Archive for the ‘media relations’ Category

I got the following pitch today. I’m redacting it to remove identifying information, but man, does the last line of that covering note grate on my nerves. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never expressed interest in this company.

Here goes:

Greetings! COMPANY X, LLC just posted — COMPANY X empowers passionate online publishers with addition to its PROGRAM Y. Please contact us if you need any additional information. Thank you for your interest in COMPANY X, LLC.

Best Regards,
PR Department
PHONE

press@COMPANYX.com

Original Collateral Text:

COMPANY X empowers passionate online publishers with addition to its PROGRAM Y Program

CITY–STATE/ October 27, 2009 – COMPANY X, LLC announced the launch of the new entry level tier of its PROGRAM Y: PROGRAM Y: Standard. The ‘Standard’ package is for small content owners and web media companies. The new program rounds out COMPANY(TM) revolutionary program.

MISTER X, GRAND POOHBAH, commented: “Online publishers who want to do more than, well, one thing at a time, are frustrated. I know, I’ve been in their shoes. They’ve posted blogs, videos, photos and audios on sharing sites and tried to tie it all together along with social networking and other widgets. The tools are all different, they don’t talk to each other and every time a version changes — things break. They have no way to really grow audience and their users cannot contribute “any media” rich content. They’ve tried ad programs and ad networks and they only seem to “cheapen” content. Worse still – they seem to spend more time wrestling with the technology than on their content. I only wish that COMPANY(TM) had been available for my previous companies! ”

I’ve asked the company when I had expressed interest in them, but haven’t heard back from them.

I know that we’ve all moaned about bad pitches, but this one just got under my skin.

Hope this doesn’t get under yours in the same way.

Ciao,
Bob.

The Fraser Institute is a think tank here in Canada that believes in “a free and prosperous world where individuals benefit from greater choice, competitive markets, and personal responsibility.”

I would call them a right-wing think tank. But they’re pretty darn media savvy. One of their standards each year is the proclamation of “Tax Freedom Day” — the day on which Canadians theoretically have earned enough money to pay all of their tax burden for the year and begin “working for themselves.”

They claim the day fell on June 6 this year. They say the latest one was June 24 in 2000, while in 1961, it was two months earlier, meaning we were less burdened then.

As part of their blitz on Tax Freedom Day this year, they have a Video and MP3 available of a song somebody wrote about taxes.

It’s not a bad song. Kinda cute, kinda funny. But I’ve got two pet peeves.

1. The Fraser Institute should have been smart enough to put embed codes in or to post it publicly to YouTube so I could put it here. They didn’t, so I can’t. The Share button is fine, but come on, make it easy!
2. They never mention who the guy is who sings it (and presumably wrote it.) Would it have killed them to give him some credit?

Admittedly, this is no Conference Board of Canada-level scandal. But Fraserites — could you make it easier for us out here in the blogosphere?

UPDATE: The video is on Youtube. They just don’t SAY it is.

Ciao,
Bob.

I’m not a paleontologist, although when I was a kid I wanted to be, more than just about anything. But I’m still a dinosaur geek. Not as much as some people, but still.

So when the discovery of “Ida”, or a remarkably complete fossil of a creature dubbed Darwinius masillae, was announced, I was glued to the ol’ TV set.

The claims of significance for this 47-million-year-old fossil were pretty huge: “The link until now was missing. Well, it is no longer missing,” said Sir David Attenborough. The researchers themselves were effusive.

But now the hype is being questioned, in articles like this one from the Sydney Morning Herald or this one from the Times of London headlined “Origin of the Specious.”

The Times article portrays the man who launched the fossil into the spotlight, palaeontologist Jorn Hurum, as a bit of a rogue with more than a slight sense of bombast.

The Guardian profile of Hurum (which sounds like an Ent clearing its throat) is a bit more charitable than some media.
And the decision to publish the paper in a free-access journal PLOS One rather than Nature or Science has raised eyebrows too. Hurum’s argument is that he’s paid by the government for his research, so shouldn’t publish the fruits of said research in a journal that restricts access.

