REICH COMMUNICATIONS

What We Do: Teen Traffic Safety

 

For The National Road Safety Foundation, a non-profit group that promotes safe driving behavior with free programs on distracted and impaired driving, drowsy driving and more, we develop programs and partnerships with other organizations that help spread the word about safe driving.

Last week we were in New Orleans, representing the Foundation at the PTA National Leadership Conference.  We created a partnership with the New York State PTA last year for a statewide program on pedestrian safety for grade school kids, and now we're talking with some other state PTA leaders to bring the program into more states.

And that's just a small part of what we do with The National Road Safety Foundation.  More is in the latest NRSF newsletter "Road Buzz."  You can read it here.

Bad Policy...Terrible PR

 

 

A bad policy regarding families seeking asylum from violence in Central America is being made even worse by the horrendous public relations efforts from the White House and from the president himself.

I can try to understand the thinking on both on sides of the issue. Those who have come here via legal means and are now citizens or legal aliens can feel frustrated that others now try to come in illegally to take their jobs by accepting lower pay.

But let's add a few kernels of accuracy... many of those trying to come here by are seeking asylum from horrendous and life-threatening conditions at home. And this great country has traditionally offered refuge for people fleeing violence or starvation. That's how many of our own grandparents and great-grandparents got here from elsewhere. Lady Liberty awaited them in the harbor, offering a light of peace and hope.

There's no statue to welcome refugees along our southern border, but rather the reputation of America as a land of immigrants, long welcomed to help us grow and be better.

The Administration's new get-tough policy has not worked. The number of people trying to come in from the south has actually increased noticeably since the policy was put into place in April.

The image of families being separated is not a good one for people around the world to see, where we have for centuries been the place that welcomed the "tired and the poor."

Worse yet is the image being played worldwide that we are now a nation torn apart, with our president turning it into a partisan fight by falsely placing the blame on the Democrats. Despite what he and Fox News say, this is 100% a White House policy and not, as he says, "the Dems' law."

Placing the blame, falsely, on Democrats is a cowardly and divisive PR strategy. It also avoids coming up with a humane solution. Using poor and helpless parents and children as leverage in a quest for billions for a needless wall is disgusting and flies in the face of principles that have made America great.  Instead of sitting down with both parties to come to a fast and fair solution, the president simply places blame where it doesn't belong and further divides us, even as families are ripped apart.

This is the sort of thing the U.S. has condemned other nations for doing, yet the president's response to a UN statement criticizing it is simply to threaten to withdraw from that UN committee.

Once again, the president is drastically harming our hard-earned reputation as a land of decent and compassionate people, as a beacon of right for other nations to look to as a model.

It's not too late, though. Fast and compassionate and non-partisan action can alleviate the immediate human crisis and put us back on a path on which we belong as a trusted and fair leading partner among the world's nations.

Note to the Press Secretary: A Basic of PR

 

Journalists who cover the White House seem to be tiring of conflicting or incorrect information they often get from the Press Secretary.  I think much of the public, too, has come to put little stock in what they hear these days from official White House sources.

Sarah Sanders is in a very tough job, made untenable by a boss who often changes his mind or, in plain language, lies.  Yes, it’s a PR person’s job to try to put a positive spin on information he or she gives out.  But it’s not – or shouldn’t be – part of the job to lie.

If you work for the White House, you can be sure that reporters will do their jobs and try to verify and fact-check what you tell them.  If they didn’t, those reporters would merely be puppets of the Administration.  That would make any President very happy, but it would do a vast disservice to the American public.  The free press is, by design, part of the system of checks and balances that our founding fathers put forth in the Constitution and its Amendments.  It’s especially important now, when the Legislative Branch is doing a questionable job – if any – to balance the system.

Ms. Sanders said yesterday, out of frustration at a news conference, that she was more accurate than the media.  A study reported in MediaPost found that she has an accuracy rate of 52 percent.  That means that almost half of what she tells the media is wrong or misleading. 

Half the time she’s right.  So which half should the media – and the public – believe?

