Halcyon days or bad behaviour?


Press jollies have got rarer. What are the consequences? asksHelen Nugent


D


esert island drinks with billionaires, moonlit husky sledding on Arctic frozen lakes and partying with Russians in designer suits brandishing Kalashnikovs. These are just a few of the press trips enjoyed by journalists


in the 1990s and 2000s, a time when appearing in Private Eye’s Street of Shame was an occupational hazard. Back then, corporate hospitality was firmly entrenched in


the culture, especially if you worked in business, fashion or travel journalism. Invitations flowed freely, making it possible to breakfast at


The Savoy, lunch at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and have dinner at Mosimann’s. Then, if you were still standing, you could head to Soho House for drinks. “This was the last gasp of the old Fleet Street in all its glory:


it was boozy, it was sexist, it was politically incorrect, it was not for the faint of heart but it was also often great fun,” says Ruth Sunderland, columnist at the Daily Mail. “The press trips and hospitality took place in that context.” Three-hour lunches and week-long foreign trips are now consigned to the past. Attitudes to so-called ‘freebies’ have changed, online deadlines are constant and journalists are under pressure to feed the social media machine. But were those freebies really so bad? For many journalists,


they were an invaluable source of stories, a crucial way to forge relationships and an opportunity to build connections with people they had got to know.


Forging relationships “My first staff job was city editor at Scotland on Sunday when I was 26,” recalls James Doran, founder and principal at Pentameter Advisors, a crisis, media and communications advisory company based in New York. “We spent much of the week navigating lunches, press trips, drinks and evening events. We’d get back to the office on


12 | theJournalist


Fridays with a solid news list of exclusives.”


After Scotland on Sunday, Doran


moved to the business desk at The Times, where he continued to squirrel out stories through face-to-face meetings. “The entertainment was how PR people organised


“


relationships with journalists so that we could foster closer relationships with their clients. But we were never beholden to the PRs or their clients. Quite the opposite. The idea that you would be beholden to a PR or their client is anathema to the job.” He continues: “As a business journalist, all you needed was access – whether that was through lunches, arranged press trips or PR events. In our minds, they were there so we could get access. And, once we were inside, we could do what we wanted. The PRs knew that and that was the risk they took. We were party to that bargain because we knew, and our editors knew, that we would do our jobs properly and remain objective.” Richard Stephenson is a PR and crisis expert who has held senior communications roles at the Royal Mail and the Civil Aviation Authority. At the start of his career, he worked for City PR firms, including Citigate Dewe Rogerson. His job involved generating positivity among journalists for his clients and building trust with reporters. He says: “It all came down to relationships. If you had them,


Once we were inside, we could do what we wanted. The PRs knew that and that was the risk they took


you could use them. If you didn’t, you couldn’t. How you used them, and how the journo allowed you to, was up to you and them to agree the rules of engagement.” For some journalists, boozy lunches at expensive restaurants were a way of life. No one complained, provided that deadlines were met and reporters came back with stories, even if that was hours or, in some cases, days later. With the internet still in its infancy and smartphones a mere twinkle in big tech’s eye, avoiding hospitality would have made it impossible to build contacts and secure scoops. Then there was the practicality of free food and drink. For


young reporters struggling to make ends meet, it was a way to survive. Meals often consisted entirely of canapés, scoffed at gallery openings and cocktail receptions, while posh city


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