Arts PR Has a Problem. But It's Bigger Than Bad Publicists

Banksy read my first ever press release draft; he said it was shit. It was. I'd hedged my knowledge of the arts with verbiage and he called me out on it. Fourteen years later, I'm thankful. It honed my work a bit.

I'd planned to be a journalist, including a favoured stint sub-editing star signs at the Daily Mirror – content that, I'm told, depressingly outperforms visual arts these days. Then, via an unplanned internship on a long-running TV soap opera – negotiating embargoes with Inside Soap magazine and physically cutting out and sticking coverage – I transitioned to the dark side full-time. Ultimately, supporting the work of artists would be where I'd dedicate my time.

Early on I learnt a PR should be largely untraceable; a namecheck in an article meant something had gone horribly wrong. Yet these days, we are increasingly, frustratingly, tangible. Here we are, in our hordes, spamming your inboxes, commenting on your social media posts, posing in glossy editorials.

Nothing Worse Than Being Insignificant

Thanks to a new report by The Gray Market, Tim Schneider's inscrutable Substack, we're now the stars of a pretty eye-watering account of our embarrassing misdeeds; the stuff PR nightmares are made of. Within minutes of it dropping, WhatsApp chats blew up: 'Who had been named the worst?', 'Who said what?' and 'Well, at least we were named – nothing worse than being insignificant.' We are ultimately publicists, of course.

Schneider's report, 'How Unhealthy Is Arts PR?', surveyed 33 arts journalists and editors about their experiences of dealing with publicists. The findings make for uncomfortable reading. Some 88 percent said they received too many pitches to track, while more than 60 percent gave low ratings for how well those pitches were targeted to their work. Respondents described aggressive follow-ups, unsolicited calls, inaccurate information and attempts to interfere with editorial decisions.

It's a much-needed warning knell in an increasingly unstable ecosystem, and none of us are faultless. Though I'd like to think I haven't gone fully 'clown car', to borrow Schneider's metaphor, I'm sure there have been days when I've played shotgun.

But in the days that followed, other PRs I spoke to – both in-house and agency, independent advisers and company stalwarts – recognised little of the ecosystem they took pride in working in. That doesn't invalidate the journalists' experiences. But it did leave me wondering why the profession we thought we knew looked so different from the other side.

More Publicists, Fewer Journalists

One of Schneider's most striking findings helps explain why. Across six major art publications, he counted just 41 full-time writers and editors, compared with more than 100 account executives at four prominent PR agencies. It's not a perfect comparison: agencies now provide services well beyond media relations, while publications depend on freelance contributors. But the imbalance is difficult to ignore. There are now substantially more people employed to secure coverage than there are to produce it.

And the expectations placed on those publicists haven't diminished to match.

Schneider describes an industry of widening scopes of work, fierce competition and clients demanding results. Placement can be a core KPI – often the most enjoyable part of the job – but if a PR is pursuing coverage at all costs, it's just bad strategy. The dog-eat-dog competitiveness described in the report felt foreign to many of the agency publicists I spoke with, who live and work alongside each other, collaborate on stories and press trips, and advocate together to share ever-tighter budgets across separate clients. The idea of us solely as unwieldy drones, deployed to execute key messages and take no prisoners, doesn't reflect much of the work I know.

Yet there's another side to those pressures. One publicist I spoke to described a 'race to the bottom' on fees, alongside an explosion of PR-adjacent agencies offering communications services without the necessary experience. Schneider himself reports that agencies are accepting lower retainers and expanding their services to remain competitive. The danger is that the promise of coverage becomes easier to sell than the difficult business of securing it; and in an industry where commercial galleries call me at weekends to bump their three-star review to five stars, there's still a remarkable lack of understanding about what publicists can – and should – be expected to deliver.

Gatekeepers or Go-Betweens?

A less visible part of the job is to buffer and support our more media-shy artists and clients. As much as we pursue stories, we also have to lobby for them, advocate for writers and, even sometimes – gasp – gracefully decline.

The word 'gatekeeping' isn't used in Schneider's report, but it soon reared its head in the comments. It's an accusation worth taking seriously, though it both inflates our idleness and downplays our influence. PRs should be frictionless conduits between journalists, clients and artists, juggling diverse needs and working styles. Artists can be hyperfocused, rich philanthropists can be demanding and, if it feels like we've placed ourselves in the middle of something, perhaps we've identified a need to do so.

But there is a distinction between protecting an artist's time or interests and preventing a journalist from asking legitimate questions. Schneider's respondents describe publicists demanding to review articles before publication, seeking changes to critical coverage and treating factual context beyond the original pitch as an intrusion. Those aren't simply misunderstandings about the role of a publicist. They're attempts to influence editorial independence.

Some PRs I spoke to pointed to anecdotes in the report where publicists had apparently given journalists answers that differed from what their clients had said. Were these examples of poor communication, or of someone playing exactly the 'bad cop' their client had asked for? Without knowing the circumstances, it's difficult to say.

