the(new)mediaslut

Why is it that not enough companies take photography seriously and end up sending journalists unpublishable junk when spokespeople and product shots are requested.

Recently, Smartbrain interviewed a certain mobile advertising solutions company and asked its PR to send him some nice shots of the spokesperson and some product shots with a pretty girl or presenter using the solution.

What Smartbrain got was a picture of a boring, man in a messy street branding a grimacing grin at his phone. He probably had someone aim a gun at him telling him to enjoy himself as he used the mobile ads. The composition was all wrong too with acres of messy buildings and wires in the background. Well, unless the shot was also for urban regeneration and how grimacing at mobiles makes even depressing environments more habitable, Smartbrain really does not see how it could ever be used. And that is before the quality issues - over saturation of colours for a start, come into play.

Smartbrain wonders if the PR simply ran outside his office in Chinatown somewhere and asked the first passer by to pose for a shot on his cheap consumer digicam.

This is what he got:

Can anyone guess what this picture is about?

Some PRs are quite good at hiring professional photographers but all too often, even in these rare cases, it is common that these pictures lack someone with a sense of aesthetics; an appreciation of the rule of thirds. Getting a dedicated art director, in office or even occasionally on-site to guide the photographers would make the industry much better for everyone, clients and journalists alike.

Key problems include

Generally, it’s the SME that gets it wrong, but not all big companies get it right either. HP’s press room is full of ancient material that should be re-filed under “historic”. AMD/ATi’s PR couldn’t get him photos Smartbrain asked for either, nor were they in the AMD press room, but he found them and more on AMD’s semi-official Flickr account for Computex Taiwan. More photos and of better quality too.

On a related note, why are PRs and large companies so paranoid about releasing spreadsheets or presentation files with charts and figures. Getting soft copies of pie or bar charts is like trying to draw blood from crabs and often all that is received is a cut down PDF that cannot be manipulated. Smartbrain can think of many cases where a well placed graph would make the story come alive. Smartbrain is not calling for entire, editable slide decks to be released as a matter of course, but the occasional slide would be nice with credit given to the company.

Many of Smartbrain’s friends on Facebook have been posting this link from the Economist as if it were vindication of their anti-Mob stance. It’s not that bad, and much better than the BBC’s but there are some points which must be refuted if I am to get any sleep tonight.

They argue that the rural masses who favour Mr Thaksin and Mr Samak are too “ill-educated” to use their votes sensibly. This overlooks an inconvenient electoral truth: the two prime ministers had genuinely popular policies, such as cheap health care and credit.

There are three points in this paragraph that Smartbrain would like to object to. Democracy by most standards (obviously not British standards if the BBC or Economist are anything to go by) implies a free press and free flow of information. Nobody in the Mob think that the rural masses are too “ill-educated” in the sense of not having degrees or IQ, but “ill-educated” in the sense of not knowing what is happening politically or how their tax money is being used. Outside of major cities, the only TV and radio news is government propaganda which skimps on any news detrimental to the government.

The cheap healthcare, 30-Baht universal healthcare scheme, was a good idea and it could have been a success even if it were a tax the rich and provide care to the poor system. Only it was not a system. Hospitals were ordered to provide the care for 30 Baht, but were not being reimbursed by central government. Many hospitals were refusing to provide care under the plan long before the coup.

As for micro-credit, that is a great thing. Only problem was, it was not pitched as micro-credit. It was pitched to villagers as “the fund”, one which anyone can default on as there will be a debt moritorium soon, or at least before the next election. The ones who suffered are the state owned banks for the most part.

To be fair, the Economist did say popular policies, not policy execution.

As in the build-up to the 2006 coup, PAD leaders are trying to oust a popular government on the bogus pretext of “saving” Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol from a supposed republican plot. Some of the PAD protesters reportedly believe their sit-in has the crown’s tacit backing. Almost anywhere else, the police would have removed them, forcibly if necessary, by now.

Bogus pretext? The fact that quite a few Thaksin loyalists are either in jail or awaiting trial for lese majeste would suggest that the allegations are at least a shade beyond bogus. Former Prime Minister’s Office Minister Jakkrapob Penkair’s speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and another one in Los Angeles are two cases in point.

