Inside PR 481: Really, we’re not making this stuff up.

• • Inside PR, Show Notes

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Dean Baquet inadvertently makes the case for a Public Editor at the New York Times. Google supports innovation in online news, but diverts attention from the real issue. The News Media Alliance calls for an antitrust exemption. Yep, that’s right. Solve the problem of market dominance by compounding the problem. Really, we’re not making this stuff up.

Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these issues in this episode of the Inside PR podcast. Gini Dietrich is traveling this week, but she’ll rejoin us next week.

Dean Baquet answers reader questions – and inadvertently makes the case for a Public Editor

Last month, the New York Times eliminated its public editor position. And we thought this was a bad move.

Last week, Dean Baquet published a column answering readers’ questions about the cuts to editorial staff and, in doing so, he inadvertently made the case for a Public Editor at the New York Times. The fact that Baquet had an answer for every question, and that these answers showed no self doubt or reconsideration of positions, illustrated that simply receiving and answering questions does not replace the Public Editor function. The Public Editor was a position inside the NY Times, with the perspective on what happened as the sausages were made, and the ability to comment freely from an independent perspective. That now is lost. And just like a government without checks and balances, real accountability is imperilled.

Google supports innovation in online news; but diverts attention from real issue

Google and Facebook have recently been moving to support innovation in online news publishing. Martin points to one of the most recent efforts, a US $800,00 contribution by Google’s Digital News Initiative toward the creation of RADAR, software that will generate local news stories for the The Press Association, a U.K.-based news agency. A little support for template, predictable stories. But that’s not what we need. This type of effort to support innovation only diverts attention from the real issue. We need support for the reporters who exercise judgment about sophisticated stories.

The News Media Alliance’s solution will compound the problem

Last year, the Newspaper Association of America rebranded itself as The News Media Alliance. Does new paint lead to a smarter organization? It doesn’t seem so, based on its effort to convince Congress to give news publishers antitrust exemption to enable them to negotiate with Facebook and Google. Doesn’t this remind you of the publishers negotiating with Amazon over the right to set book prices? And who was the loser? The reading public who found those $9.99 book prices replaced by $19 book prices.

The solution to the plight of news publishers isn’t to allow them to escape antitrust so that they can negotiate as a group. Instead, the real answer to the problem lies in challenging the dominance achieved in search and social by Google and Facebook respectively and the unfettered power they are allowed to exercise. If anything, Congress should focus on reining in these two dominant platforms. Then, maybe, we’ll be able to stop the erosion of competition and enable innovation by small companies. Just as Google and Facebook once innovated.

Think twice before you upload a large PDF to your Website

We offer a reminder to anyone responsible for running a Website to think about the size of documents they expect to be downloaded by the public. This came to mind with the recent increase in the price charged by Canada’s largest ISPs to people who exceed their monthly data cap. If you publish PDFs and other documents for download that will gobble up 50MB of a visitor’s monthly data allowance, they will not thank you. In fact, if they reflect on it, they may actually think that what you are doing is costing them money. And do we like people who cost us money? So, if you are in charge of a Website, please, please, please ensure that anything you publish on your site, whether it is documents for download, images or anything else, are compressed to the smallest usable size. Your visitors will appreciate you for this.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 472: Meet you on Mastadon?

• • Inside PR, Show Notes

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The NY Times is on Snapchat Discover. You’re probably not on Mastadon. But is that really important? Consolidation on the Internet. Facebook and augmented reality. Let’s go Inside PR. It’s just Martin and Joe this week. But we cover a lot of ground.

Facebook focuses on AR

Facebook just isn’t letting up on the pressure on Snapchat. Last year, Snapchat made waves with its glasses, pointing the way to a video future. Just as it has parroted other Snapchat features (Stories anyone?), Facebook is now pointing to an AR future and committing Facebook-scale resources to it. Competition is great, as long as the giant doesn’t crush the upstart.

Distributed publishing isn’t all publishers hoped it would be

News that the Guardian has pulled out of Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles comes on the heels of earlier reports that other publishers were not seeing the financial results they hoped to achieve from adopting the distributed publishing model being touted by Facebook, Snapchat and Google. And for those of us who publish our own content, take note. Don’t shut down your owned website quite yet.

The New York Times is looking for more on Snapchat

In April, the New York Times joined Snapchat Discover.

It’s hard to see how Snapchat Discover matches the nature of the Times content. Take an early Discover article as an example. On Sunday April 23, the Times ran a major feature on Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. The version of the Times Website clocked in as just under 4,000 words.  The next morning, the Times launched its Snapchat Discover channel with the Kalanick story. And what a difference! The Snapchat version contained an animated GIF and three text panels containing under 160 words. That’s right. 4,000 words on the Times site. Less than 160 on Snapchat.

 

Consolidation on the Internet

A recent NY Times article underlined the degree to which the previously open Internet is consolidating around a handful of platforms. Consolidation of attention makes us less free, makes us less able to serendipitously encounter different views and different experiences.

Are you on Mastadon?

Probably not. But does that matter? Do platforms need to scale to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat levels to be of value? No, it’s not. It’s important that we support and play with new experiments like this. Whether Mastadon every grows, the very spirit that gives to its rise underlines the vitality of the Internet and Net Neutrality.

