In my previous life, I was a journalist for 25 years in newspapers and magazines. So it was interesting to hear an internal presentation this week from a B2B marketer advising other B2B marketers how to deal with journalists. I had a strange, voyeuristic kind of feeling about the whole thing, as though I had stumbled into a group therapy meeting focused on troubled relationships.

And you can guess who is portrayed as the troubled one in this relationship.

I was half angry and half amused to hear the usual stereotypes about journalists thrown around: that they seek negative stories and that they thrive on conflict and tension. But in a power point slide entitled “What Does the Media Want?” there didn’t seem to be room for what drove me as a journalist: to serve the reader.

I can sense your eyes rolling, but hear me out. Journalists are frustrated communicators, desperate for recognition and connection. Often shy and inarticulate in person (I’m even talking about some broadcast journalists here) they shine most when speaking directly to their audience through their chosen medium, whether it be print, broadcast, or now, blogs. That connection is important to them—the idea that someone is listening and cares about what they are saying and thinks it’s valuable. This is what drives journalists—especially B2B journalists, whose chances of recognition, fame and fortune outside of their limited audiences is generally slim to none.

The reputation of journalists being what it is—bad—journalists know that their audiences have a tendency to question what they write—the BS meter is turned up to 11. This creates paranoia about bias among good journalists: their audience expects them to be biased, so they are driven to act with a kind of institutionally imposed integrity. They have to doubt what people are telling them, they have to seek multiple viewpoints and try to synthesize a majority and minority view, or an assenting and dissenting view. It is a job requirement and necessary to eliminate the perception of bias among their editors and their audience.

Another thing that the media wants is freedom. And journalists have an incredible amount of freedom. Sure, you may be stuck covering wireless networking, but within that subject area, you are completely free to pursue whatever you want, talk to whomever you want and write whatever you want (at least until the editor gets hold of it). Journalists love that freedom and guard it jealously. I say jealously because journalists give up things to be journalists—a predictable work schedule, high pay, stock options, etc. They are often smart and talented people who could probably succeed in higher paying endeavors as well as anyone, which only adds to their determination to protect that freedom—it’s basically the only perk the career offers.

This is why I almost fell out of my chair when the marketer put up a slide showing how he had meticulously mapped targeted journalists according to whether they were:

1. Novice

2. Skeptical

3. Neutral

4. Friend

5. Champion

I felt like I was getting a peek at Nixon’s enemies list (which was also heavily populated by journalists). The idea that marketers spend time and money trying to categorize journalists this way boggles my mind. It is delusional and a complete waste of time and money. Here’s why: a journalist who is a “champion” for your company will not enjoy his or her freedom as a journalist for very long. We didn’t go into detail about how this company defines a champion, but at the least it has to be someone who writes what you as a marketer and as a company believe to be fair and accurate all the time.

But companies don’t have any institutional drivers to eliminate bias. Companies are biased by definition. They have to believe they are better or they shouldn’t be in business. And public relations exists to push that view among customers and shareholders. So a journalist who is your champion isn’t doing his or her job. And I can guarantee that any good editor who finds out that one of his or her reporters is listed as a “champion” by a company’s PR department will start examining that reporter’s copy extra carefully.

Look, your goal as marketers should not be to build cozy, friendly relationships with journalists. It’s definitely good to get to know them and help them when they want interviews or information, but it’s not a great investment of your time and money to go beyond that. You are only as valuable to them as the content that you provide and the quality of spokespeople that you provide for them to interview.

Here’s what journalists really want from marketers and PR people: content and validation.

The content is good thought leadership that focuses on the issues they cover rather than the ability of your company to deal with those issues. The content should display your content experts and quote them with names and titles so journalists can pick up an interesting point of view, attach a name to it and send you an e-mail saying, “I want to talk to the person who said that.” Surveys are also wonderful ways to get journalists’ attention, because journalists don’t have to spend time trying to decode the level of bias built into the content. They just have to make sure the survey is legit. If you survey their audience, all the better. And conferences about general topics that feature your reference customers are another big draw.

