REICH COMMUNICATIONS

Some advice for PR students (and some PR pros, too)

 

 

A longtime friend from my college days, Barry Zusman, graduated Clarkson College (now University) a year ahead of me. We stayed in touch as he was continuing for his MBA in Public Relations at Pace University.  While finishing my senior year at Clarkson, Barry and I talked and he told me what he was learning about PR.  It sounded interesting so I followed his footsteps, went to Pace and earned my MBA in Public Relations.

Like me, Barry spent many years working at PR agencies in New York.  Unlike me, though, Barry began teaching a PR course several years ago at LIM College here, where he's now beginning another semester.

He's been recognized by O'Dwyer's PR News columnist Fraser Seitel as one of several distinguished PR professors around the country. 

Barry sent me a recent column by Seitel and it has some good pointers worth sharing with any young people considering or now studying public relations.  I think these same pointers could be useful for many people already in the PR field, especially these days as we are hearing and seeing so-called "spin doctors" working for presidential candidates sometimes stretching the truth or outright lying to the media and the public. 

The article cites one of Barry's fellow PR professors, Jeff Morosoff at Hofstra.  Each year, Prof. Morosoff assigns students to seek out PR professionals to answer relevant questions on ethics. Here’s how one practitioner answered this year’s batch of PR ethics questions.

Why is it important to always tell the truth in PR?

All one has in public relations is his or her reputation -- credibility. Once you lie and you’re found out — and you will be found out — you lose that. And no one with whom you do business — reporter, client, potential employer, etc. — will look at you the same way after you’re caught in a lie. Truth, therefore, is paramount in public relations.

Why do some communications practitioners spin the truth instead of coming clean with the actual information?

They’re probably reluctant to reveal unpleasant or bad news about a client or the client doesn’t want them saying anything troubling. But it’s eminently preferable to say nothing than to lie. Again, once caught, no one will ever trust you or the client.

What values are the most important to do the public relations job?

A bias toward disclosing rather than withholding information.

An advocacy or belief in your employer.

A compelling desire to advise/counsel senior managers in proper action and communications.

An absolute commitment that the counsel you deliver is always ethical.

A willingness to take risks, to stick your neck out.

An always logical, but also positive, predilection.

How much of a role does PR ethics play in daily work?

Ethics, or stated another way, “doing the right thing,” must be the anchor of every decision you make in public relations.

Why are PR practitioners referred to as “spin doctors?”

They are referred to as “spin doctors” because they appear to have a mentality — or do have a mentality — of doing whatever the client tells them to do; whether right or wrong, fair or unfair, honest or dishonest. That’s a recipe not only for professional disaster but also for an unhappy practitioner.

Why does the good work of PR people often go unnoticed?

Public relations work is not as noticed because the work of PR professionals should be anonymous. If you write the CEO’s speech, and it’s a winner, it’s the CEO, correctly, who should get the credit, not you. Public relations people generally toil in anonymity. But as long as the client appreciates — and pays for — your contribution, that’s what counts.

 

These ethics for PR people, based around truthfulness, should really be key ethics for anyone in business, not just the PR folks.  But we in PR should be the ones who try to keep the rest of the business world honest.  It's a tough and often thankless task, but a good PR person will keep trying. 

Is Facebook Journalism's #1 Enemy?

 

A column in London's The Guardian a few days ago asked if Facebook is the leading threat to newspapers and, more broadly, journalism itself.   The writer, Roy Greenslade, said that by luring away readers and advertisers, the social media site is jeopardizing newspapers and, at the same time, narrowing the news agenda, which he says poses a threat to journalism.

The issue of losing readers and advertisers is something newspapers have been facing for decades, beginning when TV became the dominant media form.  But over the past 15 years or so, newspapers find themselves in the same basket as other "traditional" media including TV, as digital has taken over.  Most papers have embraced, perhaps reluctantly at first, digital with branded sites of their own.  They're still struggling to find a way to monetize their news sites, and digital ads so far have not fully replaced print ads in terms of how much advertisers are willing to pay for them.

What's a newer issue, though, is the impact Facebook is having on what we perceive as news and the accuracy of what gets reported.   The Pew Research Center published a study a few months ago showing that 66 percent of Facebook users get their news via Facebook.  True, that's not 66 percent of the U.S. population, but with an estimated 60 million American Facebook users, it's still a very big number -- roughly 40 million people.  And as we know, it's not just Millennials on Facebook -- in fact, almost all of my Boomer friends are on Facebook to some degree.

