Press agentry is the rough among the diamonds

Never trust anyone who uses “paradigm” in a sentence -- the instant sign of a phony.
So I agree with that one piece of advice from Sally Stewart, a communications consultant who wrote Media Training 101. She also gives eight rules to “Ace a Press Interview” in a Wired magazine how-to.
Talk from notes, know your interviewer, know you’re on the spot, know you’re talking to an enemy who hopes you trip up, expect pressure and so forth.
Odd. I don’t see anywhere in Sally’s list where you should tell the truth. The plain, simple, statement of fact made with knowledge and sincerity would be a thing of uncommon beauty in press interviews.
Public relations is the fork in the road not taken by journalism. PR seeks a persuasive goal. Reporters quest ever onward for the elusive approximation of truth.
The late R. W. Apple, extraordinary raconteur and remarkable reporter for The New York Times, once told a teaching colleague of mine they were not in the same business. The professor taught public relations.
Would that it were so, Johnny! The relationship is more like parallel universes. They often merge, because press agents and The Press often find they need each other to do their separate jobs.
Departments of media relations can make necessary connections between reporters and principals, usually hoping for a desired slant. In worst cases the press spokesman is treated as the ultimate source, guaranteeing the spin gets out there.
In my world of journalism, truth is the best defense. Veracity may be the unavoidable last refuge of scoundrels in PR.
A former State Department spokesman and normally no scoundrel at all, told me he never lied to reporters. He simply made sure he had no knowledge on hot, sensitive subjects. He felt “clean.” I felt uncomfortable with his strategically planned ignorance, an avoidance of hard truth.
I suppose the truth, like a gemstone, shouldn’t come to the surface easily. Candor, authenticity, fact would all lose value.
In the long wait for truth certain, we examine its substitute with skepticism.
That’s how I view Sally Stewart’s advice to the interviewed.
Then again, if she had advised them to be truthful, she'd have to call her recommendation a paradigm in public relations.
Automatically we couldn’t trust what she said.