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Study Examines The Impact Of PR On News

08.06.09

Courtesy of the Cardiff School of Journalism comes a fascinating study on the link between PR and news. The researchers set out to study the British media to discover how much journalists rely on PR and the wire services.

Opinion page of a newspaper To anyone who is aware of the changes going on in the mainstream media right now, there are very few surprises in the report. Essentially, today’s journalists are required to do more with less time. The resulting pressure has increased their reliance on material provided by communications professionals.

These findings do, however, add some weight behind the anecdotal stories of trends in the traditional media. Indeed:

“…our research suggests that 60% of press articles and 34% of broadcast stories come wholly or mainly from one of these ‘pre-packaged’ sources.”

One area that did surprise me, though, was the analysis of PR impact on different topics:

  • 37% of health/nature stories are based mainly or wholly on PR material (perhaps reflecting the restrictions on advertising, and hence higher reliance on PR, for pharmaceutical companies)
  • Business/consumer news and entertainment/sport news follow closely behind health/nature
  • The study found that “Politics appeared to be less PR ridden…”
    • In government-related stories, there’s a distinct difference between different media:
      • 39% of PR material found in broadcast media came from government sources
      • 21% of PR material in the press was from government
      • The broader public sector (hospitals, police, etc) provided 23% of the PR material found in the press

Interestingly, the study found that of the stories featured a single primary source, 50% of those in print media aren’t contextualized by other information. That percentage is significantly lower for broadcast media.

This is symptomatic of the challenges being faced by journalists nowadays. The pressure to produce three times as much content as they did twenty years ago means that journalists are heavily reliant on pre-packaged information and have little time to follow-up on it.

All of this provides significant opportunities for organizations (via communications professionals) to achieve favourable coverage in the mainstream media (which, as Edelman’s Trust Barometer found, is much more trusted than than official corporate communications).

Download the full report here (use Word to open).

Posted in: media, public relations

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Low-Brow Reporting From The Globe And Mail

08.01.30

Referring to this story in the Globe and Mail.

Posted in: media

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How Do You Define ‘Media’ In A Crisis?

08.01.26

Huntsville flood I recently witnessed the government’s emergency management operation in action when flooding in the Ontario community of Huntsville left roughly 120 homes under 5 feet of water in early January.

I was the communications guy at the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre. While we never moved from a monitoring role, it was fascinating to see things click into gear.

Skip forward to last Thursday. I sat in on my final ‘legacy’ from my old job – an excellent course on crisis communications that I organized last year before moving on.

It’s fair to say I’ve thought a lot about crisis communications (more formally, "emergency information") recently.

During the course, the instructors repeatedly mentioned the need to monitor conversations online, both to prevent issues from worsening and to ensure you’re aware of what people are saying during an actual crisis.

However, they were very clear that when it came to the media attending news conferences and reporting on a crisis, you should only allow accredited, traditional media to attend.

Noticing the apparent contradiction, I asked the instructors if they saw their definition of "media" expanding or blurring over time to include bloggers or other "citizen journalists." Did they see a move towards dealing with new forms of the media in a crisis?

The answer: a firm "no."

Normally I would argue quite strongly with a response like that. However, I can see two valid sides to this issue in an emergency situation.

Side 1: Stick To "Traditional" Media

Crises and disasters can be chaotic. You need to maintain control of the situation. Not in the traditional "control the media" sense of the word, but in the "keeping order" sense. By vetting journalists, you can prevent people who are intent on disrupting things from getting access to the scene.

Furthermore, in a major incident you may already have more journalists on the scene than you can deal with. If you have 600 journalists present but only have the capacity to take 300 on a site visit, adding 400 "citizen journalists" to the mix only complicates things and dilutes your efforts among more people. (I made those numbers up)

Side 2: Work With The "New" Media

We’ve already established that you’re monitoring blogs, messages boards and the like for coverage of the situation. In an ideal world you’re responding to it, too. Why not give them access to the situation? These people are worthy of note, but only after they’ve criticized you?

I could take issue, too, with the idea that allowing the great unwashed public into the situation constitutes a serious risk. Media aren’t given free access to everything – centrally they’re still located in a designated area away from the operations centre and on-site they’re in a similarly-controlled location.

My Take

I’m not too sure where I stand on this question. On one hand it grates that citizens aren’t seen as trustworthy. On the other hand, if even minor incidents like Huntsville can be difficult to coordinate then it is essential to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

(Note: I use the word ‘minor’ only in terms of scale – the Huntsville flood wasn’t minor or insignificant for the people affected, responders on the scene or those of us responding to the emergency)

What do you think? Are we right to limit access to a crisis to professional media in the name of security and stability, or does emergency management need to change its definition of the media?

