Unjournalism

Are the services of a public relations professional a privilege for those with enough money — or ego, or both — to afford it? Or is it, in one way or another, a right that should be afforded to each of us in our respective times of need?

I’ve thought about this from time to time, most recently in the context of the story of Nadya Suleman, the mother of a rather notorious set of octuplets. Simply by nature of the rarity of her, uh, feat — having given birth to only the country’s second set of live octuplets — she was thrust into the public eye, though at first unnamed.

At that point, even before she was identified and before we heard rumors of a book deal or a (god, help us) reality television show, folks coast to coast (and beyond, I’m sure) were discussing the whys and hows of giving birth to eight little critters and, in many cases, passing judgment. How could she? Why would she? Should she? Is she, or will she be receiving some sort of welfare or other public assistance?

At some point along the way, Ms. Suleman picked up the services of a PR firm — pro bono. In a sick turn of events, those PR pros have stepped down after having reportedly received death threats. That’s terrible and unfortunate, and it reminds me of high-profile cases in which certain lawyers receive similar treatment. What did the PR folks do wrong? Isn’t it at least as likely, if not more so, that they’re trying to do some good than they’re simply being opportunistic? And even if you believe they’re a little attention-hungry or whatever, death threats?!

Not that PR people need any more comparisons to lawyers (see the joke Shel shares here), but Ms. Suleman’s story really has me thinking (so I can get on with the point of my post, now that I have the context out of the way): Most folks I know believe in the fundamental importance of adequate legal representation when on trial in a court of law. But what about when someone is thrust into a trial in the court of public opinion? Isn’t a person entitled to the services of someone who can help them in their time of need?

To be clear, when I say “entitled,” I don’t necessarily mean they should get it for free. I don’t foresee, desire or expect a “public reputation defender” who functions as the PR equivalent of the court-appointed public defender. I do, however, believe that having your side of the story heard is something to which you’re entitled, and sometimes that requires professional help.

Photo courtesy of mindgutter on Flickr

Tags: ethics, public relations by Mike Keliher
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Please read this.

Tags: public relations, social media by Mike Keliher
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After reading “Why journalism schools should get rid of PR,” I couldn’t help but respond. That post by Bob Conrad offers ten reasons why PR is better suited for a business school, and I’m going to attempt a point-by-point response from the opposite perspective.

For the compete context for my writing here, you should check out Bob’s piece first.

1. Bob says public relations is inherently a business function at most organizations, especially when a PR head within an organization has obtained the proverbial “seat at the table” with other executive leaders. At the same time, much of the PR practitioner’s work is about communicating, which is not taught in management class. And doesn’t, um, everyone say the most important skill for budding PR pros is the ability to write well? Guess where you’ll learn that: J-school.
2. Bob’s second point is that “Journalism skills needed by public relations students can be obtained usually with about a year and half’s worth of journalism courses” — thus can be done regardless of whether PR falls under a journo department or a business department. I’d argue the same is true about the business classes. Whether we’re talking journalism education or business education, the classes only get you so far; experience takes you the rest of the way.
3. Bob argues that news reporters are “antagonistic” toward the things most important to a business: sales, marketing, advertising and other business functions. I’d argue that many journalism students and journalists aren’t; that’s why they’ve gone into PR!
4. PR is all about two-way, symmetrical communication, whereas journalists are conditioned for one-way, asymmetrical communication, Bob says. I say, not the journalists blazing a trail for success in the future.
5. Bob’s fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth points all address an hugely important topic, which I’ll address all at once here: the role of new media in journalism and PR. Basically, Bob says PR is (sometimes slowly) adopting new media, but new media is slowly killing the journalism business, and that good PR now focuses less on media mentions and more on direct communication via its own blogs and other new, social-y methods. To me, this alone makes the strongest argument for the importance of a journalistic education. The future of PR is a return to what should have always been our focus: telling stories effectively, communicating, interacting with people. It’s not a business function; it’s a human function.
6. Bob’s final point is a depressing one: Journalism businesses left and right are being gutted, so gutting journalism departments at colleges would be an “important career lesson.” Well, that lesson might be relevant for an unfortunately large number of current and future journalists, but to me, that doesn’t mean teaching that lesson in that way is a good idea. Even as the status of many journalism organizations deteriorates, we’ll see the need for and presence of solid journalism deteriorate only so far. Solid journalism is to a well-functioning society what oxygen is to an athlete: a crucial life-force. Gutting journalism departments because the journalism business is in upheaval makes as much sense as gutting pre-med programs because our health care system is shitty.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the arguments Bob makes — just the conclusion to which they led him. I also don’t believe simply that PR shouldn’t be taught in business schools. There’s tremendous value for PR practitioners in a business-oriented education, but I also believe there’s at least as much if not more potential value in a journalism-oriented education.