Ms. Sanders, I’ve learned a lot in the 40+ years I’ve been in the public relations business.  One of the most important lessons is always try to be truthful to the media.

We all make mistakes. We all get things wrong sometimes.  Reporters may give you a pass if you make an honest or even a careless mistake.  But their jobs and their credibility depend on the honesty of what we give them.  If they see you’re lying or bending the truth, you’re dead in the water. 

Of course, doing PR for a company or an organization is very different from doing PR for the White House.  Tell some lies and the media will still come to your press briefings at the White House.  After all, what the White House does is, or can be, of national and international importance.

But continued lying to the media will only prompt even closer scrutiny of every word you tell them.

For a PR person, credibility and a reputation for telling the truth is the most important thing you can have.  That should hold for the top PR person in the U.S. as well.

What We Do: SADD Driving Skills

 

Client The National Road Safety Foundation sponsors a competition for chapters of SADD, the nationwide youth advocacy group. 

For the Driving Skills #101 Challenge, we ask them to come up with ideas to promote awareness of the dangers of speeding.  The SADD Chapter at Denham Springs H.S. in Louisiana submitted a winning idea and we sent a professional crew to work with the kids at their school to make their concept into a PSA that will eventually air on more than 150 TV stations nationwide.

We also worked with the local paper to get a great story that ran Friday.  Here it is...

 

There ARE Consequences

 

 

The brouhaha over Rosanne Barr's racist attempt at humor has brought home an important point.  For most of us, there are consequences to our actions. 

Comedy can be tricky.  Humor often treads that fine line between what's funny and what's hurtful or offensive.  Often, jokes shouldn't and can't be taken literally.

But racial and religious jokes can cross over that fine line, even if that wasn't the joketeller's intent.  It looks like Rosanne's joke -- which, to me, wasn't even funny -- provoked a lot of anger and disgust, even among castmates on her show.  One of the producers and writers, Wanda Sykes, announced she would quit the show.  Actor Sara Gilbert, who plays Rosanne's daughter on the show, put out a statement that she was upset by the joke and that it didn't reflect the beliefs of her, her castmates and the crew. Rosanne's agent - powerhouse ICM - said they were dropping her as a client.

Rosanne apologized, but it was too late.  The nasty cat was out of the bag and ABC, tossing finances to the side, announced Rosanne's show is being cancelled.  It's been a ratings leader for ABC, but the network has to consider other people that it works with and relies on -- producers, writers, actors, crew and, oh yes, the audience at home.

The whole episode shows that for most of us, there are consequences to what we say and what we do.  Words do matter.

We saw this as the #MeToo movement has taken hold, where seemingly innocent or harmless jokes go awry and cause people to lose their jobs or, as in the case of Al Franken, their Senate seat.  And many people who had been taking advantage of their positions of power have been rightfully taken down.

But it makes me wonder how one person, who should be a role model, has continuously gotten away with racist, mysogenist and religious slurs on Twitter and in public, with seemingly no consequence.

I'm talking about the President of the United States. 

He has slurred entire races (Black, Asian, Latino), religions (Muslims), continents (Africa), nations, people with disabilities, Americans alarmed about Russian interference in our elections, important government institutions (the FBI and CIA, the Dept. of Justice, individual judges) and other institutions that help make and keep us a free nation (the free press).  And instead of "draining the swamp," as he promised, he has made it deeper and murkier, illegally and immorally enriching himself, his family and his super-rich cronies.

There seems to be a whole group of Americans who think none of his actions and statements should have consequence.  He can say whatever he wants, call anyone names, and tell lie after lie, take actions that enrich himself and his family, and nothing happens.  No call for censure from Congress. It's just business as normal.

It is not normal, though.  Many of us feel that way and continue to be upset at how this man makes our great nation look small and petty in the eyes of the world.

Hopefully there will be consequences in November, when some of those who have supported him and allowed him to run roughshod over decency and decorum get thrown out of office.  There must be consequences for bad things, whether words or actions.

There must be consequences.

What We Do: The Christopher Awards

 

It's not the Emmy's.  It's not the Oscars.  But in many ways, the annual Christopher Awards are more meaningful than the big industry awards, with all their glitz and glamour.