(Photo credit: Stephen Hernen)

Posted in: crisis communications, media

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How Not To Deal With The Media

07.12.20

Wolves arguing Newfoundland paper ‘The Telegram‘ recently published an article detailing an email trail between Newfoundland journalist Craig Westcott and Elizabeth Matthews, the Director of Communications for Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams.

Check out the article – it makes very interesting reading.

Matthews has blacklisted Westcott for a while due to his criticism of the Premier. The government is apparently now also shutting his paper out of government advertising.

As the Canadian Journalism Project noted:

When all the spin and personalities are removed it seems to come down to the cruel realities of being an experienced self -employed journalist in a small town who must not only report news and events but is also called on to do SIGNED commentary and editorials …something the local daily does not.

The Telegraph also published a critical follow-up post that refers to a thoughtful post by Ed Hollett.

I won’t comment on who has the moral high ground here in terms of the history, but I do have a couple of thoughts about this incident that we can learn from:

  1. Don’t involved in acrimonious back-and-forths with reporters. You’re unlikely to win, and you almost certainly won’t come out of it looking good
  2. As Hollett says, "The biggest thing is to keep personalities out of it;  sometimes even when you have to deal with arguably the biggest idiot on the planet you have to find a way of getting on with the job."

    Agreed. It appears here that personalities and personal feelings got in the way. That’s where things fell off the rails.

  3. Nothing is off the record. Don’t assume that because you’re not in an ‘interview’ that the reporter can’t/won’t publish what you’re saying.

Every person that I’ve talked to says the same thing about journalists – they’re good, reasonable people who generally aren’t out to ‘get’ you. However, if you get into conversations like this, you’re asking for trouble.

(Photo credit: Laenulfean)

Posted in: media, public relations

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Hyperlocal Media Coverage Of California Malibu Fires

07.11.27

While researching my presentation for the recent Talk Is Cheap unconference, I came across a fantastic post by Mark Glazer. Alongside discussing the response of media outlets to the first set of fires, Glazer noted the lack of hyper-local coverage of the fires.

What many people who are evacuated really want is simple information on the condition of their home and neighborhood.

He also quoted Dan Gillmor, director of the Center for Citizen Media, who said:

I suspect it’ll be startups, not news organizations, that figure this out…But this is squarely in the sweet spot for traditional media if they understand their missions.”

Now comes news of more fires in western California, this time around Malibu. These fires were much smaller than the ones in October, but news organizations once again went to town with interactive maps and other new-media coverage.

Related to Glazer’s post, though, Fox News found Gillmor’s "sweet" spot and went hyper-local on its map, pinpointing individual houses that were damaged or destroyed.


View Larger Map

 

Very impressive, but again, where was the state government in this?

Ok, these fires weren’t so big so maybe didn’t warrant coverage on their homepage. Surely there’s something up on their Fire Season site though, right?

Wrong.

The only evidence of any fires on their homepage was a link to a news release in their long list of releases.

(Ok, that page does link (yet again…) to a video (not to a player – to the video file directly) and a ‘photo essay,’ but I’m not impressed.)

Another missed opportunity for the state and another home run by the ‘traditional’ media.

Posted in: crisis communications, media, social media, web 2.0

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California Wildfires – Using New Media to Communicate In A Crisis

07.10.23

Immediacy is one of the great things about new media/web 2.0.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the coverage of the devastating wildfires down in California recently.

I’m fully aware that crisis communications must focus on traditional channels – TV, radio, print – in today’s media environment. However, quick and responsive new media tactics provide the ability to communicate directly with citizens that those channels do not.

Allen Stern at CenterNetworks wrote a great post about web 2.0-based coverage of the fires on Monday. His post provides a useful list of the ways some people have used new media to post up-to-the-minute information on the fires.

I’m going to focus on my perspective of how corporations have used this technology to respond.

What The Mainstream Media Is Doing

Here are a few of the best examples of ‘new media’ use from the mainstream media:

What California Is Doing

To my surprise, the state of California has a very useful resource at www.calfires.com (although it seems to be up one second, down the next due to high traffic). However, while the resources are useful, I’m surprised at their lack of uptake of new technologies on the website.

The site does have an interactive map. However, on close inspection it turns out that the map is actually from the KPBS News site mentioned above.

