Do P.R. Reps Deserve a Journalist’s Vote? : News association: Controversy erupts amid move to expand voting power. The traditional adversarial relationship may be threatened.

The journalist’s derogatory slang term for publicist is “flack.”

Derogatory because because the interests of journalism and public relations rarely coincide. There are exceptions, but almost always newspeople and P.R. people are adversaries, the former’s job being to report events, the latter’s to put a spin on events.

That has not been lost on those wisely fighting a move to give voting privileges to non-journalist board members of the Radio & Television News Assn. (RTNA) of Southern California. Non-journalists already have that right in the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which only six years ago had a P.R. person as president.

Philosophically, at least, the integration is awkward at best.

More than merely a family squabble, the RTNA controversy is about the blurring of identities and the implications of that for news gathering. Or as Wayne Satz, former RTNA board member and former KABC-TV Channel 7 reporter, puts it: “When you have freedom of information issues decided in part by people whose job it is to limit those freedoms, you have problems.”

Big problems.

RTNA is best known for its annual Golden Mike awards and its aggressive advocacy of press freedoms. Long a hybrid group, RTNA lists 73 P.R. people among its general membership of 230. In the past, non-journalists on the board have been non-voting members.

There are 15 journalists on the board. The present controversy arose when they agreed in December to extend voting status to the board’s present four non-journalists: a former NBC attorney, an independent P.R. person and P.R. representatives from two telephone companies.

Among other things, these non-journalists would now have greater input in RTNA positions on journalistic issues and would help select judges for the Golden Mike awards.

However, the response was outrage from some RTNA members, including KCOP Channel 13 anchor Warren Olney, KCBS Channel 2 reporter Ross Becker and KTLA Channel 5 news director Jeff Wald. A former RTNA president himself, Wald protested in a letter to current president Bill Yeager:

“The RTNA was formed to advance the interests of those who gather news; it was not formed to benefit those who seek to influence broadcast news.” Wald added that he opposed granting suffrage to P.R. persons “representing special interests.”

It wasn’t only journalists who objected.

“It’s an issue of purity,” said independent publicist Meg McDonald, one of the non-journalists on the board. “I’m on the board to get to know these folks and maintain my media contacts. If they want to acknowledge me, do it at the Golden Mike awards in front of my clients, don’t do it with a vote. We’re two different professions that work together, but we’re not the same.”

Even stronger words come from Los Angeles Police Sgt. Rod Bernsen, an RTNA member who has continued his association with the group on his own after leaving the department’s P.R. office four years ago.

Bernson, a former journalist who gives public relations instruction to law enforcement agencies and whose license plate reads “PD FLACK,” was an RTNA board member himself until being dropped recently when it was discovered that the bylaws prohibited more than 19 members.

“I was disturbed to learn (while still on the board) that I now had an equal voice in running a news association with sitting journalists,” he said. “I’m not a working reporter. I’m a police sergeant. If the press responds to an incident and I’m in charge of that incident and it’s my job to give them the information, like any person in public relations, I’m obviously going to advance our best position. Is that managing the news? I suppose you could say that.”

And would-be news managers--even those doing nothing improper by legitimately serving what they feel is the best interests of their clients--should have no significant input in an organization devoted to uplifting journalistic standards.

Good workers, yes. Journalists, no. “The ethical issue is very obvious,” said Bernsen. “What’s startling to me is that it’s not that obvious to everyone else.”

It’s not obvious to:

--Milli Martinez, the 15-year board member who instigated giving non-journalist board members the vote. “Either they (non-journalists) are part of the organization and should be full members or the organization doesn’t need that kind of membership and should drop it,” said Martinez, executive producer for special news projects at KABC-TV.

--RTNA president Yeager, who is executive producer for KFWB news radio. “These people have not tainted the organization,” he said. “They have not diminished its role as representing journalists, and they have increased membership, which is one of our goals.”

--Board member Don Zachary, a former NBC lawyer with entertainment clients, who believes that journalists and publicists are not in conflict “at the core.” Just like a journalist, he said, “the job of a public relations person is to present information to the public in a complete way.”

A “complete way” that doesn’t tarnish his client, that is.

--Jack D. Fox, a former newsperson and now a non-journalist member of RTNA. P.R. people “are in the news business,” he wrote in an RTNA publication recently. “As professionals they are truthful and helpful. To infer anything else is unjust and unconscionable.”

Asked if he stood by that, Fox acknowledged that P.R. persons “are paid to put the best foot forward.” But he added: “Don’t the (television) news organizations do that during (ratings) sweeps? Aren’t there self-serving newscasts that promote things that are on the network?”

Of course, he’s right, which only dramatizes the critical need to separate news from promotion.

The trend seems to be going the other way, however.

The Northern California chapter of the Radio Television News Directors Assn.--the nation’s biggest umbrella organization for local newscasters--has voting P.R. members on its board, and the group’s national body “is moving in that direction too,” according to Yeager, its regional director.

Reacting to the controversy, meanwhile, the RTNA board is scheduled to meet tonight to consider letting the entire membership decide whether non-journalist board members should get the vote.

Letting them vote would mean “the corruption and dissolution of a relatively pure broadcast organization,” Satz warns. “I have real fears now that RTNA won’t be backing aggressive news gathering efforts in the future.”