By Leo Valiquette
Regular readers of this blog will recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about the U.K. court case of Meltwater vs. the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), an ongoing story that spotlights the challenges of traditional media outlets to maintain control of, and monetize, their content in the age of Web 2.0 and news aggregation/media monitoring services such as Meltwater.
In that post I made passing reference to the dire straits of the overworked journalist, faced with staff cuts and diminished resources, who slogs away day after day trying to produce relevant and insightful news content that digs deeper than the headline and the news release. For these folks, the fiscal challenges of their corporate overlords have translated into longer hours, poor job security and loss of benefits.
Gawker.com recently published a hilarious animated short in which a seasoned journalist crushes the idealistic ambitions of a naive wannabe who wants to work for the New York Times, do important journalism and make a difference, oh, and meet the President, too.
Read More
By Linda Forrest
It’s clear that we’re bad summertime bloggers. Sorry about that.
Occasionally there have been topics that have crossed my path in the last month and a bit that I thought could be ruminated on in a blog post, but when the spirit struck, it was usually when I was unplugged completely for a week-plus (No phone, no internet, no email, no television … heavenly!) or too swamped with client commitments to dedicate the time required to write it up. As I recently Tweeted, I haven’t blogged in so long that I suffered a brief case of performance anxiety about picking up the virtual pen once again.
I’m over it now.
I’ve been doing significant outreach in the UK for one of our clients and I’m noticing that journalists over there are far more eager to have a phone conversation with me than many of their North American counterparts. At outlets big and small, I’ve been greeted with enthusiasm, courtesy and appreciation for the information I’m providing, rather than being avoiding altogether, relegated to voicemail hell or, at worst, berated or abused because I deigned to call. All this latter negative experience has been all-too-common with some North American journalists I’ve dealt with in my decade plus as a PR practitioner. This has been a lovely experience and has resulted in some tangible and impactful coverage for my client.
Many of these same editors and reporters weren’t at all responsive to my emails, a distinct change from my experience in North America where calls and voicemails predominantly go unanswered and unresponded to, but emails fare far better. It was refreshing to have so many productive phone calls that resulted in good things for my clients.
I’d posit that the phone calls themselves went so well because we pride ourselves on building out a media list of pertinent, relevant and interested media targets so that we know all of the angles and all of the data points that are likely to result in coverage of our client. Or perhaps I just seemed exotic with my North American accent and that’s why they were so nice to me, eh?
Having had such a good string of calls, I was particularly interested about the articles I read this week about the death of the phone call. At least that’s the snazzy spin that’s put on the article, but the content rather suggests a more integrated communications approach – using the multiple channels available to us to best communicate with one another. The latter resonates strongly with my daily experience, while the former is hyperbolic and not at all what’s truly going on.
In my recent UK experience, I had indeed sent emails to the folks I later spoke with on the phone. For some, they’d read my email and highlighted as something to follow up at some nebulous point in the future, while others fully admitted that they hadn’t read it. That they had it in their mail and could call it up as we were speaking was very useful as they were provided with more information than I could succinctly deliver on the phone.
The rumours of the telephone call’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Telephone calls still play an important role in the PR practitioner’s day-to-day practice; I will agree that their ranking in the grand scheme of all of the tools available may have slipped, but make no mistake – there’s nothing quite like speaking to someone to get your point across. Whether it’s through Skype or an old rotary dial or anything in between, don’t count the phone call out just yet.
As an aside, there’s an interesting corollary to this phenomenon in the world of popular music. When I was growing up, there were scads of popular songs that highlighted the importance of the phone call – from Blondie’s “Call Me”, Phil Collins’ “Don’t Lose My Number”, and Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309.” The only popular song of late that references the telephone (at least the only one that’s coming to mind at the moment) is Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” with the repeated chorus of “stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to talk anymore.” Pop music’s just reflecting our shared experience and indicating that the honeymoon’s over when it comes to our love affair with the telephone.
By Linda Forrest
Well, yesterday was interesting. Ottawa was the major city nearest to the epicenter of a 5.0 (heavily disputed) magnitude earthquake.
A friend who has traveled extensively was rolling his eyes at us meek Canucks, saying he felt quakes like this in Japan all the time. Suffice to say, I’d be a shaky mess if that was a regular occurrence.
Not used to seismic events of any magnitude happening in this area, at first, like so many, I thought there must be a big truck outside making all that noise, but as the shaking intensified, I began to think it might in fact be an earthquake and ran outside. When the quake subsided, I immediately picked up the phone to call the daycare just around the bend to see if either a) I was crazy, or b) did they feel it there too? (I’m not crazy.)