The way you gauge whether you’ve succeeded in developing their respect is not whether they call you to have a drink but whether they come to you for validation. Good journalists pride themselves on surveying their coverage areas and picking out threads of logic that are new, unique, or that signal change in the status quo. You should have a mechanism for making it easy for journalists to present this thread to you (and it will usually be thin and poorly articulated to start) and a process for helping them develop the thread with content and spokespeople. I can’t tell you how many times I went to PR people with a thread and got an e-mail back saying something to the effect of, “Sorry man, I wouldn’t begin to know where to go to get that information.” You should try to figure it out. The analyst firms—both Wall Street and the technology firms like Forrester and Gartner—have this figured out. Even if they didn’t understand what the hell I was talking about they got someone on the phone who they thought might be able to figure it out and say something worth remembering.

The analyst firms have an advantage, of course. Their analysts are all trained public speakers—accustomed to dealing with tough audiences and explaining complicated things. You need to identify and train your thought leaders to be able to handle difficult questions—and clueless questions. You also need to train them to be patient if they perceive the journalist to be nasty or biased, or when the 60-minute interview turns into a five-word quote—or doesn’t appear at all. Good PR people train that frustration out of their thought leaders or absorb it as part of their job. Passing it on to the journalist gets you nowhere. Journalists are under a lot of pressure and they may be as frustrated as you are about what happened to the story. There is so much that happens between the time a journalist interviews someone and the point that a piece appears that you just have to accept that “wasted time” comes with the PR territory.

Another thing that I imagine would get a journalist on the “champion” list is that they don’t call about tough or negative stories. Or when they call and you refuse to comment, they’re okay with it. Journalists can smell a fair-weather source from a mile away—and they don’t forget it. You have to engage with them even when the subject is something you’d rather not talk about.

The marketer who spoke to us said that his PR agency had earned its fee by recommending that the company not respond to inquiries from a reporter who wanted to discuss a sensitive subject for the company’s industry. The marketer said he considered it a victory that when the story appeared, its competitors were quoted and it was left out.

I can tell you that it wasn’t a success—unless the company wants to disappear from public view altogether (and judging from the statistics we saw, that’s what is happening). The companies that go to bat and agree to speak about the difficult stuff (and you can still look good talking about difficult stuff in the eyes of readers) will be first on the list to get the call when it’s time to explore the less threatening thread next time. It demonstrates backbone and makes journalists think you’re a smarter, more forthcoming organization, and therefore, that you will generally make a better interview in all scenarios.

Marketers and PR people should focus on content and validation to win the attention—if not the hearts—of journalists. The content that appeals to them will be the same content that appeals to prospects and customers: thought leadership with objective proof points. Don’t bother with press releases. The ranks of journalists have thinned so much over the past few years that they cannot spare the time to read them—and few ever read them anyway because most are so poorly written and self-promotional. The only ones I read were pitches from PR people promising interviews with customers, or publications such as surveys and position papers about business and IT issues.

Here’s another recommendation: hire an external agency to do PR and create an incentive plan for them to get placements in the media you covet. If you leave it to your internal folks, it will never happen. There’s little incentive for internal PR people to help journalists because they only put themselves and their jobs at risk. They are viewed by business executives as the protectors of the company and will be rewarded for preventing journalists from talking to employees, not by helping make it happen. So you need to move accountability for the relationship with journalists to outsiders.

Notice that I didn’t say you should relinquish responsibility; business people need to know that internal PR has at least some high-level control over the relationships with journalists. But when an employee says something in the press that executives in the company don’t like—which is inevitable—there needs to be a third party to absorb some of the heat. Agencies have the flexibility to be fired. They can always move on to another client if they screw up, and they have the credibility of an outsider to argue with internal executives who have gotten into a snit for no good reason.

In the end, the goal should be to provide journalists with the content they need to serve their readers’ interests rather than trying to win friends and create “champions.” If you try to manipulate journalists, you are going to be disappointed more often than not—and waste a lot of time and money in the process.