the(new)mediaslut

Ric Shreves, who freelances occasionally for Computerworld Hong Kong and who is base in Bali, is now in AFGHANISTAN working on a B2B project for a NGO.

Check out Ric’s photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rics-pics/

Shreves turning to selling dates in Afghanistan.

This is a second email boo-boo incident committed by a PR person.

Found at the Loosewire blog by Jeremy Wagstaff, the contributor for Wall Street Journal Asia received a press release only to find that it is in a language he has little or no linguistic proficiency in.

“I dread to think how much eBay is paying Waggener Edstrom to handle press relations for their Toy Crusade,” blogged Jeremy Wagstaff .

“At least I think that’s what is being launched — all the press stuff I received this morning, including image-laden email, attachments was all in Chinese. Oh, except for the headline.

“I know I should, but I don’t speak Chinese.”

Waggener Edstrom apologised for the error and admitted that an executive put in a wrong distribution list for the press release in question.

That PR person must be hating the invention of the blog.

Decisive Publications revealed a new contributor in her edition of Commsday ASEAN today.

A.M. Doncaster highlighted the uproar that Singnet is getting from her subscribers for not putting up a fight against ODEX.

"Subscribers to Singnet are up in arms after it was revealed that the ISP subsidiary of Singtel did nothing to protect subscribers’ private information when Singapore-based anime distributor Odex served a court order seeking to identify alleged copyright violators via IP addresses," wrote Doncaster.

"Ernest Lau, the district judge who presided over the case of Pacific Internet vs Odex, revealed on Thursday that Singnet consented to Odex’s court order without any legal objection.

"The judge found that Pacific Internet owed its subscribers a duty of confidentiality under the Telecommunications Competition Code and Odex could not be granted the order unless the distributor could satisfy that burden of proof.

"Furthermore, the district judge also ruled that Odex was only a sub-licensee and, thus, the animes in question were not entitled to similar protection enjoyed by the original copyright holder or the exclusive licensee under the Copyright Act.. The judge was also unconvinced of the method used to pinpoint the copyright perpetrators via their IP addresses—which are allocated dynamically in the main in Singapore."

Grahame Lynch, publisher for Commsday ASEAN, only described Doncaster as an "armed spy".

Malaysia Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor ís going through a PR nightmare with ex-Indonesia TV presenter and blogger, Nila Tanzil.

Its turning into a blog spectacle that could have been avoided from Day 1 but it seem the PR folks at the Malaysian Tourism Board missed the lesson on crisis communication 101. 

The story goes that Nila Tanzil, then with an Indonesia TV channel, to tour Malaysia to promote the country as a tourist destination to her Indonesian viewers.

However, Nila had a tough time trying while filming and she blogged about it.

The Malaysia Tourism Minister responded to Nila’s blog. His respond did not deal with the problems that Nila blogged about, but were being reported by the mainstream media describing bloggers as "as liars and were mostly jobless women". 

The statement pissed of many female bloggers in Malaysia.

To clarify his statement, the minister decided to carry out a press conference to explain his statement. Datuk Seri Tengku Adna Tengku Mansor clarified that the statement was not meant at all women bloggers, but at Nila Tanzil.

The journalists at the press conference may have been impressed by the Datuk’s willingness to answer questions about his "sexist" statment, but pointing at Nila got the entire Indonesia Bloggers on the verge of not Visiting Malaysia in 2007.

The Malaysia Tourism Board is now looking for a PR agency to handle this crisis in Indonesia but after reading Drop The Pink Elephant, themediaslut felt that the whole situation should have been avoided if the Datuk, or somebody had advised the Datuk, to suck it in and practise the 3Rs of crisis communication.

Express Regret - Whether Nila’s allegation of the bureacracy she faced in Malaysia was true or not, Nila, as a journalist, was doing her best to get a show done with the best shots possible. The Datuk should have apologise for Nila for having to face all the problems while shooting. Here you have a journalist who was trying to do her best to bring out the best of Malaysia, but her efforts were not even appreciated.