It’s interesting to me that palaeontology should become the hook for a debate around science and hype. Medical and health research is rife with this sort of stuff. Look at the faux debate around a study of “risky” reusable shopping bags fomented last week by the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, for just one example.

The argument here is, apparently, that the release of this research was driven more by the TV and book launches than it was by science, and that the importance of the discovery of Ida (named after Hurum’s six-year-old daughter) was torqued to make it more relevant to human evolution than it actually is.

I’m not sure of the science. But I believe that while responsibility is important, it’s equally important to communicate with complete, understandable, effective and enthusiastic messages when you’re talking about scientific topics.

So does Hurum’s team get an A or an F? I guess I give him a B for boffo box office and a C for contorting the truth just a leeeeetle.

Ciao,
Bob.

I’ve recently discovered Jorge Cham‘s “PhD comics.” Cham is not only a pretty great cartoonist, he’s a genuine PhD, who did his doctorate at Stanford, studying robotics. His two most recent panels that are VERY apropos for anyone doing PR or media relations in a science-based area

#1, from May 18:

And #2, just out today:

Love these. They’re keepers for the office wall for sure.

Ciao,
Bob.

Ottawa Citizen science writer Tom Spears is a good journalist. But having worked with him, I think it’s fair to say he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He hasn’t been shy about criticizing media relations on his beat in the past — and it’s been bruising sometimes.

And now on his blog (where I wish he’d get some linkey goodness going) he has two recent posts about the Canadian Space Agency‘s media relations processes and performance.

His May 11 post, “Space news, the final frontier” used the results of an Access to Information request to parse the CSA’s media relations policies. He quotes from them at some length, and they seem unsurprisingly bureaucratic.

“Media Relations will then speak with the reporter and determine the nature of the request, the best person to fulfill the request, and the reporter’s deadline….Media Relations will complete the interview request form and forward it to the director overseeing the issue in question. The director will then recommend a spokesperson or send the form directly to the spokesperson designated by him or her…Media Relations will oversee strategic development (to be submitted to the Director of Communications for approval), logistical support, delivery of media relations services, and on-site assistance for all media events involving a CSA spokesperson…Media Relations prepares news release drafts with the support of the program team. The program team is responsible for providing the basic information needed to prepare a first draft… The news release is always approved by the Director of Communications and Public Affairs, the Program Director, the President, the Minister’s Office and other departments (as needed).”

You’ll be shocked to discover he doesn’t think much of this process.

Then he wrote one a few days later called “Space agency hits and misses” which explored a specific case study — that of the announcement of Canada’s two new astronauts, fighter pilot Jeremy Hansen (l) and Dr. David Saint-Jacques (r).

He notes that Saint-Jacques refused to answer what he refers to as “personal” questions, which he acknowledges was within his rights, but constituted a “missed opportunity.” What seems more serious to Spears is this:

“Applicants for the two new astronaut jobs were put through high-stress survival tests. Dunked upside down in cold water in a helicopter-crash simulator, made to fight fires and floods, and so on. Then, as part of this series of stress tests, the space agency made them do a media scrum, with fake reporters getting all aggressive at them. In other words, the agency set up the crucial job of telling their story as a high-pressure, adversarial prospect.”

I don’t know the truths behind this. But I doubt Spears is making stuff up. It’s a shame that astronaut David Saint-Jacques, who seems to me to be like most astronauts — incredibly accomplished people with awe-inspiring arrays of talents and charisma — couldn’t use his position to create a personal connection with media and through them the public.

So here’s my angle on this. Let’s assume that Spears is right, and that the agency sees media as the enemy. So why not focus on getting to people DIRECTLY, on their web site. To be frank, the CSA web site sucks. It’s a cookie-cutter Canadian government web site, with terrible ability to find pictures or video. They don’t have a YouTube channel. There are no photo galleries of their new astronauts, or anything else.