Why didn’t California take the bull by the horns and turn its own site into a communications hub during the crisis? Why not do what the news outlets did and use this technology to provide up-to-the-minute updates?

What California Could Do

In addition to what the state is currently doing, it could :

  • Create its own interactive map with the latest updates from citizens and let news organizations embed that in their sites
  • Let citizens upload their own photos and integrate them into the map
  • Set up a blog and a Twitter feed (and integrate them) to give the latest updates on evacuation orders, all-clears, etc.
  • Create an RSS feed (or feeds) to push updates out to people
  • Aggregate news from mainstream outlets to provide a one-stop newsroom
  • Write clearer news releases
  • Do this all centrally, bump their generic information down or off their state’s homepage and give more space to updates on the fires.

Why?

Because they have the necessary website traffic

Google "California Wildfires." Two of the top five links are government websites.

Heck, we don’t even need to wonder if people are going to the government’s website – their CAL FIRE Incident website crashed under the increased traffic.

The LA Times twitter feed, at time of writing, has 96 followers. The San Diego Union-Tribute Help Blog doesn’t even have subscriber stats on Google Reader.

With the traffic going to government sites, they could push information out much more effectively to many times more people.

Because they have the necessary resources

Newsrooms have limited staff. The government, however, has far more extensive resources. Add in the potential for citizen contributions and you have a powerful tool for emergency information.

Because now is not the time to bury information

In a crisis like this, information should be front and centre. The less searching people have to do, the better.

This also goes for news release-writing. If you’re announcing a new toll-free hotline for donations, don’t bury the phone number in the third paragraph (however, check out how their ‘email/share’ button works – interesting). Put it right at the top.

Because no-one will complain about having to look a little harder for vehicle registration information right now

I’m not a crisis communications expert (although hopefully some of you are and I’d love to hear your comments). However, I do know that when the President declares a state of emergency for your state and 750,000 people flee their homes, your list of "highlights" on your home page should not include:

  • Small business seminars
  • A jobs website
  • A link to a DMV video on YouTube
  • A kids’ website

Sure, these are all valuable initiatives but I really don’t think they need to take up space on the homepage right now. While the crisis is full-blown, the state could dedicate a lot more real estate on its main homepage to providing useful information to its citizens.

——-

California is doing a decent job of providing information online to its population in the midst of a crisis. However, with a bit of innovative thinking, they could do a lot more.

Posted in: blogging, crisis communications, Google, media, social media, Twitter, web 2.0

8Comments

Panel Discussion: "Is The News Release Dead?"

07.10.07

Last Thursday I attended a panel discussion, organized by my department, entitled “Is The News Release Dead?”

We had a great mix of speakers:

The panel members provided an interesting mix of viewpoints, from very pro-social media through to quite sceptical, leading to some interesting exchanges of views.

Rather than sticking purely to looking at the news release, the panel explored the broader topic of the role that web 2.0 can play in government communications. I continued my social media education by live-blogging the event.

I normally shy away from writing about government communications or anything too closely related to my work, but after careful reflection I decided to make an exception here for three reasons:

  1. The panelists gave their own opinions; they didn’t speak on behalf of the government
  2. These issues aren’t confined to the public sector
  3. I think we should be proud of having these conversations.

Some key points raised by the panel included:

On news releases:

  • The news release, in its traditional format, doesn’t work. It’s due for a significant overhaul
  • News releases are often used incorrectly – at a minimum you need to put news in it. If there’s no news, don’t do it
  • Social media news releases can combine multiple media with succinct content, tagging and content sharing to provide a new way to bring our messages to the public
  • The news release isn’t dead. However:
    • Our focus needs to change from getting content to the media to getting it to the public
    • We need to re-examine why we issue news releases. It’s a tool in our toolkit, but shouldn’t be the default

On traditional media:

  • Traditional media outlets are slowly realizing that the world doesn’t end when the newspaper hits the doorstep. Consumers expect continuous new content
  • The Globe and Mail now allows readers to comment on some stories on its website
  • A majority of consumers still don’t trust online sources as much as traditional media
  • Communications professionals need to stop thinking about the media as the end audience. They’re an essential part of our communications but we communicate through them, not to them

On social media:

  • If organizations delve into new media, transparency is critical. If you aren’t transparent, you will get found out
  • Views differed on whether it’s appropriate (or useful) for government to use social media tactics like blogs, podcasts and social networks
  • The time-shifting capability of podcasts has given radio stations a new lease of life. What’s more, they’re still evolving:
    • Imagine re-mixable podcasts where users can pick and choose the content that interests them
  • The conversations organizations have about Facebook now resemble the conversations they had about the web back in 1994
    • Any organization that ignores Facebook (or any other communications tool) is shutting off a way to communicate with its audience