Instead, Nila is branded as that "jobless lying female blogger". If themediaslut was Nila, she would be very very pissed.

Show Reason - There could have been many reasons why Nila faced many problems that day. Maybe the PR had a off day, or the PR in charge of bringing Nila around did feel empowered to help her, etc.. Whatever the reason, the PR team for Malaysia Tourism Board should have come out with one to explain why Nila faced so much problems in trying to get her shots done.

Suggest a Remedy - Instead of blaming others, the Datuk should have highlighted that he would be looking at Nila’s complains and offer an investigation as a remedy to prevent this crisis from ever happening again. Maybe the Datuk should have extend another invitation for Nila to visit Malaysia again.

Wong Chun Wai, the editor for Malaysia’s The Star, also agreed that the Datuk and the Malaysia Tourism Board should have reacted positively to Nila’s claims rather than scold somebody a liar in public.

themediaslut suggests that the Datuk and the PRs for the Malaysia Tourism Board should go visit www.amazon.com and buy a copy of Drop the Pink Elephant before Indonesians really drop Malaysia as a tourism destination in Visit Malaysia 2007.

Never has those empty words been so prophetic. 

Playboy Indonesia is now out, much to the chagrin, dismay, outrage, and pure joy of many Indonesians. 

Conservative groups swore they will never let the magazines fall into the hands of the common man (too late, Indoscene has 5 copies already), while free speech advocates aplaude the bravery of Velvet Silver, the local Playboy publisher.

Magazine hawkers either openly display their copies or wait until asked by numerous curious potential buyers. 

Even so, sales have been swift, making it difficult to land a copy as of lunch time.

But as they had promised, the Indonesian version of Playboy has been toned down, focusing more on its editorial content. 

Out of the 160 pages, roughly 22 featured pictorials (plus a centerfold) with most of them being extremely tame. 

One reader on Detik.com commented that is was like glancing through a women’s magazine like Her, Femina or Harpers Bazzar.  

To be sure, the content is hard-hitting. 

There are interviews with Jamie Aditya, Indonesia’s best ever MTV VJ, as well as Pramoedya Ananta Toer, its greatest writer. 

Other articles talk about East Timor after independence, graphics novels and how American car manufacturers are struggling in their own country.  

The general air of disappointment (one man said after reading Playboy Indonesia, his original excitement when buying the magazine is lost) reflects on Indonesia’s culture of reading, or the lack of it. 

Playboy Indonesia is like the Playboy of Indoscene’s grandfather’s era, full of artistic photos but was no slack in the writing department, which unfortunately is completly missing in the likes of FHM, Stuff and others. 

To be a writer of Playboy is up there as a reporter for Time Magazine.  You ARE a writer if you made Playboy.

So, will Playboy Indonesia close within a year?  Will sales fall?  Will conservative groups win the battle to kick the bunny back overseas?  Indoscene hopes not, as judging by the quality of writing in the first edition, other "serious" news and lifestyle magazines should take notice.

Indoscene is beginning to wonder about the PR industry sometimes. 

Public Relations companies always coach their clients to keep control of the interview, to talk only what is on the agenda key messages, and nothing else. 

Granted, such tactics are for the benefit of the company, employees, shareholders and stakeholders, but do they make good press?

During an interview, Indoscene was mightily impressed on the ability of a spokesperson to respond to a query, bridge it to a key message, support it with facts and NOT ANSWER THE RUDDY QUESTION. 

Indoscene really wanted to talk about topic A, something of a scandalous nature that Mr. Spokesperson was desperartely trying to avoid.
And a good job he did too.  Indoscene likes to avoid conflict (and PR agency blacklists!)

But then, would the answers make good coverage? 

Repeating key messages and their supporting facts may be great for PR, but a nightmare for a journalist to write an article. 

We only have X column inches and how do we fill that with synonyms of the same sentences? 