The only video on the media page is an incredibly dry press conference from March when they announced the 16 finalists for the astronaut position — a 52 meg Windows Media file lasting 25 minutes. There are podcasts for the Mars Phoenix mission, but that ended in November of last year.

By comparison, the NASA web is FULL of incredibly engaging stuff. They have a YouTube channel all set up.
And NASA has a full list of their media relations folks online with names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, while the Canadian Space Agency publishes a general phone number — no names, no e-mail. I called it shortly after five and got a generic message for a “media relations team” voice mail.

Again, it’s ironic that while Canadians are proportionately much more social-media friendly than our US neighbours, our government entities are lagging way behind — even ones like CSA, which have incredible stories they could tell directly to geeks like you and me, even if they don’t trust shifty-eyed cynical journalists like Spears. Talk about missed opportunities.

Ciao,
Bob.

I’m a cycling fan. And we’ve had more than a few disappointments, we cycling fans. Lots of scandals, lots of sadness.

But this isn’t a post about cycling. It’s a post about media relations and image control.

The back story:

Lance Armstrong is back in the racing world, having joined Team Astana and begun training, first for the Tour de California, and eventually for the Tour de France. He’s riding with the goal of promoting his Livestrong Foundation, which works on cancer survivorship issues. As well as trying to cement his record as the greatest Tour rider ever.

But Lance has had allegations (none ever proven) of doping for years. And one of his critics is a former cyclist, now journalist, named Paul Kimmage.

This LA Times story lays out the background, but the gist of it is this. When Armstrong came back to cycling, Kimmage did a radio interview that was intensely critical of Armstrong. Among the bon mots:

• “My reaction to Armstrong coming back? …the enthusiasm that I had built up about the sport in the last couple of years has been all but completely wiped out in the last couple of hours.
• He wants us to believe that it’s all about saving the world from cancer. That’s complete bullshit. It’s about revenge It’s about ego.
• He cannot stand the idea that there are clean cyclists now that will overtake his legacy and buy the memory of all the crap that he put the sport through.
• When Armstrong talks about transparency, this is the greatest laugh. When he talks about embracing this new transparency . I’m really looking forward to that. I’m really looking forward to my first interview request with him and seeing how that comes back. Because that would really make it interesting.
• This guy, any other way but his bullying and intimidation wrapped up in this great cloak, the great cancer martyr . this is what he hides behind all the time. The great man who conquered cancer. Well he is the cancer in this sport. And for two years this sport has been in remission. And now the cancer’s back.“(emphasis mine)

I think it’s fair to say that Lance has never shrunk from a fight. If you read his books, you see that he’s a driven, ornery, obsessive, sometimes-egomaniacal character. But I figure you don’t get to his level in ANY discipline without those characteristics (which also explains why I don’t run the world’s biggest PR firm — I’m just too darn nice).

And when you think that Armstrong came within a hair’s breadth of death from cancer, it’s obvious that Kimmage intended his remarks to inflict maximum hurt against Armstrong.

So it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that when Kimmage asked a question in the Tour de California presser he got back a blast from Lance. But watch the response carefully. Armstrong doesn’t go all vein-popping crazy, he doesn’t curse the guy out — he manages his emotions and his messages PERFECTLY. In terms of interview technique, it doesn’t get any better than this:

Watch Lance Armstrong Goes Off in Sports Online | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Controversy is sometimes unavoidable. But it’s a lot better to handle it the way Lance did than to either explode or hide.

Hat-tip: Take the Lane
Photo credit: KezSLR on Flickr

Ciao,
Bob.

Earlier this week, I wrote about “how not to get support” and looked at an interview with André Cornellier, the local head of the Amalgamated Transit Union.

Cornellier’s local members employed by OC Transpo, Ottawa’s bus and light rail service, are currently on strike.