That, and I just enjoy arguing.

What do you think?

Photo courtesy of CUNY J School on Flickr

Tags: education, public relations by Mike Keliher
23 Comments »

Albert Maruggi and I have started working with a new client, a brand new Web start-up, and we’re already seeing some folks mentioning the client on blogs and in Twitter conversations. Beyond that, we’ll obviously be working with a Web-savvy crowd, so having a strong presence in these online communities is important.

“Being on Twitter,” then, is a given. When we have four people on the team, both at our firm and at the client company, who are actively monitoring and interacting via Twitter, the challenge is how to work with a single account profile while still conforming to these amorphous norms that “govern” the Twitter community.

The CEO of Client made sure, early on, to sign up for a Twitter account with Client as the username. A good start. The @Client Twitter profile hadn’t been used much yet, though, because building their product, their Web platform, has been the focus of their energy. So we’re basically starting from a blank slate.

However, as individuals, those of us on the “Twitter team” are fairly active Twitterers under our own names. That’s an asset, as we each have a fair amount of rapport and credibility built up. We’ve demonstrated, at least to some extent, that we “get it.” We’re not just swooping in to “do some PR,” “drive some traffic” and move on to the next thing.

It’s a good thing to have so many people interacting on behalf of the client, and we’ll all surely continue to do so under our own names. But for some of our work, we’ll need to operate under the obvious and official @Client profile. The challenge is to make sure the people we’re talking to know who they’re talking to. Personality and identity on Twitter, as is the case just about anywhere, are important.

So how do we plan to handle this? Well, for starters, we want to make it clear that the profile is staffed by a team — even going to far as to change the display name to “Client.com Team.” Additionally, we’ll change the brief bio section to say something to this effect:

Info about Client.com and [the subjects dear to their hearts], from @[ClientCEO], @albertmaruggi and @mjkeliher.

We’ll also make a habit out of signing our tweets with our first name or our initials, so people will know who wrote each one. For example, my tweets might look like this:

Client: Client.com is looking for usability testers. If anyone in the Twin Cities area is interested, let us know. -MJK

I stole that trick from the team that twitters for NPR’s “Bryant Park Project.” All good ideas are made to be stolen, right?

Speaking of which, we’ll round out the tactics for twittering as a team (alliteration!) by using the all important URL field of the Twitter profile to paint a full picture of the twittering team. Laura “Pistachio” Fitton was the first person I saw do this. The URL field of her Twitter profile points to a page on her site that serves one purpose: welcome people who have checked out her Twitter profile and explain a bit about who she is and what she does.

In the case of my client, we’ll have a page that explains, in very personable, conversation language (sadly, a scarcity in the worlds of PR and marketing) who we are and why we’re twittering as @Client. After all of the above, it will hardly be new information, but it is an opportunity to put a little more meat on the bone and offer more detail and color than the miniature Twitter profile section allows.

Have you done anything similar to this? What’s your approach? Any ideas to improve this method? I’m eager to hear some other insights.

