There’s an old joke among journalists: “It’s okay. If I lose my job, I’ll just become a public relations flak.” Believe me, every journalist has thought about it more than once, especially when freelance writing wasn’t paying the bills. After all, what company or public relations firm wouldn’t want a former journalist on the payroll communicating to the media? This point was driven home when I recently attempted to email a journalist friend. To my surprise, I couldn’t track him down. And guess where he turned up. (Read more…)
Recently I appeared live on national television. (Well, it was actually cable, but that’s national now.) Using my experience as an example, this installment of PR Fuel discusses the pros and cons of television-based public relations. Hopefully you’ll be able to take away some tips about how to get your public relations message on the air, how to prepare for that first television interview, and how to make the most of it once you’re in front of the camera. (Read more…)
As a journalist, it wasn’t often that I listened to a public relations pitch. But then there were times when I was three hours from deadline and I still didn’t have a story. During one of those crunch times, I checked my voicemail and there was a new message from a public relations rep named Alyssa Shelasky, pitching me on a story that I would normally ignore. But Alyssa got me interested in a very easy way: she did her research. (Read more…)
These five simple refresher tips are part of the complex dance between the public relations industry, the media, and the public-at-large. These tips may sometimes be easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of your day-to-day workload. But if you regularly employ these basic strategies, your PR workload will be that much easier to manage–and your clients will be that much happier. (Read more…)
Another week, and another fun journalism scandal. This one, however, contains an interesting public relations element.
Late last week, news broke that Jared Paul Stern, a freelancer for the New York Post’s infamous Page Six gossip column, has been accused of trying to extort money from billionaire Ron Burkle. According to press reports, Stern promised Burkle “protection” from scurrilous gossip items in exchange for cold, hard cash. (Read more…)
In early 2004, I received a phone call from a reporter for a major business publication. She wanted to know if I was the Ben Silverman who was donating heavily to Democratic political campaigns. She thought it may make an interesting story considering I wrote a business column, one in which I had been critical of the Bush Administration on more that one occasion, for the right-tilting New York Post. (Read more…)
As I sat down to write this week’s column, a number of ideas popped into my head. It was, however, three events in the news that I kept coming back to - three events that I feel are worthy of examination and that we can take some lessons from. (Read more…)
Severe thunderstorms swept through the New York area on Tuesday morning keeping me from my golf date and forcing me to sit idly in front of a computer on what was supposed to be my off day. To my surprise, I ended up having some real fun surfing the ‘Net and discovering new PR resources.
“From The Dark Side”
New York-based PR maven Loren Pomerantz is penning a monthly column for MediaBistro.com called “From The Dark Side.” It’s like a reverse PR Fuel - Pomerantz tells the media what the PR business is really about.
“And here’s another myth: PR professionals are all on a dishonest mission to promote their own “angles” and to keep reporters from the real stories. Well, yeah, of course we have angles. Itâs our job to get our clients in the middle of stories. But you’re always looking for fresh takes, so why shouldn’t we try to make that take about our clients? So, sure, we’ll provide you with all the facts that we believe support our stories, and, no, we’re not going to promote the possible negative angles. It’s our job, after all, to try to get you to believe in our story and sell it to your readers to promote the causes of our clients,” she continues,” Pomerantz writes.
I can vouch for Pomerantz; she did the PR for a tech company I once had a partnership with and her efforts resulted in press clips for me from The New York Post (before I wrote for them), The Industry Standard and The Wall St. Journal.
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“It’s Classmates.com For PR and Media People”
That’s how Jeremy Pepper (who I wrote about a few months ago) describes the recently launched MediaBuddies.com.
Based in sunny London, England, Media Buddies was founded by David Davis, a journalist turned PR bigshot who is the CEO of PMA, described as “Europe’s No 1 training company for journalists & PR executives.”
“In the inter-related fast moving global world of the media, where friendships and contacts are easily made and frequently just as quickly lost, this question is often asked but too rarely answered. That is, until now with the launch of MediaBuddies.com the world’s first exclusive media online reunion community,” is how Davis is flacking the site.
Full functionality won’t launch until September, but if you become a founding member now, you won’t have to plunk down the 10 quid annual fee for the first year. It’s an intriguing concept - a reunion community for a specific industry that can act as a networking community as well.
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Bullfighter
“PR Fuel leverages cross-media opportunity synergies, seamlessly fusing them with recalcitrant outside-the-box, paradigm-shifting brain blurbs to enhance reader acumen.”
