Unjournalism

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
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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
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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, social media release 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: Target, blog, public relations by Mike Keliher
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In an effort to clear up some of the many things I’ve intended to write about during the past couple of weeks, I’m going to fire off a quick run-down of links and my quick thoughts.

Hiccups girl
This poor girl can’t get rid of the hiccups (old news story, I know). She pops about 50 times a minute and has been doing so for the past month. Long story short: She was going to appear on the Today show, and the folks at Good Morning America just couldn’t stand to be beat on this hard news story (he said with loads of sarcasm). So they called the girl’s house 57 times, slipped notes notes under her NYC hotel-room door and otherwise tormented her and her family. My point: Isn’t this what journalists hate about PR folks?

72 percent of PR people: stupid or lazy?
“Preliminary results from a Kent State University/BurellesLuce survey shows that 72 percent of PR professionals do not have a formal system for monitoring the blogosphere. Only 19 percent say they do monitor blogs…” The survey was of “938 clients and prospects of BurrellesLuce, the media monitoring and analysis company.” Do these people know that Topix.net, Technorati and Google Blog Search are free? And that drunken monkeys could use them?

FakeYourSpace: If you want it, kill yourself
I’m not making this up. “FakeYourSpace is an exciting new service that enables normal everyday people like me and you to have Hot friends on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. Not only will you be able to see these Gorgeous friends on your friends list, but FakeYourSpace enables you to create customized messages and comments for our Models to leave you on your comment wall. FakeYourSpace makes it easy for any regular person to make it seem like they have a Model for a friend.”

“… Our basic plan starts at only $.99 This will give you 2 messages per week for 4 weeks. So for only $.99 you will receive 8 messages that will be there forever, not to mention our Models picture which will show up on your friends list. A pretty small price to pay for online popularity don’t you think?” This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. If this honestly appeals to you, you have two option: 1) please turn 14 years old — your birthday’s coming up, right? Or 2) shoot yourself in the mouth.

Greatest parody ever: Truth in Ad Sales
For anyone in advertising, marketing, PR — or anyone anywhere with any sense of humor — this is a must-see. It’s priceless. My favorite part: The exec who wakes up in the middle of the pitch meeting and tries to sound involved by stammering buzzwords: “Uh…mobile!…online!”

Newspaper scared of facts
The Raleigh News & Observer recently ran a description of rape suspect that included all sorts of details but omitted any mention of race. Isn’t that a little more significant than whether or not he was wearing a do-rag, which, mind you, is a little more removable than skin pigment? “I don’t think in this community the description of someone as black or white is as meaningful as it once was,” according to the paper’s managing editor. What other descriptive qualities are soon to become no longer “meaningful,” Mr. Editor? “The suspect is a person. In a do-rag. He or she committed a crime of an unspecified nature. If you see him or her, please let us know.”

A commentator from the Poynter Institute, a journalism think-tank-thingy, says: “All Irish-Americans don’t look alike. Why then, accept a description that says a suspect was African-American?” Well, for starters, some people will say “African-American” is a stupid phrase to use in many of the contexts in which it’s used these days; it’s lost any specific meaning. Second, if you have a problem with “African-American,” fine. Tell me the suspect’s skin is brown, tan, light brown, green, magenta, whatever. You’d tell me what color his hair and eyes are, right? What’s the difference?

Tags: FakeYourSpace, MySpace, blogging, common sense, journalism, monitoring, new media, parody, public relations by Mike Keliher
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In the wake of recent companies-not-disclosing-their-online-activity news like this, the Washington Post brings us this little gem.

The Post writes about a company in Arlington, Va., called New Media Strategies. NMS is a company that provides online monitoring services for clients ranging from movie studios to politicians. Reading the article makes this sound like a fun place to work for a combination geek-and-media-junkie like me. But they’re doing more than just monitoring, as the Post writes:

Over the past few years, the “online analysts” have helped the companies track their reputations, found ways to get their products noticed and joined online conversations to help steer them the way clients want them to go.

Monitoring and “steering”? What a deal!

Immediately, ethics concerns arise. Eagarly awaiting that part of the article — “I hope the write about…!” — I make the jump to the Post article’s second page, which reveals:

Curran said she is careful to acknowledge her connection to clients when it’s required. All online marketers have to walk a fine line when they work the blogosphere. Federal Trade Commission rules require them to identify their roles when they’re making a point on behalf of a client, but if they’re gossiping about the latest episode of “Desperate Housewives” they can legally be as anonymous as anyone else.

