PRs ‘tougher than journalists'

Company bosses are now more likely to get a tougher grilling from their PR than a journalist.

That is the opinion of leading financial journalist Anthony Hilton, who says it now falls to PRs to ask the nasty questions, seize on uncomfortable truths and force him or her to confront the limitations of what they are doing or where the company is going.

This is partly because corporate executives employ minders to make sure they never say anything remotely useful to a journalist, Hilton believes, and points out that some companies insist that no executive is allowed to meet a reporter unaccompanied.

Hilton, who works for London's Evening Standard, gave the example of the boss of BHP Billiton telling a colleague during a press interview that ‘If you answer that question I'll kill you.'

And so PRs will bring the executive sharply down to earth under the pretext of rehearsing them for the grilling he or she is likely to get from journalists.

The irony is, the Hilton said, that the hacks these days are rarely as bad or as aggressive as the rehearsal.