That’s what some marketing genius would write if I asked them to describe this newsletter. Thank goodness for the people at Deloitte Consulting.
The folks at Deloitte have come up with Bullfighter: a free software that “works a lot like the spelling and grammar checker in [Microsoft Word and PowerPoint], but focuses on jargon and readability.”
Basically, Bullfighter cuts the bull of your documents. Believe me, a lot of us need this. I learned how to spin jargon when I was writing business plans for dot-coms. It’s amazing to think some non-sequential ramblings, a few graphs and some big (unattainable) numbers could attract $12 million in funding, but I have the proof.
Those days are over though and the use of “bull” isn’t going to win you any friends. As I’ve mentioned a number of times: Keep it simple.
You’ll need Windows 2000 or Windows XP for Bullfighter to work. Deloitte will send you a free CD version of the software if you don’t feel like downloading it. I’ve clued some PR people onto Bullfighter this week and the response has been positive all around.
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Media Kitty Says Meow
Media Kitty bills itself as “The Leading Source For Trippy Journalism,” so naturally I started thinking about Hunter S. Thompson and the time I ate some bad sausage and started hallucinating in the newsroom. “Trippy” comes from the fact that Media Kitty is a service designed to hook up travel writers with PR professionals.
For $49 a month PR professionals get the following services:
- post unlimited consumer travel news releases
- post unlimited trip opportunities for qualified journalist to apply quickly and easily online
- respond to journalists who post requests seeking to learn about services and destinations
- list clients as experts for journalists
- access an online directory of top media and industry contacts
Is it worth the money? I don’t know; the travel and tourism business is not one I’m very familiar with. But there is a ProfNet type section where journalists seek information and ideas. Might be worth checking out if travel/tourism is your specialty.
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Nobody Does It Better Than Google News
Somehow, Google keeps getting better. Google News is probably the best up-to-the-minute online destination and thanks to a pumped-up advanced search, it’s now one of the best resources for quick research.
Not only can you search by publication, you can also search by location. Trying to find out if someone in Denver wrote about your client? Just use the advance search.
As always, be careful with Google News, you may end up addicted.
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Are You Up2Speed?
It’s a weblog! It’s a series of newsletters! No, it’s both.
Recently launched Up2Speed is all about Internet marketing and that includes PR. You can find BL Ochman’s excellent I-PR newsletter and commentary from my old pal Robert Loch (Robert was a contributor to my now mothballed DotcomScoop.com and penned some excellent analytical pieces on everything from why Salon.com should die to why Osama bin Laden exists).
A plethora of information and insight is to be had at Up2Speed, and it’s probably not a bad media outlet to put on your press lists.
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Live From New York
I’ll be attending the Jupiter Plug.IN Conference next Monday in New York — one of the few times I show my face at any type of industry event. If any readers are going to be present, ping me so we can hook up.
Also, if you are in New York on Thursday August 7, please join me at The New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA) Sales & Marketing SIG titled “The Media & The Message - What’s Newsworthy in Technology Journalism Today.” I will be one of the speakers, along with Rebecca Lieb, Executive Editor, internet.com and New York Times freelancer Lisa Napoli. Other journalists may be added to the bill.
“If you are interested in making news about your company, finding out how other companies make news or what trends the tech press is interested in these days–you should attend this session! This meeting will be informative for everyone involved in developing and disseminating their company’s message, from marketing management to PR pros to CEOs. Hear from top NYC tech reporters and get the scoop,” is what NYSIA is saying about this event.
The event takes place from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM and is being held next door to Madison Square Garden. $20 for non-NYSIA members and free for NYSIA members.
OK, I don’t have a clue what a “SIG” is and 8:00 AM is when I get home a lot of mornings (don’t ask). But it should be fun. I’m a talented speaker — which means I often say things I shouldn’t say. I’m also very good at awkwardly avoiding questions I don’t know the answer to, changing the subject and then personalizing a point that I brought up myself with a funny anecdote. I’m preparing for my future in politics.
I’ll probably go off on some rant about how PR people wake me up in the morning and the fact that I’m a business journalist, not a tech writer. So come on down and join the party! There may be coffee and Krispy Kremes, but I can’t guarantee anything.
Something wicked this way came. An FA-18 Hornet, fully armed and loaded, just flew over my Georgia mountain retreat on its way back to Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta. The plane flew so low to the mountains that the entire house shook. The war comes home.
This week I’ll continue using the format I started last week to look at an issue that has been brought up by the U.S.-led war against Iraq and a few general PR issues.