Disclosure “when it’s required”? “Can legally be” anonymous? Sure, maybe it’s legal, but hopefully the folks at Edelman/Wal-Mart have learned that there’s more to this than the law. All of us in public relations, marketing, advertising, communication and the like are trying hard to figure out how to do our jobs well in these wild and crazy times, and there are surely no set-in-stone rules right now. Still, I think most will say that only disclosing a professional, client-employee relationship in these types of forums only when legally required is not enough.

The Public Relations Society of America has a code of ethics (PDF) for its members that says, among other things on the topic of disclosure, “Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented.” The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, of which Edelman is a member, has a code of ethics, too, which Edelman helped create. WOMMA has set up a Web page dedicated to discussing Edelman and it’s lack of blogging disclosure.

All of this points one thing: Following the law isn’t enough when it comes to disclosure. Professional communicators should follow a strong code of ethics. I hope New Media Strategies has stronger ethics than this article depicts.

Tags: Edelman, Wal-Mart, Web, ethics, monitoring, public relations by Mike Keliher
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Several folks in the public relations industry are working to make the grand-daddy of all tried-and-true PR tools — the news release — more relevant and useful in this crazy new world of blogs and Web journalism and “we don’t want no more of your corporate BS marketing junk.” I’ll spare you the details and simply point you to some the fruits of their important, difficult work at socialmediarelease.org.

Several of the folks close to this issue have formed a “working group” that focuses on hammering out issues related to the revamping of the news release. They post occasional podcasts to report on what they’re up to; NMRcast, they call it, with NMR being “new media release.”

In the most recent installment of said podcast, Tom Foremski, the guy who’s basically responsible for starting this whole discussion with this post, eventually brings the discussion around to the name “social media release.” At about eight minutes into the podcast, Tom says something to this effect:

Maybe it should be called a “media release” or something like that because there are so many constituencies to serve.

He’s hesitant to call it a social media release because the content is for more than just perveyors of social media like bloggers and podcasters. So what do you call a document that is designed to officially release important information — often news — to various groups with different interests or reasons for caring about that information?

Call me a visionary, but here’s my suggestion: How about calling it a damn “news release”?

I don’t intend to stomp on the folks who are leading this discussion around bringing this PR tool into the brave new world of blogs and the like, but this strikes me as a textbook example of thinking too hard. You’re conveying news — “releasing” the information, if you will. What’s wrong with “news release”? You’re not playing favorites by calling it “press release” (old school!) or “social media release.”

You could call it a “new media release” — which many people use interchangeably with “social media release” — but that’s, at least in name, bypassing consumers or anyone who’s not “media.” And as many people now recognize, news releases on the Web are increasingly a direct-to-consumer source of information, no longer requiring a reporter to take interest in a news release and putting that news in the paper or on TV.

Keep up the great work, NMRcasters. But don’t get hung up on the name. That’s not what needs to change. Trash like this news release is what needs to be done away with.

Tags: Shel Holtz, Tom Foremski, common sense, public relations, social media release by Mike Keliher
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Matthew Smith, a VP at News Broadcast Network Inc., a “broadcast public relations firm,” writes in today’s Bulldog Reporter “Barks and Bites” that he takes issue with the idea that “traditional media are no longer effective.” He says it’s all about using the right message that resonates with the audience, regardless of the medium.

I’m all for podcasts and blogs and the like, and I believe in addition to being cool, many of them are invaluable. At the same time, I agree with Smith: traditional media ain’t dead, nor will it be anytime soon.

Still, though, I must call bullshit on one point Smith makes in his article. He writes: “As of this writing, this month’s most watched video on Youtube.com has 2.7 million views. By way of contrast the average audience for all VNRs and b-roll in our current reporting cycle is 14 million impressions.” (See these links for explanations of VNRs and B-roll, if you’re not familiar.)

Interesting point, sure, but knowing the little bit that I do about how things like VNRs and B-roll work, I have to question how many of those reported 14 million “impressions” were actually realized? How many people actually watched the VNR/B-roll footage in question? I believe - and please correct me if I’m wrong - that this 14 million number is arrived at, at least in part, by adding up the audience numbers for news programs that carry the supplied footage. That math is dubious at best. Plus, how many of those people gave a damn?

In the case of YouTube’s 2.7 million, those views were, more likely than not, people actively seeking out or requesting that content. And they are a hell of a lot more likely to be actually watching that video, rather than just having the news on TV while they’re making dinner.

So for starters, Matt, you’re comparing apples and oranges. Actually, it’s more like “impressions” of content to, for lack of a better word, “requests” for content. And either way, this is getting away from your core point: that it’s the message, and ultimately the results, that matter. And you’re right on that.

Technorati Tags: Matthew Smith, News Broadcast Network, YouTube, traditional media, new media, message, medium

Tags: VNR, public relations by Mike Keliher
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