR, pg. 29).
Publicity Many early publicists were no more careful with the facts than their press agent contemporaries, neither were many journalists of that day. Most publicists continually tried to "plant" stories in newspapers, hiding their source. In that respect, Ivy Lee represented a new kind of publicist. Perhaps the essential difference can be found in Lee's "Declaration of Principles" (1906), in which he defined important ideals of public relations, his new profession: "Our plan is, frankly and openly... to supply the press and public of the United States prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about" (This is PR, pg. 29).
Lee's career spans from 1900 - 1939. At the dawn of the 20th century, PR's incubation period had drawn to a close. America was now a powerful industrialized nation with sophisticated mass media and a well-informed public. The time was right for a model of practice that would synthesize and coordinate the various talents - publicity, promotion, propaganda and press agentry - that had developed in tandem with the nation's growth (This is PR, pgs. 29-30).
Ethical Perspectives
Ivy Ledbetter Lee (1877 - 1934): "The Father of Public Relations"
After graduating from Princeton, Ivy Lee became a reporter in New York City but soon gave that up to become a political publicist. Then in 1904, he and George F. Parker formed the nation's third publicity bureau. By 1906 he was the most inspiring success in the young field of PR and found himself representing George F. Baer and his associates (who were allied with the J.P. Morgan financial empire) in a public controversy over an anthracite coal strike. Lee tried a radical approach: Frankly announcing himself as a publicity consultant. He invited the press to ask questions, handed out news releases and presented his client as cooperative and communicative (This is PR, pg. 30).
Lee's "Declaration of Principals," issued in 1906 to city editors all over the country won respect for public relations. That same year Lee represented the Pennsylvania Railroad when an accident occurred on the main line. Instead of hushing up the incident, Lee invited the press to come, at company expense, to the scene of the accident, were he made every effort to supply reporters with facts and to help photographers. As a result, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the railroad industry got their first favorable coverage in years (This is PR, pg. 30).
Lee's remarkable and straightforward style came from his frank admiration of industry and capitalism, and he made it his goal to get big business to communicate its story to the public. By the time he was 30, Lee had sired a profession, chiefly by introducing and promoting its first code of ethics (This is PR, pg. 30).
Lee's many later clients included the American Russian Chamber of Commerce and the German Dye trust, from whom he earned $25,000 a year and a PR problem of his own---how to defend his work for a Nazi organization. He was also heavily criticized for his support of Stalin-era Soviet Russia and his support of U.S. Soviet ties (This is PR, pg. 30).
It is perhaps a testament to Ivy Lee's public relations talent that he is now not remembered not so much for what he did at the height of his career as for what he said when he was still in his twenties (This is PR, pg. 30).
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