So with 40 million people reading Facebook, here's where the problem lies, as articulated in the Guardian story.  What's considered news on Facebook is not determined by traditional journalistic standards  After coming under criticism earlier this year, Facebook adjusted the algorithms it uses to determine what's "trending."  But "trending" is still largely based on what people are posting about, so if the Brangelina split trends high because it's juicy gossip about a big celebrity couple, it may push off the radar legitimate but less sexy news like the plight of refugees leaving Syria or starvation and slavery in some parts of Africa or the continuing erosion of the Arctic ice shelf.

To make it worse, other news sources including many of the "traditional" media like the networks and major newspapers now look at what's trending on Facebook to help determine what they report.   

And there's another risk to relying what's reported as news on Facebook.  News can easily be manipulated, with information that's bogus attributed to normally reliable sources.  It then gets shared and reposted, taking on a life of its own as real news.  I saw an example of this just a few weeks ago when a friend shared an article about saying something outrageous Trump supposedly said.  I'm not a Trump supporter at all, but this seemed just too crazy ...even for Trump.  The article referred to a story in The Washington Post, but when I searched the WaPo site, no such story existed.  But there it was on Facebook, something obviously incorrect being passed along as real news with the Washington Post referenced as the source.

So yes, Facebook poses a real threat to the health of other news media.  But the larger threat is the potential damage its misuse can do to the journalistic process -- a process that the Constitution recognizes as an important way to keep us informed and our politicians and business leaders honest.

 

 

 

 

A Class Act

 

Sunday mornings won't be quite the same, now that Charles Osgood has hosted his last weekly show on TV.  He's been a fixture -- a sense of calm and sensibility and dignity in a world that has been filled with too much crazy news. 

For 22 years, he's been a friendly face who somehow has helped assure us that despite the too often bad news, we'll somehow get through it together as life goes on.

I had the good fortune of meeting Charles Osgood a few times, when he presented or received honors at the annual Christopher Awards, which I've represented for nearly 20 years.  Having the chance to chat with him briefly in the green room before the ceremonies began or afterwards during the reception, he was always charming, friendly and totally down-to-earth.

Although retiring from TV, we'll still be able to hear his voice and get his insights and commentary on CBS Radio.  So until then, Charles, thanks for all the great work and see you on the radio.

 

The "King" Moves Over

 

TV has long been king of media, for decades taking the lion's share of marketers' ad dollars.  But it looks like TV will be surpassed by the young upstart -- digital. 

Recent news reports tell us it's finally happened -- something prognosticators have been talking about for years.  eMarketer says the ad spend on digital media will hit just a bit over $72 billion by the end of this year, squeezing past the $71.3 billion that advertisers are spending on TV in 2016.   

But the so-called "old media" TV, along with newspapers and magazines, aren't quietly going away.  Instead, they are ramping up digital platforms of their established brands, the oldies like NBC/Comcast, Disney/ABC, FOX, Hearst, Univision and Scripps, and buying into some of the digital newcomers that have been stealing their ad dollars.

"If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em" seems to be the mantra of the big guys.

In a recent report aptly titled "What's Old is New," Bloomberg gives a number of examples.  Comcast, which owns NBC, is investing in two new media outklets --n Cheddar, a business news platform aimed at Millennials, and a yet-unnamed offshoot of Politico.  Comcast also has partial ownership of Buzzfeed, Vox and afood oyutlet called Tastemaker.

Hearst, known for magazines like Cosmo, Marie Claire, Seventeen and House Beautiful as well as newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, is buying Complex, a group of websites covering fashion, technology, hip hop, technology and entertainment.  

Univision, the Spanish-language TV giant, is in talks to purchase Gawker, the site that went into bankruptcy after it lost a big invasion of privacy case against ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Even a media "dinosaur" like Verizon, whose roots go back to Ma Bell, is very much in the new media business.  The phone/cable/internet company owns online sites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch and is in the process of buying Yahoo.  Plenty of ad revenues there.

So let's not feel sorry for the TV companies since most of them aren't just TV anymore.  They're following the money.

 

 

Gannett is at it again... killing local news coverage now in Northern NJ

 

Newspaper giant Gannett is about to kill local news coverage in northern New Jersey, following its "standard operating procedure" that has decimated local news coverage in many other areas where they've consolidated groups of local papers that they've bought.

According to Gannett's news release on NorthJersey.com today, "North Jersey Media Group announced Wednesday an ambitious restructuring designed to make its newsroom and sales department more responsive to the growing digital demands of readers and advertisers."

I'm not sure exactly what that means, but from what I've seen Gannett do in other areas it does not bode well for the communities in northern New Jersey who've relied on their local papers to keep up on local happenings.

