Tag Archives: Journalism

Nov 10

Jimmy, forget about being the next Woodward or Bernstein. Mommy and daddy are buying you a slide rule for the holidays

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November 10 - newspaper-in-trash-can I knew the newspaper business was tanking, but I had no idea how horrific the current landscape was until checking the stats in a recent O'Dwyer's news piece (See "Newspaper Circ Drops Some More," Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter, November 4, 2009, Vol. 42 No. 43).

Did you know there are 44 million newspapers sold each day? That sounds impressive until one learns it's the lowest level since the 1940s!

Subscriptions at papers like the San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and Boston Globe are dropping faster than the post-season hopes of Giants' fans after Sunday's last-minute collapse (the papers reported circulation losses of 25.8, 22.2 and 18.5 percent, respectively).

The Wall Street Journal now has the largest daily circulation at 2 million (it actually increased 0.6 percent). USA Today's circulation plummeted more than 17 percent as it fell to the number two slot. (Note: the same issue of O'Dwyer's carried reports about the Journal's closing its Boston bureau and Forbes laying off 40 more staffers).

I wonder how undergraduate and graduate journalism programs are spinning these dismal results to current and prospective students. I'm proud to say I was a journalism major at Northeastern University and learned many skills that have since stood me in good stead. But, I wouldn't advise any young person to pursue a career in a dying profession.

Pundits disagree about the future of journalism, newspapers and magazines. I'm sure some form of neo-journalism will emerge in another decade or so. But, for the immediate future, I'd counsel any serious writer to run away from Columbia, Missouri, and the other great J-schools. The cost-benefit ratio no longer exists. There are few, if any, new jobs being created, and those that are pay less and provide no security whatsoever.

Instead of reading 'All the President's Men,' it might be wiser for Woodward and Berstein wanna-be's to, instead, crack open a biography of Einstein, Galbraith or Keynes.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the keyboard is no longer the meal ticket it once was. Look for calculators and slide rulers to replace reporter's notebooks and press badges as parents' stocking stuffers of choice this holiday season.

Oct 16

So, how did you feel when you first learned your son had third degree burns over 75 percent of his body?

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My alma mater, Northeastern University, is featuring me in an upcoming section celebrating 025
the 100th anniversary of their cooperative education curriculum (a five-year plan in which students alternate between classroom study and relevant work experience).

I majored in journalism and was incredibly fortunate to land three stellar co-op jobs:

– as a copy boy/news clerk with The New York Times
– as a reporter/sportscaster/talk show host for WGCH Radio in Greenwich
– and, finally, as a news writer for WEEI News radio in Boston.

As I was being interviewed, I was asked why I'd chosen public relations over journalism. “That's easy,” I responded, “I hated asking the 'So, how did you feel' questions to victims of fires, parents of kidnapped children and other people who suddenly found their worlds turned upside down.

I remember my WEEI news editor once yelling at me to track down the survivors of a horrific fire in Dorchester that had occurred the night before. “Get one of them on the phone and, so help me, do not hang up until you ask them how it made them feel!” He felt I wasn't getting enough emotion in my interviews.

I couldn't deal with the intrusiveness of it all. Nor could I deal with the jaded, world weary personalities of the journalists with whom I worked. I didn't want to wake up one day and be as burnt out as so many of these professional journalists appeared to be.

I bring all this up because I see the “…So, how did it make you feel?” question being asked more often than ever nowadays. In fact, it's become a staple of the morning talk shows. Maggie Rodriguez of ‘The CBS Early Show’ just asked the mom of some poor kid who had been badly burned how she felt. As soon as the interview ended, Maggie smiled at the camera and previewed an upcoming segment on women's health.

I couldn't do that. I couldn't keep up a false front or 'compartmentalize' the horror and personal tragedy.

I think it says something about the image and reputation of journalism that, as the media skew more and more towards the tawdry and sensational, we're seeing more and more digging into the human tragedy that goes along with modern-day life. Sleaze equals ratings, pure and simple.

Journalists may pillory public relations, but most of us focus on telling the positive side of a story. And, for that, I'm grateful (and proud.)