I have a few thoughts on the discussion:

  • We’re playing catch-up: The discussions that we’re having now in the public sector are the ones that the PR industry as a whole have already had over the last couple of years. The leaders are figuring out how to use these tools; we’re talking about whether to use them
  • We need to educate our peers: There’s a lot of fear about new web technologies, especially around transparency. For new tactics to have any credibility, transparency and openness are critical. Failure to have this will mean failure of the tactic
  • We shouldn’t rely on snap-shots: People cited studies that show a minority of the public trusts online rather than traditional sources. However, the studies are just a snap-shot – don’t show the underlying trend, which is that more and more people are looking to online sources. We need to think about what people will want in a couple of years, not what they wanted six months ago, to avoid vainly chasing the end of the rainbow
  • We need to experiment: Wal-Mart set up a Facebook group. Did it go perfectly? No. They got a lot of negative feedback, but they tried. We need to try new tactics if we want to succeed
  • People want choice: In our fragmented media environment, people want to access information through their choice of medium. To ignore new channels is to miss opportunities
  • “Web 2.0″ isn’t a panacea: It won’t work for every announcement. However, it does add a significant number of new tools to our toolkits, which we should acknowledge and use appropriately
  • Podcasts, blogs, social networks etc. are just tactics: Some people seem to think that when we talk about social media, we’re talking about using it to the exclusion of other tactics. That’s just not the case. Podcasting, blogging, Twitter and all of these wonderful tools aren’t strategies; they’re tactics.

Overall, the panel discussion was fascinating. It was great to hear the different perspectives of the panelists on how (and whether) we should make the best of the opportunities that web 2.0 gives us.

Thanks to the panelists and to everyone else who worked on making it happen!

Posted in: facebook, media, news release, podcast, public relations, social media, social networks, Twitter

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Finding The Middle Ground With Social Media News Releases

07.09.11

Todd Defren at SHIFT Communications posted last week about "The End Of The Social Media Release." He’s tired of the format being ‘special’ and wants to see it become the norm.

I’m not sure this is an ideal goal.

social_media_template I love the social media release format. In our technology-driven world, pumping out release after old-fashioned release onto the wire just doesn’t meet the needs of the media. The media aren’t our audience, but more often than not they’re our conduit. For our messages to be heard we need to work with the media, not against it.

The idea of the social media news release has been around for over a year now, and people are catching-on. For the uninitiated, here are the basic ideas behind it, courtesy of Edelman:

The social media news release is a next-generation news release that combines traditional and emerging forms of communications. By incorporating social media features such as hyperlinks, social bookmarking, multimedia, comment and trackback, among others, the social media news release serves as a bridge between traditional and emerging communications tools.

This format helps the reader by breaking down the release into well defined sections. This is critical – it doesn’t force people to work to deconstruct the release to find the key message.

However, I respectfully disagree with Todd that the social media release should be the ‘standard operating procedure’ for communicators.

My issue is that, even with the remarkable flexibility of the new format, it still keeps to the one-size-fits-all approach to communications.

First and foremost, communicators need to think about their audience. However, we also need to think about how we’re going to get the message to that audience, and that means segmenting the media.

There’s a big difference between the larger media outlets and smaller, community-based media.

The social media release is a great idea for the larger outlets where the reporter is always going to break down the story and look at it from all angles. However, smaller community papers simply don’t have the resources needed to do this. We frequently see releases published almost verbatim by these outlets.

If we were to stop issuing traditional releases for community-based stories, I’m willing to bet we’d see a drop in coverage in local media.

I think we need a middle ground – one that Cisco, who Todd mentions in his piece, seem to have found. They provide a traditional release in addition to the new format.

Now, a (misplaced) concern I’ve heard about the new format is the time it takes to pull all the resources together – worry that we’d have to start producing video for each release, or do a photo shoot for each release. This isn’t true – the beauty of this format is its flexibility, which allows any appropriate content to slot in on a case-by-case basis. However, if we were to start producing both release formats, it would be excessive.

We need to start looking at the social media release as another tool in our toolbox, not as a panacea.

We should replace the traditional release in some cases – the mainstream stories where you expect major outlets to pay attention. For those cases, the old way is outdated and obstructive. For purely local announcements, however, I think the traditional release still has value.

