the(new)mediaslut

[Update 08 May 2006] After some investigation with the fellow IT journalists community in Singapore, themediaslut has managed to identify the PR agency and the client that they were pushing for the trial with Cowboy Celeb.

Also a checked with the PR agency involved highlighted the client was actually looking for newbie’s perspective on the product.

This should have been stated earlier in the email or should have been explained in the reply email to Cowboy Celeb, instead of telling the blogger he was rejected because he was using a product belonging to a competitor.

"Thanks very much for your prompt response and for highlighting that you are currently using the [censored]," wrote the PR’s reply. 

"Unfortunately, as you are currently using a competitive product, we will be unable to take this opportunity further."

The most important thing learnt in this episode when PR agencies looked to approach bloggers is that the rules of PR-Media relations don’t apply to bloggers.

For example, the media and PR are more likely to keep their conversations, email or voice, private between the two.

Because of the limited space the media has or the in-house publication rules, the media are selective of what they put to print.  

Bloggers, however, will published whatever they can or get their hands on.

This even include emails between the PR and bloggers.

Hence PR agencies should be cautious about what is being emailed to bloggers or expect their emails to be published in the blogosphere.

[End of update] 

[Initial Entry] Who is the PR who approached Cowboy Celeb, a Singapore based, blogger to do a product review and then only to reject the blogger because he uses a competition’s product?

Miss PR, come on.

How many IT journalists out there owns a competitive product but you are still more likely to give them your products for reviews?

This shows a lack of confidence in your client’s product that it could out bid the competition during the review process.

It is most likely that the client had the final say in rejecting Cowboy Celeb, but shouldn’t you, as the PR, advise your client that it is better for somebody with experience with a competition’s product to be doing your review than somebody who doesn’t have any knowledge of the product?

[End of entry] 

Today is April 06, 2006 and The Broken Pitcher received an email which had the following written:

"… as we approach the turn of the century…"

The Broken Pitcher is curious. 

"Didn’t we approach the turn of the century like 6 years ago and there is like 94 years more to go before we approach the other one?"  

It has come to the attention of the Broken Pitcher that a tech vendor have put a "Fine" in its loan agreement of a particular product.

The publication will be fined S$100/day if the loaned product is not returned on the stated date.

The Broken Pitcher wonders how would the rech vendor enforced that? Send the publication an invoice or release debts collectors on them?

Another interesting thought: If the product cost SGD500 and the publication kept it for 5 days and pays the fine of SGD500, does the product technically belong to the publication? 

Tomorrow.sg posted from a contributor who picked up a report from Financeasia.com who re-printed a Q&A meant for Singapore Temasek ’s executives to prep them for interviews with the media.

A Temasek document, entitled "2006-03 Taurus Q&As" - which was designed to help its executives answer media enquiries on its 12% stake in Standard Chartered - was yesterday sent as an email attachment to some journalists instead of another file," wrote Steven Irving. 

"The document contains 59 questions and answers and was prepared by staff to anticipate questions that might arise from the acquisition."

Hmm, was the Standard Chartered share purchase codenamed "Taurus"? Was the sale suppose to have been completed by May?

Are there "Aquarius", "Libra", "Scorpio" and eight other projects named after star signs?

The Broken Pitcher guess a "NEW" PR team will be sending out a new set of Q&As to Temasek’s executives.

This story reminded the Broken Pitcher of story told by a PR friend who was unfortunate to have go through a similar incident.

Journalist: So can you tell me how you perform on xxx years?

Interviewee: Your question sounds familiar. Wait a minute.

Interviewee, American CEO, picks up a booklet from his back and turns to a page.

Interviewee: Here.. see question 5, that’s your answer. Why don’t you just copy from the book!

PR friend almost had a cardiac arrest on the spot.  

According to Tan Lili of MediaConnect Asia, Richard Edelman replied to the uproar by the IT journalists in the region.

Lili also rang Edelman’s AP president, Alan VanderMolen, for a short interview on the matter at hand.

Alan has invited more comments at his blog at http://www.edelmanapac.com/edelman/blog/2006/03/14/Clearing-the-Air-Edelman-PR.html

The story, with permission from Glen Myles MD for MediaConnect Asia , can be found below.

However, before going into the story, readers of themedialsut should take note of a ongoing saga between MSM (Main Stream Media) and bloggers in Singapore.

Tommorrow.sg picked up an entry by Brand Malaysia who commented on a report in the Singapore Straits Times where only 1% of readers surveyed from blogges to be credibile. 