What ever happened to a frank, friendly conversation where no topic goes unturned. 

Granted, the journalist may not write what the PR Manager wants, but at least a relationship is established, goodwill received, and a conversation delivered. 

Besides, even if they do stick to the key message, the media could write about the jokes heard at the event, the attrocious F&B service, a topic that was overheard at the question and answer sesion or how the key spokepeople avoided answering those questions.

Want to hear an interesting interview? 

Download "Inside the Net " with Amber MacArthur, and listen to a person talking passionately about his company, his goals, fears and plans. 

His long answers are definately a no-no for television (editors need short sound bites) or print (we just need that quote). 

But his story is told, and we all are the better for it.

So if PR things don’t go according to plan, don’t stress, eh? 

Meeting the media is about telling us your story. 

Unless of course, your company did something very, very wrong.
In that case, it really sucks to be you.     

Indoscene finished a meeting in a hotel yesterday and was passing by the lobby TV to see that CNN was doing some sort of hard-hitting coverage of ……….. the Church of Scientology? 

Or to be more apt, what small TV show ‘South Park’ had managed to do to get itself in the news.

It’s even in the Washington Post !

Some people say that any publicity is good publicity.

 Now everyone in the world wants to see the episode that Tom Cruise allegedly managed to axe due to his powerful influence. 

His couch-jumping skills already certain, it is said that the mighty Cruise threatened to boycott the marketing programs for the latest Mission Impossible.

This is something that Indoscene greets with enourmous relief as the first Mission Impossible had completely torn the laws of physics and logic, something that dear James Doohan, a.k.a. Scotty, would have tossed Captain Kirk to the Klingons for just to get the Enterprise moving just "a wee bit faster".

Now South Park is fighting back, in what Indoscenes sees as pushing the realm of the obsurd and taste (or the lack of it), in a new episode hastily cut and paste for the season premier. 

Will people see it?  Due to all this bruhaha, yes. 

Will there be lawsuits?  Possibly.

But is this what CNN or the Washington Post should cover? 

Over all the news about Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, etc, we choose a faction of rich people?  

Granted, Scientology is said to have some questionaable influences towards people (I quote a user comment from the internet "Free Katie!"), so it may have some news value, but it had to be prompted by a TV show and a meglomanical movie star?

No wonder people are turning to blogs for news. 

Bloggers don’t have to submit to the lowest common denominator. 

The Ministry of Information during the Suharto years was not one of the most popular departments in Indonesia. 

It had the power to issue and revoke business licenses of the media, and thus, stiffle any dissent should they publish something deemed against national interests.  

Recently, the Ministry of Communications and Information issued a decree that would ban live re-transmissions (relays) of foreign news programs (such as the BBC, Voice of America and others) on local TV and radio. 

The decree will be put into effect in 2 months.  Subscription-based cable TV and satellite are said to be exempted.

It’s been reported that this is to prevent "irresponsible parties" from issuing their own one-sided news broadcasts. 

Such as the previous treatment of Timor Leste, some facts of the Bali bombing, or other things that may be embarrasing to Indonesia. 

In fact, a prime time documentary about the first Bali bombing on the Discovery channel on cable was mysteriously pre-empted by a repeat of a story about Alaskan fishermen, one of the world’s deadliest jobs. 

A repeat later on in the early morning was shown unscathed.

There is now a mini political fight in Jakarta, with one side wanting this ban recinded, another hoping to retain its power (and perhaps add licensing authority for the media to the mix) and a third wanting this authority.

As short wave radio, the internet and cable TV is not affected, this would only provide an imbalance of information where only the haves could get it, and the have-nots wont, stuck with only user-approved news.  

Sounds like the old days, what? 

The announcement of Playboy in Indonesia was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Those simmering in quiet outrage over the various media pushing the line by publishing scantily clad ladies finally struck back, demonstrating against the evils of immorality (forgetting perhaps poverty, spousal abuse, corruption, and other society ills that are bit more pressing).