 

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 464: Is the news media too weakened to do its job?

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We’ve entered a new era, a whole new world, an alternate universe. And Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley focus this entire episode on the implications of the approach to media relations (and truth) being taken by the New President and the ability of today’s weakened news media to play their important counterbalance role in relation to Power.

Sources that we found useful for this:

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 454: Are you a romantic or a stalker?

• • Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast.  

#IPRMustKnows

Martin Waxman’s Social Media Marketing for Small Business is on Lynda.com

Yes, this is a shameless plug. But since it’s Joe writing this, Martin doesn’t have to be embarrassed. In fact, I think Martin is as smart about social media as anyone I know. And now Martin is sharing this knowledge on Lynda.com. Martin tells us about his trip to California to record a video course, Social Media Marketing  for Small Business.

Buzzfeed News isn’t entertainment

Buzzfeed separated its Buzzfeed news operation from the Buzzfeed entertainment operation. Prelude to a possible sale of Fuzzfeed News. Buzzfeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith says no.

WhatsApp shares user data with Facebook

As happens so often with privacy concerns, after an initial spate of bad press, public protestations about Facebook’s decision to share user data from WhatsApp with Facebook seems to have died down. Our concern with privacy is something that spikes occasionally. But then we put it out of mind as we enjoy the experience of social media.

Wired tells us about teens and social media

A few things in Wired’s profile of teens and social media caught Gini’s eye. There are a lot of do’s and don’t’s. It’s not about understanding young people. It’s about looking at the social mores being established by a cohort that doesn’t have the baggage of previously shaped expectations and behaviour, a cohort that can lead the way in assessing new channels and defining norms of behaviour on them. As Martin says, “One generation’s romantic is another generation’s lurker.” (Apologies to John Cusack.)

The NY Times on Facebook

Liz Spayd, The New York Times Public Editor, recently offered her take on the content that The Times has been creating for Facebook. In her analysis, Facebook Live: Too Much, Too Soon, she states

“…here’s the problem. After watching countless hours of live video in the past few weeks, I have hit upon many that are either plagued by technical malfunctions, feel contrived, drone on too long, ignore audience questions or are simply boring, by I imagine most anyone’s standards.

“Too many don’t live up to the journalistic quality one typically associates with The New York Times.”

This leads Martin, Gini and I into a discussion of the nature of content appropriate to social media. It’s not always going to stand up to The Times’ traditional standards. But it will be effective in its new place, for different reasons.

Also worth noting in this article is something I hadn’t seen before. The New York Times has a contract to produce video content expressly for Facebook.

“While the terms of the deal are secret, the transaction requires Facebook to give The Times a guaranteed sum (reported to be $3 million a year) in return for a prescribed amount of video (so far it’s averaging upward of four a day). Neither Times officials nor Facebook would discuss the deal, citing confidentiality. Several other media companies, including BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and Mashable, have also signed on. Their job: to stock Facebook’s pond with high-quality video so it can compete in the rapidly growing market for live-stream video.”

The Times as content creator for Facebook. That’s something different from The Times posting its stories on Facebook. Different even from The Times posting its stories natively on Facebook. It is instead The Times creating content to meet Facebook’s needs. That is different – and worth watching.

Now it’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

 

Inside PR 3.50: Fake Reviewers and the Global Laws

• • PR

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Recently the New York attorney general’s office conducted a year-long sting to find people who are posting fake reviews online in exchange for money.

What they found is there were 19 companies paying anywhere from $1 to $10 per positive review posted. They fined the organizations a combined $350,000 for the unethical work.

Michael Lasky, an attorney who specializes in PR firms, wrote about the undercover operation and provided four lessons for PR professionals, in a recent PR Week column.

The warning is clear: While the sting only looked at SEO firms, PR could be next.

So what does it mean for PR firms?

We already know Wikipedia is adamant against PR professionals posting anything in there on behalf of their clients, unless it’s clearly disclosed. And, ProPublica just came out against the New York Times for not disclosing who helped them with the President Putin editorial (hint: It was Ketchum).

So where is the line?

We know what is black (fake reviews, astroturfing, whisper campaigns) and we know what is white (honesty, transparency, disclosure). But what about the grey?

Say you work for a multi-national company that has offices around the globe. You write a blog post and ask your colleagues to share it on their social networks.

Is that ethical?

Or you have clients who produce content and you ask your team to comment on it and share it.

Is that ethical?

Is it realistic to expect the New York Times or the BBC to disclose the PR firms they worked with on the stories that had some outside influence?

This week’s episode covers these issues and how to tow the grey line.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR #180 – Wednesday, November 25, 2009

• • 30, Inside PR, Media relations, PR, Show Notes, social media

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Comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], visit the Inside PR Blubrry site, leave us a comment on the Inside PR show blog or message us @inside_pr on Twitter.

This week on Inside PR, David Jones and Martin Waxman discuss the major differences between public relations and publicity.

00:27 Martin opens the show.

01:39 Martin opens a discussion based on a headline he saw this weekend on the New York Times.

21:23 Dave opens the -30- segment.

25:39 Dave closes the show.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Sarah Laister.