On the other hand, from the New Straits Times, 60% trusted newspaper, 35% trusted television broadcasts and 3% trusted news website. Singapore based blogs have found the survey biased and have given their two cents worth of opinons.

Singapore Ink calls it a "ST’s deliberate campaign to smear blogs and bloggers is nothing new to us". 

Jeff Yen says "It’s time people with online diaries and folks from TVLand start commissioning their own surveys!" 

The Void Deck isn’t suprised and writes "this perceived Ragnarok good versus evil battle has been raging on for some time". 

The Broken Pitcher asks, "Why can’t blogs and MSM live hand in hand instead of trying to pit one against another?"

Marcoms News
Richard Edelman and his AP president say MSM still important
By Tan Lili 15/03/2006 07:22:00 PM

Both Richard Edelman and his Asia Pacific president, Alan VanderMolen, have responded to Asian IT journalists’ comments which saw a week of dramas as a result of a speech made by Edelman at the US PR Week Awards.

Richard Edelman, CEO for Edelman PR, clarified his words that were made infamous by Jason Horowitz of the New York Observer, which quoted him as saying that trust built around the media was wearing thin.

VanderMolen also stepped up and reaffirmed PR agencies’ need for traditional media in Asia despite the mounting presence of citizen media.
“While I was commenting about the emergence of new media, such as citizen journalists, I did not intend for my words to be understood as a lack of respect for the media,” wrote Richard Edelman in an email to ITJoruno Asia.

“I have an enormous amount of respect for the media.

“Edelman works extremely closely with the media all over the world and values this professional relationship.

Richard Edelman described “the overall effects of the changing media landscape will have are varied”.

“…In my opinion, the PR profession needs to continue to work with the media, both new and traditional, to provide information from which the media can form a balanced view,” wrote Richard Edelman.

“I believe that traditional media, as a whole, has superior credibility in this regard, partly as a function of resources and partly due to the expertise of the reporter. And as a profession, we have to accept that sometimes the media will not be interested in the information they receive, sometimes they will.

“This reality of the industry has not changed.”

With reference to his CEO’s mention of trust, VanderMolen said it is not just the media that has been gradually losing public trust.

“Overall, trust in institutions, like governments, businesses, and the media, is declining,” said VanderMolen in a phone interview.

“Our take in Asia is that as a civil society, we now have greater access to information though the mainstream media, the online media and the blogosphere.

“Citizens will tend to question sources. Businesses, in part, need to be aware that these key stakeholders are increasingly relying on multiple sources of information.

“Increasingly, peer-to-peer communication is important. It is changing the way everyone needs to communicate.”

According to him, the revolution of the new media has inevitably changed the way Edelman PR works around the media.

“We see a convergence of technology and the media. Blogs and online media are becoming more influential and at times becoming sources for the mainstream media,” said VanderMolen.

“When we look at the media, we are looking at, what we call, a media ecosystem which is made up of three different media environments – the mainstream media, the online media and the blogosphere – where stories are developed.”

VanderMolen, based in Hong Kong, can be contacted at alan.vandermolen@edelman.com and is open to discussion on his blog.

The "Edelman" episode has showed how different the world is today.

The wonderful world of the Internet has brought down the barriers of communication.

Blogs, a sublet of the Internet, has brought down the barrier of publishing online it now cost almost nothing to start a blog.   

As for the Internet, we tend to foget a speech made in the US and would be by the media in Asia almost instantly when it was reported or blogged.

Before you know it, the other side of the world, which was probably still asleep when the communication was made, is already talking about it.

A speech made in the US is no longer just for US consumption, its for the world to consume.

The same goes for speeches or messags send from Asia.

The world has, indeed, gotten smaller.

As for blogs, journalists have to start to realise that it is here to stay.

Richard Edelman’s speech was picked up by a journalist which Edelman later chose to use his blog to explain what he really meant in talking about blogs and traditional media.

Such use of blogs isn’t new.

A politcian from the opposition party in Singapore was also last seen using his blog as an avenue to comment on reporting by the local press .

Let’s say if an intervew was published online or in print and certain areas were edited which resulted in the interviewee publishing the whole interview transcript in his/her blog,  what should a traditional journalist or media do?

Engage, or in web 2.0 terms, start a conversation with the blog or the blogger rather than treating them as enemies of the fourth estate.

