Inside PR 497: Take control of your personal privacy and data

Who will give us the tools to have control over our personal privacy and data?

This week, we keep the focus on Facebook and its algorithms. As long as two thirds of us are using the platform, it is important. We start our discussion with Matthew Ingram’s recent Columbia Journalism Review article, Facebook’s latest changes will probably make misinformation worse. Facebook is indisputably a media company. A change in its algorithm will not change that. And so measures like its two question news questionnaire are something we should examine closely, like every move Facebook is making in this area. But as we do, we must recognize that Facebook’s algorithm is opaque to its users. There is no way we really can know what is going on under the hood. And that affects what we read. It’s a question of having control.

And, if you think that we are just baying at the moon, another piece of news worth noting, this time out of Canada. Think about the Right to be Forgotten. Then think about the GDPR. Think about CASL, the Canadian Anti Spam Law. Now read a discussion paper from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada . The need to give individuals more control over their data leads to a focus on de-indexing and source takedown. The bottom line: We may have a global internet, but we have national sovereignty over privacy and personal rights. So, pay attention. You may not want government regulation, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get it.

Finally, we talk about Google Bulletin, It reminds us that, before Facebook pushed into and then fled news, there was Google. And when we talk about innovation, let’s not count out Google.

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.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 497 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 495: Facebook drops news. Now what?

Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg last week announced that Facebook’s solution for fake news is to remove news from the newsfeed. In making the announcement, Zuckerberg said:

“…I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.

“…The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.

“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

So, less news in the newsfeed. More things that my friends share or that I click on. Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about the implications of this for news outlets, PR people and Facebook users themselves.

Some people say this is not a problem for them. Others say that this could be the nail in their coffin. It will take some time for this play out. It most assuredly creates a vacuum. And that could well lead to a period of innovation as publishers and communicators turn to other platforms and tools (check out Feedly).

However this turns out, there is no doubt that Facebook always looks after its own business interests. And in this case, its interest simply was not to come to grips with the problem it created in its relentless push to aggregate audiences and content outlets.

Facebook made this mess. Now the rest of us are left to deal with it.

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.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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 Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 495: Facebook drops news. Now what? by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://insidepr.ca.

Inside PR 438: The media world is spiky, not flat

Martin here. And we’re all back.

We start this week with three #IPRMustKnows:

Gini talks about Facebook’s new mobile app, Moments, that searches your camera roll, groups photos together and asks if you want to send them privately to the people in the shots. You can also create Moments for events, vacations, etc. (Of course, it’s not yet available in Canada 🙁 .)

Joe discusses Facebook’s Media Central studio in NYC that coaches celebrities on how to use the platform and live video. He says good enough video isn’t good enough anymore and we should take video streaming seriously, not just wing it. Soon FB will up the ante when they let people broadcast high-quality live video that can be integrated into their own studio control room.

I mention PRSA Counselors Academy. This year, I’m chair of the organization and our annual conference for independent PR agency owners and leaders is May 1 to 3 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There’s a fantastic program on the business of agency PR including a keynote on creativity from Disney’s Duncan Wardle. Here’s a link for more information or to register.

Our main topic this episode centres on the concentration of digital media and is based on The Game of Concentration by Joshua Benton, a story we read in the Niemen Lab Blog. The author makes the case that journalism used to be spread across North America because you needed a local newsroom to cover local news. With digital, you’d think that would create an even more distributed news world, but the high profile new media companies seem to be clustering in major markets like New York, Washington, LA or Silicon Valley, or Toronto, if you’re in Canada. Which means the media world is getting spikier and not flat. And that’s a challenge to both journalists and PR pros.

We’d love to know what you think. 

  • What does the future hold for local media and PR practitioners?
  • Will people’s interest in the immediate world around them spark a resurgence of local stories and news?

Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And 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 SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 423: Has Big Tech Become Too Powerful?

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We’re back after a brief end of summer hiatus and start off with this week’s #IPRMustKnow segment.

Martin: Signal, Facebook’s new app for FB and Instagram, gives journalists a set of tools to discover breaking news, curate visuals and stories and share them on various platforms.

Gini: Google and Twitter have teamed up to provide an open-source competitor to Facebook’s Instant Articles, a place for publishers to display breaking news on mobile.

Joe – How do you spell Google Reader? Apple News. Joe gives an overview of the much-touted app. He likes the visual interface but doesn’t think it’s a replacement for an RSS reader yet. And he offers a quick hack on how to get the app if you’re not in the U.S. – but you’ll have to listen to the show to get it :).

And our talk of the big three – Apple, Google and Facebook – brings us to our main topic: a New York Times op-ed by Berkeley prof Robert Reich called, Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful. Reich contends Facebook, Google and Apple have too much influence over the government and regulators and the way we discover news and content.

Listen for our discussion. And please send your thoughts. We’re interested to hear what you think.

We end by answering a question Barbara Nixon posed on Facebook and Twitter: ‘What should new PR pros expect and prepare for when interviewing for an entry-level PR position?’

Gini wants to hear where people see themselves in five years and where their career path is heading.

Joe tries to have a conversation with potential hires to see if the person can exchange ideas with him, and if they fit into a culture of creativity and curiosity.

Martin suggests searching the company to find out about the principals, how they think, and what their culture is. And then search yourself to see if there are any red flags.

Any other suggestions? We’d love to hear from you.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, 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 DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

And 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 SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 401: On citizen journalism and PR

You could be one, so could your neighbour, colleague and friend. We’re talking about citizen journalists and, on today’s show, we discuss their place in the news cycle and how that affects PR.

Gini starts by recounting the story behind the first photo of the plane that crashed into the Hudson River in 2009, when Janis Krums, a bystander who watched it happen, took a picture, uploaded it to Twitter and the image went viral.

Joe discusses the nature of citizen journalism and says the photo was a snapshot – a one-time thing. He believes there’s a distinction between the act of witnessing and journalism, which involves editing, curation, analysis and context. A journalist’s focus should be to help people understand what a story means and that requires a more in-depth perspective.

I wonder about how citizen journalism is changing the nature of the scoop. Maybe that’s beyond a journalist’s domain and they need to rely on crowdsourcing breaking news from people who are there in real-time.

In our paid, earned, shared and owned landscape, PR people have to be resourceful about finding new ways to get their stories out there and engaging influencers.

Gini says her team approaches earned media from three angles and that includes citizen journalists. They target smaller, mid-level and influential publications and tailor the story so it resonates with each.

Final word from Joe: Look for the person who has something to say, covers a subject on a consistent basis and moves on to being a contributor to larger and more influential sources. Build relationships early and never ignore an individual if they’re intelligent, credible, trustworthy and can stick to it.

Here’s an interesting post by Mathew Ingram with examples of citizen journalism working well.

What do you think PR’s role is – or should be – with regards to engaging both citizen journalists and traditional media? We’d love to hear from you.

What do you think?

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, 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 DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

We’d ask one favor of you. 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 SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Ashlea McGrath.

Inside PR #174 – Wednesday, October 14, 2009

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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 Terry FallisDavid Jones and Martin Waxman discuss the recent guideline changes by the FTC regarding bloggers.

00:25 Terry opens the show.

00:52 Terry gives a shout-out to Sallie Goetsch and Jody Koehler for their recent comments.

01:24 Martin introduces this week’s topic: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently changed some rules regarding bloggers.

10:53 Producer’s Note: The IPR episode Martin is referring to is #161.

19:49 Martin introduces this week’s -30- segment.

22:27 Dave closes the show.

Our theme music is Streetwalker by Cjacks and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music NetworkRoger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Sarah Laister.