Then, purveyor of media that I am, I instantly began visiting media websites to see if there were any details on what had happened. I went to CFRA’s website, CBC.ca, Google News, Ottawa Citizen – nothing. I checked Twitter and bingo – there was instantaneous, regularly updated information available in real-time, people sharing experiences, jokes, links, statistics…
I was lucky to have spoken with both my daycare provider and my husband, because immediately afterwards, the phone lines were down – both cell and landline – as everyone else in the affected area called their spouses and daycare providers.
Traditional media were not quick enough to provide the information needed, traditional forms of communication were unreliable, but social media saved the day. Within minutes of the quake, thanks to Twitter, I knew where the epicenter was, the magnitude, the affected areas, and more. Twitter really proved its mettle to me beyond a shadow of a doubt as an important, relevant and succinct communications channel. While I’ve been using Twitter as part of my outreach for clients and networking for myself for two years now, I had recently grown tired of the endless witticisms, location updates and general narcissistic tone of some of its users but when push came to shove, Twitter was the most important communications channel where others lagged or failed entirely.
—
Before the earth moved yesterday, the power of the media made a technicolour display when Stanley McChrystal, the top general in charge of the U.S. military in Afghanistan had his feet held to the flames for outrageous, disrespectful and unpatriotic comments made in a disastrous forthcoming Rolling Stone article. He had a decidedly uncomfortable meeting with President Obama wherein he tendered his resignation, certainly milliseconds before he was fired.
The article is truly scandalous and worth a read.
As a PR professional, my first thought was HOW did this happen? Are there no communications professionals involved with the highest strata of the U.S. military that would have overseen the opportunity and decided what could be gained by profiling a top general in a rock and roll magazine? If they then decided to move forward, would they not have been along every step of the way, providing both strategic and tactical counsel to the general about what he’s to say and what not to say, key messages, likely lines of questioning, etc.? Surely with an organization so reliant on security and secrecy, the PR team would have also had the opportunity to review the copy for approval prior to publication? Anyone? Bueller?
The most egregious of the comments were off the cuff, said not during any formal interview but when perhaps the general and his team thought comments would be off the record. As we’ve discussed previously, the interview is never over. The journalist was interviewed in the aftermath, also worth a watch.
I’m flabbergasted not only at the comments of the general and his staff but also at the incredible failing of the communications function of the U.S. military in this instance. By contrast, there was a brilliant article on McChrystal’s successor David Petraeus in a recent Vanity Fair. Whether it was better journalism, a better communications team that managed the process more carefully, or just a better man as the subject, we’ll never know.
By Francis Moran
I can’t remember when or from whom I first heard the line, “Marketers should think like the fish, not like the fisher.” But I have always enjoyed it as a pithy summary of our marketing credo that says you must put yourself in your customers’ shoes when plotting your marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter how fancy your new spinning rod might be, or how pretty the fly is that you just put on the end of your fly rod, if the fish aren’t hungry for what you’re offering, they’re not going to bite. You need to know what the fish are looking for and then craft your marketing message accordingly.
Driving along the other day, I saw the truck in this picture and I drove around a couple of city blocks so I could come back and take the picture. I tweeted this the other day but I thought I’d also share it here because it is such a simple-yet-brilliant example of this precept. Enjoy.
By Linda Forrest
I’ll admit it. I fell for a couple of doozies this morning when reading my morning email.
The first one really had me. I subscribe to HARO, Help a Reporter Out, which is a free service where PR professionals are sent pitching opportunities from reporters. I scan these email reports several times daily to see if there’s anything suitable for my clients. This one caught my eye and infuriated me no end:
Summary: Why don’t PR people listen?
Name: April Phules (Business Magazine)
Category: General
Email: query-7cc@helpareporter.com
Media Outlet: Business Magazine
Deadline: 07:00 PM EST – 1 April
Query: I’m doing a story about PR people, and why they have a much lower ability to listen or follow directions than regular people. Is this something they’re born with, or something they learn once getting into PR? All answers welcome.
Okay, so the reporter’s name should have tipped me off, but I haven’t had my coffee yet so I’m a little slow.
Still fuming from reading that outrageous query, I clicked over to another newsletter from parenting site Babble, which suggested 10 ways to raise a genius. Putting little stock in such things, but curious nonetheless, I clicked through. Needless to say by the time I got to #4 I knew that something was up.
PRNewser tipped its hat to some of the best corporate April Fool’s jokes here.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