Bottom line: one-size-fits-all doesn’t work.

Posted in: media, news release, public relations, social media

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Across The Sound iPhone Sponsorship – A Useful But Extreme Experiment

07.08.10

Joseph Jaffe has created some waves recently with his offer of sponsorship of his podcast in exchange for an iPhone.

This novel approach to monetizing a podcast is pretty controversial. Basically, on episode #83 of Across The Sound, Jaffe offered sponsorship of an episode of the podcast to the first user that sent him an iPhone. He followed that up two episodes later, offering one month of sponsorship in return for a Sony Vaio or MacBook laptop.

I have three thoughts on this.

  1. Kudos to Jaffe for coming up with another way to monetize his podcast. He’s been doing this for a while and he deserves the returns he’s generating from it. I also appreciate the novel approach – why not get a phone? Would there be the same controversy if it was money instead of the iPhone (Jaffe said the much same thing on ATS #84)? For Immediate Release (which I also enjoy) has sponsored segments, but there’s much less controversy . Why aren’t people upset with that? I have no problem with either concept.
  2. Equal kudos to Tim Coyne for pursuing this opportunity (Tim provided the first of the two iPhones that Jaffe received). Yes he’s promoting himself, but I applaud his creativity and dedication to developing his career. Some people are happy to sit back and take the hand that life deals them. He’s putting himself out there, and I fully support him in that. In fact, after finishing this post, I’m off to his site to offer up the little value I can.
  3. I do have one problem with this initiative. Episode #86 of Across the Sound, the first cast sponsored through this approach, was largely co-presented with Tim Coyne. The content wasn’t at all related to the usual content – the stuff that people subscribe to listen to. Most of the episode centred around Coyne’s efforts to get an audition for a TV show role. If Jo Jaffe does receive a laptop (in fact, he did), does that mean a whole month of his show will be filled with content unrelated to the usual value he offers? If it does, he may lose a whole lot of subscribers.

I have no problem with Jaffe getting some monetary benefit through his podcast. The same goes for all of the other PR/marketing-related podcasts I listen to (thanks to all you guys and others).

My concern is that Jaffe has taken the sponsorship idea too far. People don’t download podcasts to listen to ads; they tune in despite the ads, to listen to the valuable content. Without that, they’ll stop downloading. Without listeners, potential sponsors will lose interest. There needs to be a middle ground.

This approach seems like an experiment to me. As with all new things, mistakes will be made (as I pointed out in my last post). While I applaud the it, I hope that Jo will swing back slightly from the extreme sponsorship he has used here and toward an approach that will allow sponsorship of his podcast without permitting its takeover.

Posted in: marketing, media, podcast, pr, public relations

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Are Companies Missing The Point Of Social Media, Or Is Facebook Missing An Opportunity?

07.08.10

The web is full of story after story right now about companies cancelling their advertising on Facebook because of their potential association with dubious content. In the latest move, Reuters reports:

“The British government has halted its advertising on the social networking Web site Facebook over concerns about how its ads are displayed“

I listened with interest to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson discuss several UK companies pulling their ads off Facebook in episode 264 of For Immediate Release. I must say, I had quite a visceral reaction to their views on this (to the alarm of people near me on the bus).

Shel and Neville suggest that companies are missing out on an opportunity with these social networks. They argue that companies should realize that advertising is changing and that they should get on board with it.

I have a somewhat different perspective, which I’ll split into two parts here.

First, rather than the companies missing out on the opportunity here, I argue that it is in fact companies like Facebook who are missing out.

We shouldn’t put “Web 2.0″ companies on a pedestal. They’re young companies and they aren’t immune to making mistakes. Facebook is a fantastic website and I’m a big fan, but I think they’re on the wrong side of this one. They run the risk of losing out on huge potential revenue by not delivering an advertising model that accommodates advertisers’ concerns.

Rather than a negative, confrontational response, the company could generate a lot more goodwill by working on a way to deliver ads that provides a measure of control for advertisers. Let’s face it, Facebook (right now, anyway) generates its revenue through ads. The advertisers are its customers. Smart companies don’t alienate their customers.

My second point is that, like it or not, a lot of companies will continue to pull their ads until issues like this are fixed. Businesses spend millions developing their brands; it’s no surprise that they will act quickly to protect them. Not understanding this is to not understand a vital part of marketing.

Facebook is wrong here. They should embrace their customers’ concerns and work with them to fix the problem.

Posted in: branding, facebook, marketing, media

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