The Christopher Awards each year recognize the creators of work in TV, film and books that inspires and shows how each of us can make a difference.  It's always an honor and a humbling experience to work this event, filled with so many people who use their creativity for good.

At the 69th annual Christopher Awards ceremony Thursday night, the authors, illustrators, writers, directors and producers of 21 books, TV programs and feature films were honored.  Among them were author and historian David McCullough for his latest, "The American Spirit," and the writers, directors and producers of three films I enjoyed -- "Lady Bird," "Wonder" and "The Darkest Hour."  

Ken Burns, the prolific filmmaker whose documentaries on PBS have taught so much about history and ourselves, was honored with a Christophers Life Achievement Award.  His films have helped us understand and appreciate things and events as diverse as jazz, the Civil War, baseball, the Statue of Liberty and last year's 18-hour look back at the Viet Nam War.  Coming soon, he says, are films on the history of country music and profiles of Ernest Hemingway and Muhammad Ali.

In an interview we arranged for him last week with Catholic News Service, he compared making documentaries to making fiction-based films.  "Steven Speilberg can make stuff up; I can’t.  We’ve talked about this.  A good story is a good story, no difference between a documentary and a film."

Ken Burns certainly knows how to tell a good story, as do all the winners of the Christopher Awards.  Info on all the award-winners is here.

 

Photo:  Ken Burns, right, with Christopher Awards emcee Ernie Anastos, FOX5 New York anchor.  Credit:  Paul Schneck

 

Upfront Week

 

It’s probably TV’s biggest week, and it’s not even on the air.

Upfront Week, happening now here in New York, brings execs from ad agencies, media buying firms and advertisers together to hear from the networks (over-the-air and cable) about their planned fall schedules and their new and returning shows.  The Upfront presentations are giant dog & pony shows in high-profile spots like Radio City, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and the nets trot out their stars, putting their late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Steven Colbert and Jimmy Fallon to work as emcees.

There’s big money at stake – upwards of $16 billion in advance commitments by advertisers to buy time in the nets’ primetime schedules next season.  Advertisers scramble over each other to buy positions in what they are betting will be the big hits next fall.   They’re afraid if they wait, they could get locked out of a hit show, or if they can buy spots in the fall, the prices will be quite a bit higher.  That’s been the traditional thinking that’s enabled the networks to keep raising prices for ad time, even as their audience continues to shrink.

Years ago when the late media buying guru Gene Dewitt was a client, I’d line up interviews for him with ad biz reporters at The N.Y. Times, USA Today, The L.A. Times, CNN and the ad trades, where he’d make his prognostications on which new shows would be hits and which would fail.  He also would decry the whole upfront process, claiming it pits advertisers against each other in a feeding frenzy that really only serves the networks -- pushing their ad prices higher.  For years, Gene used to predict the end of the upfront marketplace, encouraging advertisers to forego the hyped feeding frenzy and push back, demanding better programming, more audience data and an orderly structure for pricing and buying ad time.

And here we are, a dozen or more years later as the Upfront is again underway.

Stories in The Times (New York and Los Angeles) are reporting that this year’s Upfront could see only a small increase in sales – maybe 3% -- or even a decline of 2 or 3%.   

There are a number of factors converging to bring a change, not only in Upfront spending, but in ad spending on TV overall throughout the year.  One analyst quoted in the L.A. Times says it will go down by 2% this year.

What’s happening?

*  TV viewership is down.  Except for major sports and news events, TV doesn’t draw in the huge number of viewers that it used to.  The nation no longer tunes in, almost as a whole, to see Ed Sullivan on a Sunday night.  Primetime viewership over the past three years is down from 10% (FOX) to as much as 24% (ABC.)  Only NBC has seen an increase of 7%, thanks only to a bump last year fueled by its mega-hit “This is Us.”

*  We can watch what we want when we want.  And we can go to so many more places for news – 24/7 and even reflecting our own political biases, if we choose.  The amount of programming is mind-boggling.  Where we used to have perhaps 100 choices of scripted programs between the 3 or 4 major networks, we can now choose from more than 600 scripted programs on the networks, on cable and now on streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, ready to play whenever we choose.