IS THE MEDIA THE ARBITRATOR OF CREDIBILITY?
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a little known media outlet began to receive massive media exposure. Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language news network based in Qatar, has been at the forefront of covering events in the Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Arabic-speaking world. With the war raging in Iraq now, the network has been thrust further into its competitor’s glare and the results have been anything but positive.
Al-Jazeera has been bashed for showing pictures of dead U.S. soldiers and running an “interview” of American prisoners of war that was originally shown on the Iraqi-government run television network. The network’s coverage has been decidingly pro-Iraq, or at least pro-Arab, and its newly launched English language website has run what some are calling questionable articles (is it reporting or commentary?).
Al-Jazeera, which cannot be seen in the U.S. without an old C-Band satellite dish (those ugly 12-foot dishes in people’s backyards), has now been banned by both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The financial institutions say it has to do with security and the fact that Al-Jazeera doesn’t really cover business. Critics, including media watchdogs in the U.S., contend that the network is being banned because of its war coverage.
What this is really all about is an extension of the PR war that is pitting America and its allies against the rest of the world. While media outlets are supposedly neutral, we know this isn’t always the case. The New York Post for example, the paper I write for, has been running a steady stream of anti-French articles. The French are referred to as “weasels” in the paper. If you’ve watched any of the war coverage, you’ve noticed that the media shines a negative light on anti-war activists and basically anyone who disagrees with the current administration’s actions or views. This is ironic considering how the media was branded “left-wing liberals” during the Clinton years. Is it a right wing tool now?
Cable news outfits such as CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, as well as the major broadcast networks, have all openly questioned the credibility of Al-Jazeera’s reporting. Just as Al-Jazeera has questioned the credibility of American and other foreign reporting. But Al-Jazeera is the one facing the problem here.
The U.S. media has long been despised overseas. It has been despised domestically as well. It really has nothing to lose. Al-Jazeera on the other hand is an upstart that reaches out to a much ignored population that has never been accustomed to honest, fair and independent reporting (or at least the illusion of it). After Sept. 11, Al-Jazeera was in a position to make itself one of the most vital media outlets on the planet, both in the Arabic and non-Arabic worlds. But that’s changed now.
Whether Al-Jazeera has really taken an anti-western view of the world or not, the American media has condemned it and that means the American viewer, outside of the Arabic or Muslim community, will never give it any credibility. In the case of Al-Jazeera, the U.S. media has destroyed whatever credibility it had in this hemisphere. And that’s not a good thing.
The media should not arbitrate credibility in certain cases (sometimes it helps to have us serve as a watchdog) and this is one of those cases. Whether you agree with Al-Jazeera’s tone or not, the network is quite independent (Qatar is where the U.S. military’s command and control center is based). What Al-Jazeera is reporting is really no different than what Fox News Channel or CNN is reporting; it’s just the other side of the fence. But in times like these, credibility is the most important thing to the media and when you do something to undermine that credibility, it’s hard to recover.
Is the lesson that you should shy away from controversy or expressing an opinion contrary to popular belief? No, the lesson is that you have to be careful when it comes to the media because it’s quicker to condemn than it is to accept.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE ANNOYING THAN…
A PR person following up on a press release by forwarding you the press release a week later and asking you if you’re “interested in this?”
I realize part of your job is following up on pitches, but do it responsibly. If the first emailed press release was ignored by the journalist, the second one will be also. A proper follow-up would be a personalized note with a brief introduction to what the press release is about. Yeah, it’s time consuming, but it’s better than recycling a press release that was already ignored. Better yet, if the first response to an email blast was poor, put it on the wire and take your chances.
WAIT, THERE IS SOMETHING MORE THAN ANNOYING
You want to know what kind of press releases I hate getting? They start like this:
Ben:
> Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.
> This product is the best out there.
> Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.
Those stupid “>” show me a laziness that smacks of amateurism. Those “>” usually denote something has been forwarded. I know how it works, it’s not hard to figure out. You send out a press release, then go to your “Sent Mail” box and forward it on to the next schmuck and throw his name at the top. This is a sure way to have your press release ignored. If nothing else, send it out as a real blind carbon copy (bcc) blast or give the appearance that you know who the intended target actually is.
Another word of advice: Do not begin an email pitch with, “In case you haven’t heard.” Hey, if I haven’t heard yet, it’s not important to me. I’ve been getting some really awful press releases lately and it’s beginning to annoy me.
