What You Don’t Know About Polemic Journalism Can Hurt You

When defeating 'the other team' matters more than truth

Even if you aren’t one to use words like “polemic,” you’re likely to be familiar with the meaning behind the word itself, since it’s pervasive in society today. A “polemic” is rhetoric that is not intended to advance an idea or an argument on its own merits, but rather to “win” by aggressively undermining an opposing position.

In other words, you don’t have to be right, in fact you can be dead wrong. And your opposition doesn’t have to be wrong, in fact they can be dead right. You can be wrong, and they can be right, and you can still win. All that has to happen is for you to discredit the opposition. For a polemic to work you have to effectively paint the opposition as “bad,” in such a way as you want to define it or frame it.

Ethical? No. Machiavellian? Yes. For those reasons, I don’t practice it, and don’t recommend it, but I do recommend being prepared for it should others try to do it to you.

A polemic can be the embodiment of using a double-standard with mal-intent. For ages, politicians on every side of the aisle have mastered the art of using polemics. What may heighten this art form, however, is social media and its relationship with traditional media.

For better or worse, every time you log on to social media, chances are you’ll find more than a few examples of polemics. It’s a short leap for someone aggressively undermining the opponent’s position on an issue to attempt to undermine the opponent at a personal level, attacking character and assigning fictional motives and intents.

The Challenge for PR People

What makes this pattern a challenge for today’s public relations practitioner is when journalists actively engage in or are complicit in polemics, taking a position on an issue and pursuing a story polemically, trying to undermine the subject of the story, for no other reason than to marginalize that target.

This is often accomplished by publishing selected facts, omitting important details, working to connect events or facts that are unrelated (correlation is not causation). And then to imply nefarious intent when the worst thing that might have happened was an honest mistake or an innocent oversight, if that.

I’ve run into this a few times but one situation that stands out was a time when a client was covered by a reporter whose social media posts indicated his disdain for my client’s industry that reached an almost religious fervor. Since my client was a group of environmental activist groups and energy companies, this reporter sharpened his polemic axe.

The first thing he did was pour through a series of blog posts and social media posts, and then selectively pull those he felt he could totally recast out of context. He never contacted the subject of his story for comment. His reporting was published as news analysis, not opinion, yet his “report” was pure fiction and speculation that included a scant number of facts to make it look like he actually did research.

What were my client’s “crimes?” They were working to find common ground to create public dialogue that would lead to holding energy producers to a higher standard of environmental stewardship. This reporter clearly preferred an us-versus-them dynamic where energy companies could be painted as the enemy, and no such thing as dialogue or common ground would be possible.

I’ve seen this dynamic to varying degrees in other situations. As a result, I myself have made a habit of studying the social media posts reporters who cover my clients. This is one of the simplest windows to a reporter’s feelings about certain subjects, and it sometimes provides a good indication of just how professional that reporter might be when working on a story involving you. You can do this, too.

Is this just a one-off?

I wish these situations are rare, but it appears an increasing number of communications pros at organizations now have to face polemic media coverage. Sadly, I’ve seen more than a few PR pros and PR programs employ polemic strategies.

From a business standpoint in the media, as some news organizations identify the ideological leanings of their bases, they tend to play to that base to build and preserve their followings, or just to serve an ideology. So, rather than attempt to educate and inform, they play to confirmation bias.

They identify the emotional mindsets of their largest numbers of followers and seek to reinforce those biases, and not to correct any that might be inaccurate or unfair. In some cases, the confirmation bias itself has become a part of newsroom decision-making, so that editors and producers can’t even see that they themselves aren’t open-minded or receptive to alternative points of view. To do so would be to disrupt a somewhat un-challengeable assumption. It’s become a team-driven media world, where you’re either on “our team” or “their team,” and facts and truth don’t matter. Winning matters. Defeating the other team matters.

It is within this context that we in the corporate communications operate and navigate with our organizations and clients.