“Teamwork” courtesy of DavidBole on Flickr

Tags: public relations, social media, Web by Mike Keliher
5 Comments »

Chris Brogan pointed me to Mitch Joel’s “social media marketing best practices project.” The goals are two-fold:

• Push smart people all across the Web to document their ideas for best practices in social media marketing
• Drum up some link love for Mitch Joel’s blog (and doing so in a creative, compelling way like this demonstrates a social media marketing best practice, no doubt)

Brogan’s chosen best practice is “Learn how to listen. Simple, I know. But it’s a best practice. Here are five tools I use for listening, and here’s my take on listening to Twitter.”

Mitch Joel makes the case for consistency:

Consistency. Be consistent. In everything that you do. Have a consistent username that you use in all of your channels (mine is mitchjoel). Use the same photo, so that you are recognizable in all of these channels. [...] Don’t blast out five pieces of content or join three online social networks and fade away. Choose one, stick with it and keep at it. Be more like the tortoise instead of the hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

I could go on all day with ideas to help enlighten other social media marketers, but Mitch challenges me to pick just one. Brogan took my first idea, listening — the single most important item — so I’m going to go a very different direction and step away from tactical best practices.

My best suggestion: Spend some time getting to know people in “your community,” getting to know what’s important to them, what they talk about, what gets them excited, what you can do for them — without worrying about the return on your investment.

Don’t spend all of your time working without goals, investing time and energy without thinking about some potential return. But don’t spend all of your time thinking about ROI, either. It might be hard, but it’ll be worth it.

And really, working like this — getting to know people as people, without thinking so much about your own goals, without thinking about getting an R on your I — will have a positive ROI. So maybe I can sum up my idea in a more simple statement:

Be selfless and be patient.

(And I’m also instructed to A) point to some other folks who have written well on this subject and B) tag some folks who might be prompted to share some good ideas on the topic, so… Albert Maruggi, Chris Lynn and Jason Falls — consider yourselves tagged. You’re it.)

Photo courtesy of steefnat on Flickr

Tags: marketing, public relations, social media by Mike Keliher
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When I saw this headline from Jason Falls — “There Is No Perfect Pitch, Only Perfect Pitches” — I immediately thought, “Wow. That makes perfect sense.”

As I read the article, I found that, although I agree with what he wrote, Jason didn’t go in the direction I thought he would. So this post will explain what I thought after reading Jason’s headline.

First, Jason’s concept:

By understanding that every media member is different, we can segment them into categories of preference, we can better organize our outreach, customize our pitches and serve both the media outlet and our client or organization. We don’t need the perfect pitch. We need the perfect pitches. [emphasis mine]

And he’s right. But in addition to being a PR guy, I also play a little baseball (so what if we’re only 4 and 8 right now — I’m batting .381!), so I had a different take on the idea of “perfect pitches.” When I read Jason’s headline and saw his post’s photo of a pitcher on the mound, here’s what I immediately thought with regard to PR.

Jason’s right that the perfect pitch is something that’s unique to each situation. In baseball, if I have a runner on first with one out, I’m going to try to throw a low pitch or a tight breaking ball, hoping to get the batter to hit a ground ball for a double play. In media relations, I’m might tie my client’s story to a big news item in hopes of riding that news wave to the land of PR glory.

But when I think of “perfect pitches” being the key, rather than a single “perfect pitch,” I think about the setup.

When I’m on the mound, I might try to catch a batter off-guard by throwing two smoking fastballs and then a slow, floating change-up (if, of course, I could throw a decent change-up!). If I’m good, he’ll swing for the fences but miss by a mile. The slow-flying change-up might be a sitting duck if the batter has a clear head and is looking for a meatball to swing at, but in the context of having seen two well-placed fastballs, this guy might be thinking he’s going to jump all over my next pitch because he’s seen that fastball and knows exactly what to do with it.

That context — the two previous pitches — makes my change-up the perfect pitch. Maybe next time he’s up, I’m going to have to unleash my curveball on this poor strikeout victim, if the context is right.

