Public Relations Princess

Editorial and Advertising Departments Should Be Separate

Being a newspaper reporter looks like a fun job. You get to shape the day's coverage, talk to interesting people, sell ads for your paper....(screeching noise) What?

Yeah, you heard me right. Some unscrupulous newspapers have taken a turn for the worse. I guess it's nice to have a reporter return your phone call, but when they say, "Buy an ad" instead of "great story idea," it's a little depressing. I would rather hear a no.

The great thing about reading an article in the business section of the paper is knowing that the reporter who wrote it is a neutral arbiter of the story. They don't have any outside motivation to say anything nice about your book, product or service. They most likely will have done their homework and confirmed things that have been said to them in the pitch.What the reader gets, in most cases, is an unbiased story, told for their benefit. The purpose is supposed to be to inform the reader of a new business in their community, a new product that they may want to try out, or a problem that a business has solved with their product or service.

But what happens when the newspaper abuses its control and power? I say the iron curtain of separation between editors and reporters and the advertising department has become a sheer wisp of a cotton cloth blowing in the breeze.

Everyone knows that ad revenues are down. The news is depressing. But what would compel readers to buy more newspapers? I dare to say that compelling content is the cure, not more ads.

This week, I had the disconcerting experience of having a respected daily newspaper in Iowa try to sell an ad to me after I pitched them a very relevant and timely business story. I did not just fall off the PR turnip truck yesterday. I know a good pitch from a bad one. My client's story has already received enthusiastic coverage from many other sources, so I know it's a good one. My client's product is new, innovative, and knowing about it benefits the reader.

Advertising is not the best way to promote some products. Public relations and editorial content provides information seekers another resource. It is distinctly different from advertising, and newspaper readers know the difference.

I think this is exactly why social media has risen to prominence. Social media is all about content, which is one of the reasons it is taking over mass media as a resource for people looking for information.

Kudos to those newspapers and other media outlets that have resisted the urge to use their connection to PR professionals as simply another source of income. I hope that others aren't naive enough to fall for this bait and switch technique. It's unethical to say the very least.

Associated Press and Wall Street Journal: Social Media Dummies

The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press are tangentially related. Both are vaunted mainstays of the "mainstream media." Both are respected in journalism circles for providing excellent reporting. Then why are both making such sophomoric mistakes in the emerging media world?

Let's take the case of the Wall Street Journal first. Owned by the same people who drove MySpace into the ground, it's been slow to embrace social media, but now plans on starting its own Linked In competitor? After not even fully practicing social media on their own Linked In page, now the Wall Street Journal wants to reinvent the wheel? Leaves me shaking my head.

WSJ's social media policy also is curious, if not laughable. It's clearly written by lawyers and HR people who have no clue about the social media space. It basically tells everyone how to protect the Wall Street Journal, without even touching upon how to be effective and use the space to the WSJ's advantage. They missed the entire point of social media.

Today, I read that Wall Street Journal reporters are no longer going to honor embargoes unless it is given an exclusive. (For my non-PR readers, an "embargo" is a piece of news that is shared with a news source under the pre-agreed condition that the news source will keep from reporting that information for a set period of time) This is the WSJ's way of taking its ball and going home. It's a very baby-ish way of saying, "We don't think we need to work as hard as everyone else for our stories. If you don't come to us first and give us an exclusive, then we won't print your story at all." Waaaaaa! My guess is they'll end up losing more stories than they gain.

Now, my favorite aging news wire service, the Associated Press. Notice I did not use the AP logo, lest I be sued. They are starting to charge bloggers who use more than five words from their stories! They actually have a chart showing how much they will charge. Last week, a blogger conducted an experiment. He "bought" a Thomas Jefferson quote from the AP (which they have no right to charge for, since it has been in the public domain for centuries). The AP purchase bot wasn't even sophisticated enough to know the difference between the quote and its own material.

According to AP's arcane rules, a blogger cannot even site an AP article and give it full attribution with the post. The ability to comment on material in the news and in online sources already in the public domain is the backbone of social media. By issuing a series of silly assaults on the blogosphere, the AP has instead unleashed a torrent of ridicule upon itself. It should have instead helped bloggers spread its material and helped bloggers properly attribute the material. Most bloggers already do that, but a gentle reminder to offenders would have gone over far better than the campaign of shock and awe that they're running now. The last time I checked, social media people are far less expensive to hire than lawyers.

 

Aha! Magazines DO Favor Advertisers!

My colleagues and I in the PR field have noticed a phenomena over the last few years. It's called the "play for pay" syndrome. I will not call out any of its dirty players in this blog post, except PC World's colossal Apple blunder, which is already front page news.

Here is how "play for pay" works. If I have a client who is paying me to do media relations for them, I might call up a magazine editor and pitch them a story for my client. For sake of this example, let's say the magazine is "Purple Widgets Today," and my client is coming out with a new purple widget kit that is better and different from its competitors. My job is to introduce the people at Purple Widgets Today to my client and to tell them about the purple widget kit.

The editor at Purple Widget Today listens patiently to my pitch, sometimes subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) inquires as to whether my client advertises in his publication. If I say "no" then suddenly the publication becomes much less interested in what I have to say.

Here is the kicker...sometimes the editor actually has the nerve to give my contact information to the advertising sales department and they call me IMMEDIATELY. Sometimes within the hour. Most often they will pitch me an ad, and more often than not, they will mention editorial space as a carrot to get me to buy the ad.

This phenomena is a direct result of declining ad sales. Period. I think its reprehensible behavior and unfair to smaller companies with a great story to tell and a small ad budget. Everyone knows that PR works, but it is getting harder to compete with the big boys.

If you are an editor and have dealt with the type of situation before, I would love to entertain your comments.