Cornellier has been doing a LOT of interviews since talks broke down between the City of Ottawa and the union. And I am stunned at just how terrible a spokesperson he is. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after the first interview. But no longer.

Apparently, the issue is around scheduling. Currently, as I understand it, drivers get to choose their own runs, and more seniority means more flexibility and “better” schedules. The union loves the system as is. The administration wants to change it, claiming it costs millions and makes for nasty schedules for some drivers. And apparently OC Transpo was offering a $2000 bonus to drivers as a way of “sharing the savings.”

There’s an audio explanation here.

And perhaps more interestingly, listen to this December 9 interview with CFRA host Rob Snow, or this December 10 interview of Cornellier by CFRA host Steve Madely, or this interview with CTV anchor Carol Ann Meehan.

Cornellier has consistently shown himself to be (in my view) belligerent to the point of ignorance. He’s been unwilling to acknowledge the inconvenience that the strike has posed to bus users, he’s used terms like “maximum disruption,” when asked if his attitude was “the public be damned”, he’s AGREED(?!?), he’s responded to questions with open hostility and contrariness, and generally come off (to my mind) like an ass. He hasn’t been helped by his “international” vice-president, who suggested that the drivers might block shuttle buses organized to help students at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa get to campus on time for exams. (Disclosure: my day job is at Algonquin College, and our community has been quite affected by the strike. Thankfully, our final assessment week ends tomorrow, which means that students can relax and hopefully come back to a settled deal.)

I can’t figure out whether he’s playing to his core membership to show that he’s a tough guy that nobody will push around, or whether this is just his personality. In any case, I believe that his public persona will lead to serious public backlash against his members when the strike is eventually settled. I feel badly for them. Comments in mainstream media are overwhelmingly and vociferously anti-union on this one.

Apparently, Cornellier is now no longer doing media interviews, although this CTV story finally has him expressing some regret over the strike. I think this is likely a good thing for the union. He’s already done them enough damage.

I should point out that I don’t think the City of Ottawa has been great publicly on this strike either. Mayor Larry O’Brien has been remarkably inconsistent, saying he “won’t negotiate in the media” while … negotiating in the media. And OC Transpo hasn’t done a great job of communicating its position either, in my opinion.

So what should the union have done? Put someone else forward as spokesperson? Trained Cornellier? Something else? Or am I wrong, and has Cornellier been doing the right thing? I’d like to know your opinion.

Ciao,
Bob.

Interesting New York Times feature on “Angelina Jolie’s Carefully Orchestrated Image” today.

Quick summary: Jolie plays hardball with magazines wanting to cover her life, demanding cash (for her charity work) and editorial control — apparently even guarantees of positive treatment into the future.

I would wager that Harold Hayes, the legendary editor whose tenure at Esquire magazine produced historic profile pieces like “Frank Sinatra has a cold“, is spinning in his grave.

My two questions:

• This is news?!
• If it is, is it news because they’ve been able to detail the terms of such agreements, or is the news that Jolie is so apparently good at it?

I couldn’t afford the million-dollar donation, so there’s no picture of Angelina to accompany the story.

To make up for this appalling lack of visual imagery, here’s the
Angelina National Forest in Texas, preserved in memory of the approximately one zillion trees killed to print celebrity rags each year.

UPDATE, 1/12/08: Phil Gomes provides his take on the story, and also points to People mag editor Larry Hackett’s internal e-mail response to the story, as reported by Just Jared.

Ciao,
Bob.

Canadians outside Ontario may know Steve Paikin from his role as a much-praised moderator of federal election debates in 2006 and 2008, or as a one-time anchor and reporter for CBC, or as an author of three books on politics.

However, Paikin is likely best-known in Ontario as the host of TV Ontario‘s flagship show The Agenda. The Agenda is an hour-long live current-affairs program that is a rare oasis of in-depth — and almost entirely civil — discussion of public issues on television. Sometimes the topics don’t get me excited, but that’s fine — I don’t expect a show to cater to my tastes exclusively.