When I’m on media hunt, I’m not going to be trying to catch anyone off guard, but I am going to apply the same basic principle. I’m going to work to build a relationship with a reporter or a blogger — establish that all-important context. Perhaps I’ll first introduce myself and my client and share a link to the client’s podcast, so the reporter can learn a little about the client and relevant industry issues without having to hear it all from some lowly PR guy. Then I’d share some news items with the reporter that are relevant to his or her beat; they might include my client, they might not. Point is, I’m demonstrating that I’m in touch with what’s going on and am interested in the reporter’s success as well as my client’s.

Then, when the time is right and my client has a relevant angle, I can truly make my pitch. And keeping in mind the lesson Jason’s reminded me of, I’ll know that there’s no one perfect pitch — just a pitch that’s perfect for this reporter at this time in this context.

Thanks, Jason, for getting me thinking.

Photo courtesy of aturkus on Flickr

Tags: public relations by Mike Keliher
4 Comments »

Color me disappointed.

When I started reading this story in the New York Times, I thought I was going to read an analysis of how the hell so many prominent new outlets — “including U.S. News & World Report, The Daily News in New York, MSNBC.com and The Los Angeles Times” — ended up running a bogus story about “toxic” shower curtains that have invaded our homes.

Instead, I was presented with a general-interest newspaper’s take on how crafty PR pros can trick journalists into caring about “news” — quotes certainly intended, as we all know that anyone who has to resort to this kind of trickery doesn’t have much real news going on.

Here’s the transition from the “how could they run this story?” lead to the “here’s how PR people are sneaky” bulk of the article:

How do stories of this ilk get such bounce from major news organizations?

Those who make their living composing news releases say there is an art to this easily dismissed craft. Strategic word selection can catapult an announcement about a study, a product or a “breakthrough” onto the evening news instead of to its usual destination — the spam folder or circular file.

“P.R. people want to invest time in things that are going to get picked up, so they try to put something to the ‘who cares?’ and ‘so what?’ test,” said Kate Robins, a longtime public relations consultant. “If you say something is first, most, fastest, tallest — that’s likely to get attention. If you can use the words like ‘money,’ ‘fat,’ ‘cancer’ or ‘sex,’ you’re likely to get some ink in the general audience media.”

Think about the recent news stories you seen, read or heard, especially those that pertain to some study or research findings. Robins’ words seem as though they hold some truth.

But is it really about trickery? Later on in the Times piece:

Ken Sunshine, the head of a P.R. firm in Manhattan, said he thought the media had an institutional bias against “hype-y terms” like “world renowned” and “once in a lifetime,” which he studiously avoids putting in his news releases. “But ‘unique’ is fine,” he said, “if something really is unique.”

Um, yeah. I’m pretty sure I could get away with claiming to have the world’s nastiest curveball, too — uncontested — if it were true.

So we’re back where we started. Trickery might work occasionally, but really, it’s about substance. So how the hell did that story get such coverage? Was it the setting (the news conference was held at New York University Medical Center)? Was it the doctor who led the presentation, bestowing upon the happenings some level of credibility?

Photo courtesy of dullhunk on Flickr. (Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” is a great book, by the way.)

Tags: journalism, public relations by Mike Keliher
2 Comments »

The Web is full of perfectly justfied rants about the sub-par quality of much of the writing done by PR people, particularly in news releases. A popular target — for good reason — are those executive quotes that were probably never uttered by an executive in the first place.

Example:

“We’re excited to partner with These Folks,” said Jane Doe, CEO of Boring Corp. “This synergy will allow us to leverage our extensive resources in generating industry-leading levels of boredom among our key constituencies.”

But excuse me for a minute while I unnecessarily pick on a big dog. Mike Arrington welcomes a new member (with an impressive resume) to his team and kicks the post off with a nice little bit of PR-ish BS.