Oct 14

So much for the separation of church and state

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October 14 Journalists love to rake publicists over the coals when given the opportunity, so it’s nice to be able to return the favor every now and then. Phillip Reed, publisher of the Weatherford, Ok., Daily News deserves a special dressing down for his intentional blurring of the lines between the advertising and editorial in his paper.

Reed is insisting that public relations firms include a product along with any press release they forward to him or his news staff. No product, no coverage. Period.

So, he’s been receiving all sorts of alcohol, coffeemakers, cell phones, etc. And, Reed justifies this ‘pay-for-play’ scam because of the recession. How totally sleazy. Oh, and by the way, he keeps all the free alcohol for himself. It’s good to be the king.

I grew up believing journalism’s role in society was to provide objective news and analysis of people, places and things. How objective can a newspaper be about, say, T-Mobile, when the entire editorial staff has just received new blackberries courtesy of the corporation’s PR firm?

Even worse than the paper’s decision is the comment by Mark Thomas, director of the Oklahoma Press Association, who sees nothing wrong with the publication’s ‘grease my palm’ scheme. It’s nice to see a governing body performing its watchdog role so well.

Demanding that PR firms provide product samples is ethically and morally wrong. And, it extends to newspapers’ image and reputation everywhere. How long before other desperate publishers decide to follow suit and open their greedy hands to such largesse?

I’m sorry, Mr. Reed, but this particular PR guy isn’t going to play by your warped rules. No long-sleeve RepMan-branded t-shirts for you.

Aug 31

All the thought leadership in the world can’t overcome shoddy service

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August 31 - wallst_full This business-to-business specialist cum blogger has long admired the thought leadership programs of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Challenger, Gray is one of the world’s top outplacement firms. And, to me at least, it seems as if they’ve positively ‘owned’ the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Hardly a month seems to pass without some Challenger, Gray workplace survey being trumpeted on the Journal’s front page. If there was a B-to-B firm that ‘got’ thought leadership from the get go, it was Challenger, Gray.

So, imagine my surprise when Challenger, Gray and a few of its outplacement firm peers were absolutely skewered in a recent Journal front-page article. The Journal’s Phred Dvorak and Joann S. Lublin absolutely pummeled the outplacement firms for not keeping pace with, well, outplacement. The Journal charged Challenger and its ilk with providing bogus, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all ‘solutions’ for the  victims of the current recession. Rather than working closely with a downsized client, Challenger, Gray would, instead, send out mass form letters. They’d also provide such bizarre mock interview advice as telling one job seeker to ‘….not order diet soda because it suggested immaturity.’ Another was scolded for ‘….not following his coach to the restroom to continue a conversation.’ Puh-leese!

Challenger, Gray and other outplacement firms were painted as having placed quantity over quality. In effect, said the Journal, they’d become little more than telemarketing call centers, whose representatives were instructed to field as many calls as possible and to keep advice to a bare minimum. The Journal summed it up by saying, ‘With so many people looking for work, services increasingly have become standardized.’

Surprisingly, Challenger, Gray didn’t handle the Journal article very well. John Challenger, its CEO, responded to the paper with a written statement (I would have advised a sit-down with one or both reporters). In his note, Mr. Challenger admitted that ‘clients will get angry’ at poor service. No, really? Do tell. And, in defending his firm’s use of mass form letters for job-seeking clients, Mr. Challenger wrote ‘While the introductory and closing paragraphs are similar across many cover letters, the meat of the cover letter is individualized by the client.’ For me, that’s a smoking gun. Any marketer worth his or her salt knows the first sentence of any letter, be it to a prospective employer, reporter or would-be paramour is absolutely critical. I can spot a form letter a mile away and, when I do, I hit the delete button.

The Journal article is the first real blemish I’ve seen on an otherwise spotless Challenger, Gray thought leadership campaign. But, it strikes me that John Challenger & Co., better improve their service in a hurry. All the thought leadership equity in the world won’t overcome shoddy service.”

Aug 06

When lawyers call the shots, corporations typically lose in the court of public opinion

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Proving the old adage that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, Yamaha Corporation, makers of a white hot, off-road vehicle called the Rhino, were absolutely skewered by CBS evening News investigative reporter Armen Keteyian.