But the show is inextricably linked to Paikin’s ability to interview, to probe, to nudge, wheedle, and do whatever he must to get a good discussion going among his guests. He comes across as a man of formidable intelligence and seems to have a tremendous command of facts, unlike some others.

I would wager that Paikin has little trouble getting politicians to do his show, because while he’s far from a pushover or a pussycat, he is scrupulously fair to his guests.

And that includes former Prime Minister Paul Martin, who was one of the show’s guests on October 15, the day after a federal election in which Martin’s party was defeated rather soundly. That party’s leader, Stéphane Dion, has a future that is by no means clear at this point.

Martin was on talking about “the world’s financial architecture,” not the election. But a political junkie like Paikin (he has an almost charming earnestness about his belief in politics) couldn’t let Martin off the chair until he asked at least one question. It didn’t make it on air, but it did make it to Steve Paikin’s blog.

Having watched it, I think it is a textbook example of good questioning. And as you watch Martin’s two answers, I think it’s a pretty good example of how to first try to dodge a question you don’t want to answer directly, and then to politely decline.

Ciao,
Bob.

Got pointed to this article today (although I can’t remember by who), and was struck by it probably because I’m sensitive to community issues right now, having just gone through a zoning fight of my own.

But for Sandra Cassidy of Toronto suburb Ajax to give an interview and pose for a photo in the nation’s largest metropolitan daily like this one is remarkable.

Let me summarize the story for those of you who don’t want to click through and read it:

Sandra Cassidy lives in a new subdivision, and a bus goes past her house about every 30 minutes. She feels that this is an impingement on the enjoyment of her house. After all, she “paid a lot of money to have the only custom-built home in a very special subdivision,” she told the Star.

Furthermore, Ms. Cassidy says, her husband Wayne is an architectural technologist who designed the subdivision and has clout with local politicians who know him through business and charity events. “Not to sound like I’m bragging or anything but we have more (influence) than the average person,”she says.

She notes that “I’m sure there are a few elderly people who want it” but everyone in the area has at least two cars, says the mother of four grown children who have left home.” She feels the bus is always empty going past her house, on a “dangerous corner,” and says “We can’t open our windows because of the smell and noise.” The regional transit authority tells the reporter, however, that bus route 222 is a “good performer.” And the reporter found a young family that use the bus to reduce their carbon footprint, and a woman with a bad hip who wouldn’t dare walk half a kilometer in the winter to catch the bus.

Having worked around journalists long enough, I suspect that the Star reporter was so turned off by this woman that she decided to bury her with her own words. Listen to this lede: “Every weekday morning Sandra Cassidy wakes up to the sound of the bus carrying her neighbours to work and school.”

There’s a message in there: Sandra Cassidy doesn’t work. And by the end of the story, when you’ve heard about her custom home and her influential husband and how the bus ruins the view of Lake Ontario she paid an extra 100,000 bucks for, the message is set that she is a stunningly elitist snob with a world-view that extends no further than her manicured lawn.

I suspect Ms. Cassidy has not done media training, and I doubt she realized what was happening during the interview. But she’s likely learning that lesson now, from the dozens of comments. Or she’s passing them all off as little people whining.

It’s an interesting case study in community relations on an individual level. Being a long way away from Ms. Cassidy’s neighbourhood, I have no idea if her perception of empty buses negotiating dangerous corners is accurate. But if, as I suspect, her efforts to change the route fail, I would suggest that this story and her attitude will have been the cause.

If you ever need a lesson in how not to do community advocacy, you can use this one.

UPDATED: According to this Toronto Star story, the Cassidys lost their fight with Durham Regional Transit. You can check out the amount correspondence that this generated in this agenda and minutes from Durham’s regional government.

Ciao,
Bob.