PR as Investigator?

Tim Cavanaugh's essay in the June 2009 issue of Reason, Hired News, makes the point that as the money goes away from legacy media, the investigative journalists don't simply disappear, they find new employment with advocacy groups.

He points out some U.S. labor stats that PR jobs just a bit more than doubled (98K to 226K) in the last decade, but reporters stayed almost flat (52.4K to 51.6K in 2007). So the talent is there, and he adds the anecdotal of working at a PR job with a former Pulitzer winner.

Cavanaugh adds a quote from a colleague that the "era of high-minded journalism lasted roughly from the '60s to the mid-80s . . . for most of its history journalism as a pretty low-minded occupation." I can't go that far, but in its own way it supports my contention that the Objective Reporter era centered around the Watergate legend is fading fast.

What I find most intriguing in the piece is the acceptance of Advocacy Journalism as a good thing. Here's the payoff:

"Flackery requires putting together credible narratives from pools of verifiable data. This activity is not categorically diffferent from journalism."

Cavanaugh counters the standard end of democracy argument with this bon mot:

"The most valuable information comes out just because somebody wants to make somebody else look bad."

I'd be remiss to not note this irony -- at least today when I'm buidling this entry, the IDB story ad next to Cavenaugh's story on Reason's website is for PR Web "Distribute your news to consumers, journalists and bloggers."