*  Add to the networks’ woes the fact that coveted younger viewers (the 18-49 demo) are watching less and less of anything on regular TV.  Many don’t even own a TV or they are not hooked to an antenna or cable.  They stream bits and pieces on their laptops, tables or phones... or their unconnected big-screen TVs.

So as the TV audience disappears and fragments, the networks hope to raise their ad prices yet again.  This year, the average $134,000 cost for 30 seconds on primetime was 6% higher than it was the previous season.  Even if it does go up again for next season, how many more years will advertisers keep paying higher prices for fewer eyeballs?

It’s not totally bleak for the networks.  The shows they produce bring in money for them when they are shown on other platforms.  And some shows that eventually go into syndication can be a golden goose for the producing network and/or the producing studio, often owned by the network or the network’s parent company.

And meanwhile, we’re in the midst of another Upfront Week.  With lavish over-the-top presentations and parties, it’s good for New York’s economy, if nothing else.

Ad revenues, circulation up at “failing” NYT

 

Despite what the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue says, The New York Times is not failing.

Both subscriptions and revenues are up for the first quarter of this year.  It’s up thanks, in part, to the guy in the White House.  People are looking for real news.

Overall revenue for the company went up by 3.8 percent for the first quarter.  The Times added 139,000 new digital-only subscribers, bringing it to a whopping 2.8 million online subscribers.  Those new subscribers, plus those buying the print editions, grew by 7.5 percent, accounting for about two-thirds of the company’s total revenue. 

Ironically, even as online readership grew, digital ad revenues fell by 6 percent.   Print ad revenue, which accounts for two-thirds of the company’s ad income, dropped by 1.8 percent – much better than print revenue drops at many other major papers.

The paper also derives revenue from special editorial products like online crossword and cooking apps.  It also just announced plans for a daily newscast in partnership with FX network, as a way to expand reach and applications of its news content to other platforms, which will hopefully bring added revenues.

So it looks like The New York Times is not failing.  But we already know that much of what comes out of the White House these days is incorrect.  Some might even call it “fake.”   

Press Freedom Day

 

Today is World Press Freedom Day, following an annual tradition since the UN General Assembly voted to approve it as an official designation back in 1993.

In the 1990s, no one would have considered the United States as a nation whose press freedoms were under threat.  That would have been more rightly aimed at so-called banana republics or authoritarian nations like Russia, China and some places in South America, Asia and Africa.  But the U.S.?   Never.

And here we are, 25 years later and the media here in "the land of free" are under attack.  Under attack by, of all people, the very person whose job it is to uphold and protect our Constitution, whose wise words recognize, very specifically, the importance of a free press to keep those who govern us honest and working in the public interest.

Who among us would have ever thought we'd be hearing daily attacks on our press, coming directly from the White House and from some top leaders in our government?

It's a dangerous path we're on. 

The theme of the 2018 celebration highlights the importance of an enabling legal environment for press freedom, and gives special attention to the role of an independent judiciary in ensuring legal guarantees for press freedom and the prosecution of crimes against journalists.

At the same time, it addresses the role of the media in sustainable development, especially during elections - as a watchdog fostering transparency, accountability and the rule of law. The theme also aims to explore legislative gaps with regard to freedom of expression and information online, and the risks of regulating online speech.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "On World Press Freedom Day 2018, I call on governments to strengthen press freedom, and to protect journalists. Promoting a free press is standing up for our right to truth."

 

Freedom of the press is a very important issue everywhere, including here in the United States.  We cannot allow ourselves -- or our leaders -- to lose sight of that.

 

 

 

What We Do: Archie Comics

 

For Archie Comics, we booked Co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit on Ernie Anastos' 6 p.m. newscast a few days ago, to talk about a new comic book character that' being introduced to the Riverdale High crowd.  Scarlett is on the autism spectrum, and the new comic helps explain how she's like all the other kids except she needs some understanding an consideration.  

We used the hook that it's National Autism Month to make it happen.

 

Here's a link to the interview...