We’ve charged her with leveraging our brand, syndicating our content and helping us drive revenue.

Sweet! I guess it’s not really all that bad, but any time I see the word “leveraging,” I vomit a little in my mouth, and the phrase “leveraging our brand” is like vomit times three.

And when Mike mentioned the new hire on Twitter, his message was reminiscent of those generic executive quotes:

I am so excited about Sarah Ross joining our team

I suppose I’m being overly critical and picking a fight where one is certainly not needed. I just found it funny that even the biggest and best of the new-media entities falls back to some seriously old-school PR-isms every once in a while.

(Don’t take this criticism to heavily. I really enjoy Mike’s work, and god knows TechCrunch is a successful blog, to put it mildly.)

Tags: public relations, writing by Mike Keliher
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Shannon Whitley pointed me to this post from John Furrier about social media news releases. I started following links within and ended up reading this post from Matthew Ingram, which John was summing up.

Matt’s post was prompted by this one from Mark Glaser, which provides a pretty good history and current state of the union on social media news releases. Another link in this long chain led me to Tom Foremski’s post expressing (legitimate) surprise that putting links in news releases on the Web is still relatively unexplored territory. Seriously, people…

Why did I tell you that? Because after all that reading, I had dozens of eager and angry thoughts flying around in my head. I was about to start writing them down, sharing my thoughts on why this whole “social news release” concept isn’t really all that difficult. Then it hit me.

I already did. Thirteen months ago.

And pretty much every word is still relevant, still being discussed in those posts I linked to above. I could update or add a bit more, but to prove a point, I’ll let my previous post stand as is.

Tags: public relations by Mike Keliher
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The New York Times wrote about it. The Social Times got me thinking about it again. I must weigh in here on Target’s non-participation policy toward blogs and a couple of related issues. To be clear, I am in no way interested in weighing in on the advertisement in question, the ad that brought this whole unfortunate situation to light. I’m strictly focused on the communication policy issue here and Target’s seemingly short-sighted response to a concerned consumer.

So let’s start right there: Did you notice my word choice – “consumer”? Target saw her as a blogger, someone likely to have “an agenda” but also likely to have too small of “an audience” to warrant a real response from a busy PR team.

The Social Times writes: “…basically Target doesn’t think anyone that goes to Target stores read blogs,” stemming from Target’s now notorious statement saying it doesn’t “participate with nontraditional media.” (Side note: Yes you do!)

In this case, it doesn’t seem to be an issue of “We’re big Target and you’re a little blogger and we’re not interested in whatever little audience you might have (and we’re ignoring the fact that you could incite a nice little blog storm).” To me, this is the important issue: The woman to whom Target sent this unfriendly response (likely a Target shopper or at least a model of Target’s “core guest”) had an issue with a Target ad, so she asked Target about it. And it seems as though Target blew her off because she’s a blogger.

The impression: To get a response from Target, you not only have to be a “core guest” but you also have to prove you’re not a “non-traditional media” outlet. Is that it?

I understand that there is a distinction to be made between the responsibilities of Target’s PR team and Target’s customer service department, but that’s not the consumer’s problem, nor does that distinction matter to the blogger who feels slighted. She’s slighted by Target, regardless of which department bears the blame.

Does every single inquiry a company might receive warrant an immediate, full-force response? No, of course, not. But this request for an explanation seems reasonable. Certainly, it seems to warrant more than a response along the lines of, “Oops! You said the B-word! No comment.”

If this woman had not identified herself as a blogger, it seems reasonable to assume she’d have been transferred from the PR folks to some sort of customer service representative and handled from there (hopefully in a more friendly manner). But in dropping the B-bomb, she was summarily rejected as not relevant to Target’s quest to reach the “core guest.”

Bloggers are people. People are bloggers. Some “core guests” are bloggers, and some “core guests” read blogs.

Photo courtesy of j.reed on Flickr. Thanks.

Tags: blogging, public relations by Mike Keliher
6 Comments »