When Gannett bought the chain of about 10 local dailies in New York's suburban Westchester, where I live, they vowed that their coverage  of local news would remain strong.  Their slogan at the time, if I remember correctly, was "We are local."

In truth, it turned out to be anything but local.  They did some good investigative pieces of county-wide interest, but truly local news all but disappeared.  These days, coverage of local government and school boards is virtually non-existant except sometimes when there's a scandal.  But had there been ongoing local coverage, scandals, reckless spending and chronyism might have been caught earlier by good reporting and subsequent public outcry.  Now, elected officials are too often free top do what they want because the public is often in the dark due to lack of news coverage.

When I was more active in local school affairs years ago, I remember calling the education reporter at Gannett Westchester, who I'd known from when he actually attended most school board meetings in my hometown of Mount Vernon.  I asked how the paper could have possibly missed reporting on some major issue that was causing a rift in the community.  He apologized and explained that the schools reporter was now responsible for covering schools in all of southern Westchester -- school boards in more than a dozen communities, with a student population of probably more than 50,000.  The result of staffing cutbacks just as Gannett was saying "We are local."

So readers in northern New Jersey will soon likely need to look for other ways to keep up on local news -- Patch, if it's still around, and other local news sites which are well-intentioned but not always of the highest journalistic calibre.

I know the newspaper business is tough, but Gannett is in it just for the money.  Laying off newsroom staffers in order to maximize profits and pay high salaries and huge bonuses to top execs doesn't seem to be the best way to provide readers the product they are paying for when they subscribe --local news.  And as those readers give up, so too will advertisers who want to reach them.

As the new TV season starts ...

 

 

Have you ever been burned by one of the TV networks?

Here’s what I mean.  You start watching a new series.  You spend one or two or several hours watching a new show over the first weeks of the new TV season.  You become invested in the story and the characters, and you actually look forward to each week’s new episode.

And then, the network suddenly pulls the show.  It’s cancelled.  Gone without a trace.  No wrap-up of the story.  It’s like watching a movie and after 20 minutes the theater turns on the lights and says it’s time to go.  Or reading the first 75 pages of a book, only to find that pages 76 to 325 are blank and the book is out of print.

The start of the new TV season is nail-biting time for the networks.  Millions of dollars are invested in new shows and commitments have been made to advertisers that those shows will draw a certain number of viewers.

Getting viewers to come back to a new show week after week is what the networks pray for. Actually, they do more than pray.  They run ads and promotional campaigns to tout the shows they hope will draw big numbers.

And then an outside force interferes.  The reviews come in, followed by viewership numbers.  Soon the prognosticators start predicting which shows are in danger of getting canceled.  The more sophisticated viewers – including those like me who’ve been burned by the networks before – see these stories and decide to defer watching shows that may be at risk.  And that helps drive the low numbers even lower.

What we now do at home is graze, watching the first episode of shows that seem interesting.  But then, as the ratings and reviews come in, we stop watching shows that may be at risk.  We DVR them, and if they make it through the season, we’ll catch up or, if it’s really good, we’ll binge watch.

But no more watching shows that aren’t pulling strong ratings from the start.  It’s just too risky.  Our time is valuable.  And our DVR is ready and waiting, if needed.

 

 

After 15 Years ... We Remember

 

 

     We remember the victims

    and the heroes.

 

    We move on, but we remember.

Which do you want first?

 

There's some good news and some bad news regarding print media.

Let's get the bad news out of the way.  Magazines continue to slide, with sales down more than 14%.  Total magazine sales dropped by 6.2 % so far this year, compared to the same period a year ago.  It's even worse for single-unit sales at newsstands, with a 10.8% drop this year.

Some of the harder-hit categories include celebrity and women's titles.  Food & wine, recreation and science titles moved up slightly.

In the "good news" category, more people are reading newspapers, although not in the more profitable print editions.  Newspapers last year were read by 179 million people, an increasing number of them accessing papers online. 

It's not all good news for newspaper publishers, however.  They continue to struggle as revenue from advertising and circulation dropped by nearly 4%.  Part of the decline came from lower digital ad revenues, which were down by 2% last year, according to Pew Research. 

Recognizing the changes and challenges, the Newspaper Association of America has changed its name to News Media Alliance.  The rebranding, says the group, is intended to recognize the new ways people get their news and how newspapers deliver it to them.

I hope the new name helps publishers go after more ad revenue from advertisers and their agencies who often look at newspapers as “old school.”  With readership at 179 million, whether on newsprint or online, the numbers are nothing to sneeze at.