Being asked to obstruct a journalist doesn't necessarily make the obstruction defensible. I've previously been begged to sit in on an interview – something I would never do – because the interviewee, I discovered, had a deep and personal dislike of the journalist, whom they described as "the Regina George of their school years". Managing access can sometimes mean managing personalities, rather than controlling what gets written.

Picking through Schnieder's anonymous responses, littered with terms such as 'drivel' and 'clueless', I wondered whether they betrayed a wider assumption that publicists fall behind in the IQ stakes. The anonymity afforded to respondents will of course elicit honesty that allows – perhaps encourages – more sass than usual. But most of the PRs I've worked with are passionate, intelligent and realistic about their role. Many are artists and writers in their spare time, or live closely with them, and understand fully the landscape in which they work.

That's to say that, if not always a necessary cog, PRs can be a hugely helpful part of the communications wheel. As much as we might seem to obfuscate, we also open up channels of communication. That's not to say journalists have to work with us, of course, and a clear indication that they'd rather deal directly with someone is perfectly reasonable. But a word of warning: you may miss us when we're gone.

This isn't to defend our thin skins. Professional competence isn't demonstrated by having good taste or knowing artists personally. It's demonstrated by knowing when a story is worth pitching, understanding the publication you're approaching and delivering what you've promised. On those measures, Schneider's respondents have some legitimate complaints.

Leave Ghosting to Fuckboys

So, we've been called out. Where do we go from here?

Aggression has no place in professional communications. It's also not a one-way street; PRs too are chased out of hours, spoken to rudely and treated as annoyances. As Schneider suggests, these transgressions can leave you in journo jail for some time – and PRs too won't forget a writer who has spoken down to them or acted amiss. Perpetuating unprofessional behaviour creates a precedent between client, PR and journalist that suggests someone is a justifiable punching bag for doing their job.

But the obligations aren't always equal. A journalist overwhelmed by unsolicited pitches cannot reasonably be expected to answer every one. A publicist who has promised access to an artist, on the other hand, has a responsibility to follow through.

I'm not suggesting journalists must reply to every invitation or pitch they receive, tailored or otherwise. But communication when something is already in motion – why a story has been spiked, why a correction won't happen – allows everyone to advise, educate and move on. On the other hand, sorry PRs, but we should be replying to pretty much everything, and swiftly too. If we've offered an interview, we need to make it happen.

And no inappropriate chasing. Despite acknowledging that journalists contain multitudes, with palpable global and generational differences, one respondent's advice, 'If you don't know me, don't call me', feels pretty fundamental.

The Value of Saying No

More importantly, it's up to PRs to continually educate our clients. The whole reason they chase coverage in established publications is their adherence to editorial integrity – a money-can't-buy rarity in a threatened landscape. They cannot dictate what gets written, however much they might wish to. That's what makes the coverage valuable in the first place.

Schneider's report also raises the increasingly uncomfortable question of pay-for-play, from the ethics of gifts and hospitality to the complicated business of press trips. With editorial budgets under pressure, the distinction between independent reporting and commercially supported coverage can become harder to maintain. Publicists should be among those defending that distinction, not looking for ways around it.

There's a larger responsibility here, too. We should be advocating for the arts media ecosystem our clients want to be part of, explaining why they should support independent publications and journalists. This extends to our agencies and ourselves. We should be reading these publications, devouring and sharing them daily, championing the hard work journalists do under increasingly impossible conditions.

We advocate for journalists and encourage clients to commit advertising budgets without expecting favourable coverage in return. One of my preferred uses of a client's budget is to bring journalists to the places they're writing about – not to manage the storm, but because I believe there's no alternative to meeting a story head-on.

The Human Touch

AI hangs over Schneider's report like an omen. Reckoning with whether it will decimate our jobs throws all our legacies into relief. The brilliant artists and clients I work with might endure through their creations, and the journalists through their words. I, on the other hand, will remain the unseen hand – the one who ran workshops debating whether 'king of kings' was the best descriptor for a brand narrative.

But that's OK. I'm happy being one of the ghosts in the machine – offering five minutes of childcare while a parent conducts an interview, giving up a seat at the table for a more important last-minute RSVP, or spending an afternoon explaining to a client why a journalist won't write the story they had hoped for.

None of that excuses a badly targeted pitch or an attempt to interfere with an article. But it does speak to the part of the job that doesn't appear in a spreadsheet of placements. And perhaps that's what Schneider's report ultimately pleads for: a more human touch.

Fourteen years ago, Banksy told me my press release was shit. He was right, and I became better at my job after hearing it. Schneider's report might be an equally uncomfortable lesson for the profession. The question is whether we're prepared to listen – and whether we can persuade our clients that a healthier arts media is worth more than another press clipping.

So, who's up for charging back a press lunch?