August 6 Doing his best retro impersonation of Mike Wallace in the latter’s halcyon 60 Minutes’ days, Keteyian dug deep into Yamaha’s files to find damaging memos, pulled off a beautiful ambush interview in the corporation’s lobby and enlisted the support of the new head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission to absolutely crucify the organization for knowing all about rollover problems with the Rhino, and doing nothing about it.
 
Keteyian interviewed a consumer who’d lost his hand as a result of a Rhino rollover, aired a video from a Yamaha dealership in which a salesman rolled his Rhino over in the parking lot and, get this, unearthed a 2002 internal company memo admitting that Yamaha’s president and vice president had both been injured when they’d taken the Rhino for a spin. Ouch!

I cringed as I watched minute after minute of evidence pile up and waited for the Yamaha response. It finally came after the ambush interview (in which an armed security guard ordered Keteyian to leave Yamaha’s lobby. That certainly projected a warm, fuzzy feeling). Yamaha’s response? A few paragraphs from in-house lawyers pointing to the Rhino’s spotless safety record and suggesting that any accidents were the result of reckless driving by over enthusiastic enthusiasts (Hey Yamaha: Ever hear of the Ford-Firestone SUV rollover crisis?).

The Yamaha Rhino story is a textbook example of how not to handle a breaking crisis and yet another example of how badly lawyers can bungle corporate reputation. Lawyers live, eat and breathe caution. And, in a situation such as this, are far more concerned about legal liabilities down the road than popular perception today. And, that’s what will cost Yamaha dearly in the weeks and months to come.

I’m not privy to the facts of the case, but I do know that Yamaha should have been much more forthcoming in admitting guilt (assuming Keteyian’s facts are true). They should also launch an internal investigation of the product, suspend manufacturing until the flaws are found and fixed, and compensate the victims of any Rhino rollovers.

Corporate communications executives like to talk about how our profession is increasingly ‘earning a seat’ at the table and playing a more strategic role in an organization’s business decisions. The Yamaha crisis reminds us, once again, that far too many corporations still see PR as little more than a staff function.

Jun 30

The rules don’t apply to me

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June 30 - ceo Power brokers think the rules don’t apply to them. That’s certainly true of sports stars, rock impresarios and politicians. It’s also true of executives. Take the latest findings released by UberCEO.com that reveal a near total use of social media tools by Fortune 100 chief executive officers.

UberCEO thinks CEOs are either distracted or too timid to engage in the blogosphere. Timidity (or fear) is a likely culprit. But, so too, is hubris. CEOs move in rarified worlds and breathe rarified air. As a result, most think the rules governing mortal men simply don’t apply to them. One needs only to think of, say, Bernie Ebbers, Bernie Madoff, Dennis Kozlowski or Jeff Skilling to prove the point.

I think CEOs think social media is for the hoi polloi. They don’t need, or want, to dirty their hands by interacting with the masses. They already have their hands full with such irritants as analyst calls, CNBC interviews or annual meetings. Who has the time or patience to write a blog, Tweet or maintain a home page on Facebook?

Sure, one needs to factor in Sarbanes-Oxley when conjecturing why CEOs avoid social media like the plague. And, yes, there remains a solid business case why the big kahuna needs to do this citizen journalist ‘nonsense.’ But, I think the average chief executive officer thinks just like the J. Walter Thompson CEO I once worked for. He felt himself above the fray and looked down his nose at lesser mortals. Let them eat cake (or hit ‘send’).

Until, and unless, we have some truly enlightened CEOs sitting in Fortune 100 corner offices, I don’t think we’ll see any blogging or podcasting. CEOs think that’s something for the ‘marketing guys’ to deal with. In the meantime, they have bigger fish to fry: Wall Street is unhappy with the stock performance, the board is questioning the latest downsizing and the charities are demanding some sort of sustainability program. Blogging? Bah humbug!

*Thanks to Greg Schmalz for the idea for this post.

May 05

What did they know and when did they know it?

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PR Weeks’ annual agency business report provides a nice dive into the country’s top 47 firms. It’sMarkpenn_2
polished, professional and to the point. But, curiously, it leads with a questionable selection and an even more questionable word choice.