As such, the police this week suddenly went into action and raided various areas, confiscating tabloids and magazines under the guidance of their legal consultants, gathering evidence to charge some with obscenity.  Retailers went underground, with the Jakarta Post reported that if you know where to look, you can still buy those erotic magainzes, even Playboy itself (overseas versions) or even triple X DVDs. 

Perhaps censorship is making a comeback in ASEAN.  

p.s. During research in this matter (ahem), Indoscene found a blog of Tiara Lestari, an Indonesian model who did a nude pictorial with Playboy Spain.  She gives her insights about the Playboy hoobaloo (Should it be banned?  No.  Should it be in Indonesia?  Surprisingly, no.) and offers an enlightening point of view of her craft.  Something acceptable overseas may not be acceptable here, and if we accept and respect that, then making our own decision about purchasing certain magazines (or DVDs) is up to the individual.  No one should force another person their own views.    

Denmark (and the rest of Scandanavia for that matter) suffered a major PR blow when a conservative newspaper published a cartoon that satirized (and in some cases insulted) the prophet Muhammad.

Never mind that such images are said to be forbidden for Muslims, other European newspapers and one in New Zealand, under the banner of free speech, republished them, leading to demonstrations and a few riots worldwide.

Indonesians were outraged, with some demonstrating and burning flags, while others calling the media that publish the cartoons "stupid".  

The scheduled pre-Thomas Cup tournament against Denmark was canceled and the arrival of Danish tourists to the tropical island of Bali is said to have fallen, perhaps due to the various travel warnings.

The word "respect" was bandied about, saying that free speech is OK as long as everyone respects everyone, which now does not seem the case (as each side is insulting the other).

An Iranian newspaper is even launching a cartoon contest lampooning the Holocaust, challenging European media to print them in the name of free speech.

Perhaps the best word to consider for resolving this issue is "acceptance". 

This came from the King Abdullah of Jordan, noting that if everyone accept other religious beliefs apart from their own, not just simply respect them, people would be able to understand more the norms and sensitivities of others. 

The 21st international franchise of Playboy will be published in the world’s largest Islamic community, which has caused some to call for its banning.

As such, the long awaited anti-pornography law has suddenly rose to prominence, with many parties issuing statements lambasting the local franchisee holder for even considering its publication.

However, ever since the fall of Soeharto, the media in Indonesia has been free to publish without any government interference.

Granted, there are limits, but even those have been nearly cracked with the various “crime” and men’s tabloids that occasionally print extremely risqué photos of models.

They’ve even printed those found on the Internet and Indosence wonders how would the copyright holders feel about that?

The Indonesian publisher said that the local version will be toned down, focusing more on its editorial content, and will be subscription-based with some retail sales in select bookstores.

Playboy itself has suffered significantly since the rise of the dot coms, and the tremendous amount of free online pornography.

Once the home of “art photos” and great articles, Playboy has fallen to the lowest common denominator that has plagued other skin magazines.

Could this be the resurgence of the new Playboy?

With new anti-pornography laws threatening to punish all acts (and its publication) that are deemed indecent (such as kissing in public, dangdut hip-gyration dancing, holding hands?), out comes a book to put things in perspective.

Media Indonesia reports that Eko Prasetyo’s book, Assalamualaikum: Islam Itu Agama Perlawanan! (Islam Is A Religion Of Opposition), talks about how religious leaders today seem to be more focused on morals instead of seeking answers to more desperate questions, such as eradicating poverty.

Muhidin M Dahlan’s article points out to the various Islamic-based institutions such as schools and hospitals that charge exorbitant amounts, much more than other “Godless” organizations.

The same perhaps can be said of other faith-based institutions around the world.

Why not focus more on creating jobs, providing free education, ensuring clean and healthy communities or volunteering your time?

Or is it better to find a topic that would definitely sell more copy, and thus guarantee coverage, in order to get their names in print?

Indoscene’ll keep you updated.