“The police would have removed them, forcibly if necessary”, implies that the police have not removed them with force. They did. The police seized back half of government house in the wee hours of the morning (there is a small canal that splits it in two) and later moved on to disperse the Mob at Makkawan bridge, with carnage and blood everywhere. It was the backlash from pictures of police beating protesters with batons and bashing medics with shields which caused the police to retreat that allowed the Mob to re-gain the West half of government house.

Right. I feel much better now. 5 AM and time for bed.

According to this article on Manager, the head of the CAT Labour Union has threatened to cut the country’s submarine Internet connectivity if the Prime Minister again uses violence or attempts to arrest the PAD leaders.

CAT is a state enterprise, formerly the Communications Authority of Thailand.

Such a move would leave Thailand without any Internet connectivity and also cut most International telephone lines.

The report says that the cuts could be made at either the control centre in Nontaburi, or at the landing points, all of which are under union control.

With ITU TelecomAsia on in Bangkok, Smartbrain wonders if any of his journalist friends were at the Mob last night. More importantly, given the latest round of carnage, if any were injured and will the violence and bloodshed affect their reporting.

If anything, getting dozens of IT and Telco journalist on the spot would help the world see the events for what it is, rather than through the views of a select few who seem to still think that the British Empire exists.

Smartbrain is often irked at reporters who abuse the trust placed in themselves and their organisations and engage in misleading the public with their own agenda in what should be factual reporting.

Take these two articles, one by the BBC and the other by Time.

Is Jabba, sorry, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a proxy, a puppet or a nominee for Thaksin Shinawatra?

The BBC has repeatedly said:

Protesters say the government is a front for the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Time says:

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej — who is closely allied with the former PM and once declared himself Thaksin’s “nominee”

Now, obviously they cannot both be right. Either Samak did not did not campaign as Thaksin’s proxy. He did. Time remembered it. But the BBC did not. Or maybe they both are right.

The way the BBC article is written implies that the Mob is accusing Samak of being a puppet but that Samak himself is not a puppet, or at least has not been proved one way or the other. Implicitly.

It conveniently omits the fact - and it is a fact - that Samak himself made that claim during the election.

But it is misleading. Smartbrain has written to the BBC to tell them of this and other repeated errors by its correspondent but to no avail.

The BBC also writes:

They rejected last December’s election victory by the pro-Thaksin People’s Power Party (PPP), arguing it was achieved by vote-buying (the impartial Election Commission contradicts this view).

Yet the Nation also says”

The Supreme Court yesterday delivered a red card to People Power Party (PPP) deputy leader Yongyuth Tiyapairat, paving the way for the Election Commission (EC) to start building up a case to dissolve the party.

The Election Commission has supported, albeit after lots of committee and sub-committee meetings, the view and has red-carded the PPP’s Yongyuth “Refrigerator” Tiyapairat in a move that is likely to end in the party being disbanded. The constutution says that if a member of a party’s executive board condones a party member in committing electoral fraud, the party is to be disbanded and the party dissolved. Yongyuth is a member of the party’s board and thus knows what he was doing. It was the EC that put the case to the court in the first place.

The BBC could have said that “the EC partially supports this view”, or, “the EC initially rejected this view but is now moving to dissolve the party for electoral fraud.” But to say that the EC contradicts this view full stop is at best sloppy reporting reading only government news sources or at worst a lie, distorting the truth.

The question is why.

Why is the BBC misleading British opinion and painting a better picture of Thaksin Shinawatra’s allies than is the case. Smartbrain does not like Thaksin, but would never lie to attack him. Lying only would damage the reputation of the news organisation, the reporter and in the long run would only hurt the person they are trying to assist.

Why, BBC? Why? Is the image of Thaksin the elected saviour of Thailand against a traditional, backward backdrop too alluring for you to see things objectively any more?

Thanks to techielobang.com for this video on Google.

Interestingly, a artist in Singapore was said to be wanting to sue Google for indexing the artist’s webpages when the Google founders tried out their Googlebot.