Each of the top agencies in the section, you see, is defined by a word selected by the PR Week staff. Weber Shandwick is called ‘the heavyweight.’ No argument there. Ketchum is given ‘the linchpin’ moniker. Ah, ok, if you say so. And, Fleishman is proudly proclaimed ‘the titan,’ which sounds like something straight out of Jason and the Argonauts.

But, and here’s where I wonder what the PR Week folks were thinking, they lead off their entire list with Mark Penn and Burson-Marsteller, proclaiming both as ‘the counselor.’ Ouch. Talk about bad timing.

Why lead with Penn, when he’s just been pilloried because of improper connections with Hillary (hey, that rhymes!)? A John Budd letter to the editor earlier in the very same edition takes Penn to task for his obvious conflict of interest mistake. And, yet, a few pages later, there he is in all his glory.

All of which leads me to wonder if PR Week’s left and right hands were not communicating. Or, did someone decide, ‘Hey, what the heck? It’s a nice photo of Mark and he is a counselor, a counselor whose credibility and ethics have been seriously called into question, but so what? Let’s go ahead and lead our special section with him anyway.’ Or, worse, did someone not connect the dots?

It’s all very puzzling, and leads me to ask the age-old journalism question of our lead trade journal: What did they know and when did they know it?

Feb 04

Hollywood’s new blood sport: dead pools

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The freak show that is entertainment news seems dead set on debating who will die first: Britney orBritney2
Farah.

Feigning concern, reporters, commentators and talking heads (and it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell one from the other) vie with each other for the latest ‘unauthorized’ videos or inside peaks at the two tortured starlets.

‘Brit’s a threat to herself and those around,’ waxed one pundit. ‘Farah’s courage in the face of certain death from cancer is laudable,’ sighed another. Faux feelings, to be sure. And, yet we stare intently as the news media chop block one another to get the latest, greatest videos of each failing (and fallen) star. The ratings, one would assume, must soar in direct correlation to each celeb’s descent into hell.

Who’s to blame for this macabre dance? It certainly wasn’t always this way. The 24/7 news cycle is one obvious culprit since it needs constant news to feed hungry viewers and listeners. Then there’s the perpetual dumbing of America, with each new reality show slightly more idiotic than its predecessor. And, let’s not forget America’s increasingly manic obsession with Hollywood itself. It’s a toxic combination that seems to just spiral more and more out of control each day.

Once upon a time, I thought this to be a uniquely American phenomenon. But, now, when I travel overseas, I routinely see Hollywood gossip leading the local newscasts. In fact, the lead stories on Arusha, Tanzania, TV sets on January 1, 2008, were (in order):

– Britney’s latest breakdown
– Benazir Bhutto’s assassination
– Civil unrest in nearby Kenya

The dead pool descriptor seems to work equally well for the Hollywood circus and the slow, but steady, death of responsible journalism. And, it seems to me we’re all to blame.

Aug 06

Disaster is the crack cocaine of broadcast journalism

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As could be predicted, the broadcast media went on a pure feeding frenzy after the horrific Minneapolis bridge collapse. 806_image_3

The disaster was dissected and deconstructed time and time again. Eyewitnesses, experts and anyone else who could walk and chew gum were interviewed and asked what they saw, thought and felt. Sidebar stories showed local bridges that, like the one in Minneapolis, had structural defaults.

Intrepid reporters strapped themselves into crash simulators and walked us through best practices for escaping a submerged vehicle.

I’d list all of the above as sound, responsible journalism. Where the media beast went over the line, though, was in the showing and re-showing of the bridge collapse itself. I wish I had a dollar for every viewing.

Spectacular calamities have become the crack cocaine of TV news coverage. How many times have we seen JFK and Jackie hanging a left-hand turn into Dealey Plaza? Or, how about the Challenger hurtling skyward until it explodes into a thousand pieces? And, of course, the Twin Towers come crashing down each and every time Al Qaeda issues a new warning.

It’s all about the ratings and, sadly, shock sells. So, the media continues to cross the line and show too much negativity too many times. The end result is that, like JFK, the Challenger and the Twin Towers before it, the images of the Minnesota bridge collapsing into the Mississippi River are now seared into our collective memory banks. And, to what end?