10/17

How can they justify charging in spite of strict prohibitions that most local stations have against such pay-for-play?  The president and general manager of the station says the show is not a news program but a "separate entertainment program."   And why would one want to get on a show like that?  Well, for one thing, they don't tell viewers it is pay-for-play.  Viewers apparently think guests on the show have a newsworthy reason for being there.  Poor fools. 

The President and general manager says the show "gives some local advertisers who might not have production capabilities a chance to come on and demonstrate their product or service in a different format than 30-second spots."  In other words, the show is one long infomercial. 

This is a disgraceful situation and hats off to a PR person for exposing it.  According to the Post, 

Adam Handelsman, who runs a New York public relations firm, was setting up
media interviews for a California businessman last week. WFLA referred him
to Morgan, a salesman for the station, who offered what was termed a
"sponsored segment."

The Washington Post contacted Handelsman after receiving a tip, and when he
spoke with Morgan a second time, a reporter listened in on the conversation.
Asked by Handelsman if it were possible for his client to be interviewed
without making the $2,500 payment, Morgan discouraged him, saying: "That's
totally at the producer's discretion." If the client agreed to the fee,
Morgan said, "we'll get on the horn with the producer and talk about what
you need: special lighting, whether you're going to have props."
Handelsman said yesterday he has arranged interviews for clients for a
decade "because of the unparalleled credibility gained through favorable
editorial coverage." But, he said, "to see a television news outlet selling
their editorial endorsement is an affront to the hundreds of reporters,
editors and producers that I've worked with."

Media General of Richmond, Virginia,  owns WFLA-TV and  25 other stations in 12 states as well as 25 newspapers, including the Tampa Tribune and  Richmond Times-Dispatch.  Was Media General embarrassed by what the station was doing?  Not in the least.  The Media General spokesperson said its other stations are looking at the concept as well. 
 

10/16

Apparently a blogger and journalist, Christopher Allbritton, is teaching the course.  Being a graduate of a journalism school -- and an honors graduate at that -- I think I can say there is plenty journalism schools ought not to be doing.  One is teaching students how to keep journals.  They can learn that on their own time.

Rather than blogging, journalism schools ought to be teaching students basics of business, government and other organizations students will be reporting in their careers.  Of course, that holds true for the PR curriculum as well, but try to tell communications professors that. They react with disdain to an obviously uninformed suggestion.  After all, it is essential that students spend hours learning to craft simple sentences that a newsroom editor can draw from a cub reporter in two weeks.

Anyone can learn to write according Strunk and White.  Not everyone can gather and understand data needed to write informatively.  Wasting students' time on formats and methods of blogging is a misdirection of form over content.  To Allbritton's credit, he seems to understand that.  He was reminding his students in a posting that he wants more journalism and less personal opinion. 

if you must be avant garde, assign students to blog something that will teach them and potential readers how to observe and report the world with an informed eye.  For example, send students to the courts and have them blog trials or to the fire department or to a local high school where they might find out why education is failing.  They can learn something useful, and they might even gain readers. 
 

10/15

A story goes with this article.  I had finished it a couple of days ago and tweaked it to a fine point, removing verbiage, adjectives, adverbs and redundancies.  I thought it was ready to show to a young colleague who reads all of my material.  So, I gave it to him.  About 45 minutes later, he walks back into my office and says he doesn't like it.  There is something wrong, he says.  It is lacking an intellectual component that he wants from my work.  It would be OK, he said, for a tactician running a low-level political campaign but it wasn't up to snuff. 

He must have seen my face fall, but he was honest.  It wasn't ready.  I had written a how-to paper and not a piece that framed mudslinging against rhetoric and history.  So I took the paper back.  I  found cites to rhetoric and the ancients and even quoted from Cicero's Second Oration against Antony.  It all fit into an eight-inch section just after the beginning of the original piece. 

Having tucked this into the paper, I gave it back to him for another reading today.  About 30 minutes later, he was back in my office.  He liked it.  And, he was amazed.  How could one section added to a finished piece make the difference like that? 

I don't know how it worked, but it did.  In years of writing, I have witnessed similar tweaks that have taken dull articles and made them zing.  I wish I could say I had a formula that works every time, but I don't.  Each article is unique.  We're not making widgets here. 

My colleague, who is a good writer himself, said he had learned a lesson.  Namely, that a paper can be fixed without a complete redraft.  That's a good lesson to know in PR.  One doesn't always get time to revise heavily, especially when a client wants it NOW.
 

10/14

It is worth looking at the sites because they tell you quickly how much online journalism has progressed.  And, finalists can provide PR practitioners with ideas for how to use online journalism on behalf of clients.  Look, for example, at Gotham Gazette ( http://www.gothamgazette.com ), which reports New York City to a depth that the major publications cannot.  Or, examine Village Soup ( http://www.villagesoup.com/ ), the community online newspaper for three towns in Maine.

For a  more in-depth political and news approach, examine the web sites for the Center for Public Integrity.  http://www.stateprojects.org/dtaweb/home.asp . They cover a wide range of state and include a consortium of  investigative journalists. 

For breaking news, look at how space.com reported the Columbia tragedy.  It is as complete as any large-circulation newspaper could do.  http://www.space.com/columbiatragedy/   Or, look at what TheStreet.com had to say about eBay:  http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/contest2003/ebay.html .

There is no doubt journalism online is as high-quality as anywhere else.  It is the person behind the medium and not the medium itself that makes the difference.  There are serious reporters throughout the online world with whom PR practitioners should be striving to work.

The winners of this year's awards will be announced at the fourth annual Online News Association
Conference and Awards banquet Nov. 14 - 15 in Evanston, Ill.
 

10/13

It is clear America's enemies in Iraq know that lack of peace will sap the will of fighting men and of the American public.  Iraqis need not win a pitched battle against the US to win the war.  They only need to get America to leave the country before Democratic institutions are solidly established.  Then, Muslims and Kurds can fight to death and someone or no one will prevail. 

The Bush administration must be deeply unhappy to see its victory slipping away.  It planned well for war, but it did not understand a peace that is not peaceful.  The administration denies it, but I've seen this restlessness before.  It was in Vietnam.  There is a difference, however. There is no force that continues to flood the country and eventually will invade from somewhere with conventional weapons and take over. 

Iraq appears to have been reduced to the point where no one in the country has the power to invade anyone else.  That says little about those outside of the country,  however, in Iran and Syria. 

I, for one, hope the US does establish peace in Iraq because one should not have to fear for one's life walking a street or sleeping at home.   But, the more credibility the US loses, the  less chance there will be peace, especially among groups that lost  power and want it back. 

Credibility has life and death implications.  It is not just a PR exercise.