The journalist, or even the editor, should use the opportunity to explain to the interviewee why some areas were edited out of the interview.

Explain that you have limited estate space to print the entire interview and you chose to highlight the most important points.

Maybe comments made in the blog can also be used as follow-up to reactions to the interview.

It would even be better if the journalist were to put a online version of the story and provide hyper links to the blog in question.

Maybe it is time the media should learn a thing or two about PR while the PR should also learn something about being in the media.

Hmm.. wouldn’t it make a great reality TV show titled "Switch" if we had PR professionals and journalists switching roles for a fortnight to a month.

Who knows the interviewer might learn a thing or two from the comments made from readers.  

The Broken Pitcher thanks Mr Richard Edelman for his feedback and forwarding his site into the previous post’s comments.

Edelman in his latest post titled "Wrong Message", explained what he meant when he stated "the media are no longer God".

"Traditional Media - employ experienced journalists who provide an independent perspective on what and how a company is doing," wrote Edelman.

"Our own Trust Barometer (annual study of 1900 opinion leaders across 11 markets) found that business magazines (BusinessWeek, the Economist, etc.) are the most trusted source of information about a company, followed by friends and family, newsweeklies and the newspapers.

"Television, on the other hand, has seen steady erosion as a source of credible information about a company, in the past five years.

"Traditional media is also changing. Dow Jones for instaince is combining their on-line and traditionla (print and broadcast) prodcut/services. It is incorporating information from citizen journalists; recognize the benefit of organizing information around communities, as well as information created by open-source styled sites like wikepedia."

Richard went on to highlight why PR also had to change their traditional views when it comes to getting the message across. 

Even press releases were not spared.

"For instance, I had interesting conversation with (this based on conversation with Tom Foremski at Silicon Valley Watcher: who makes several suggestions to improve the relevance of our press release for digital age, such as," wrote Edelman.

"Adding relevant hyperlinks to our releases. When we mention an organization or company, let’s add a link to their web site.

"Incorporate tags, such as "finance," and industry, product to increase the relevance of the news for online searching. Tagging was introduced about a year ago and its really taken off as a way to categorize and link information online.

"Create news tops that journalist can then consider and offer his/her opinion."

Edelman also learned his lesson "not to over dramitize to convey a point with a journalist, particularly during cocktail hours".

His blog entry can be here . 

This isn’t really a bad pitch but The Broken Pitcher was informed of a comment made by the CEO of a US PR agency have created a stir among the tech journalists in the Asia region.

One journo feedbacked saying if it means he could stop answering phone calls and emails from that particular agency in his country, while another even called for a boycott.

Sources for The Broken Pitcher passed him an email newsletter from ITJourno Asia which was tittled "PR shocker: We don’t need journos no more!".

Epitome 
Epitome: PR shocker: We don’t need journos no more!
By Tan Lili and Aaron Koh
09/03/2006 01:14:59 PM

Schmoozing could well be the last thing on their minds, and blogging could eventually replace pitching ideas to the media. What you are about to read is a series of fierce accusations from some P.R. executives. Are you ready to digest?

Jason Horowitz, of New York Observer, noted the speeches made during PR Week’s annual public-relations awards (“the Pubbies, of Spinnies, or whatever you want to call,” he wrote), and highlighted what some of the P.R. executives had to say about the media.

President and CEO of Edelman, Richard W. Edelman, was quoted as saying: “In a world where we don’t have a belief in a single source, you don’t have a Walter Cronkite anymore. P.R. is the discipline on the rise.

“P.R. plays much better in a world that lacks trust.

“…It used to be I would schmooze you and I was your flack. Today, if we want to get a message into the public’s conversation, we just make a post on a blog. If The Wall Street Journal goes after a client, we don’t have to accept that anymore. Let’s post the documents we gave The Journal; let’s show the interviews the newspaper decided not to show.

“You’re not God anymore.”

Some other executives, according to Horowitz, “suggest that the press never had control to begin with”, and that “[w]ithout anyone holding a monopoly on truth… P.R. people can get their messages across without pesky filters like, say, the news media”.

“Between bites of truffle polenta, the P.R. people talked about getting along completely without the newspaper print and television broadcasts that have for decades been the time and space within which the industry has operated,” Horowitz continued.

He later quoted another P.R. executive, who was a former reporter, as saying: “A lot of people in journalism think that they have a sacred mission. They think the poor pay and crummy hours are part of it.”

Read Horowitz’s full column here. 

Upon receiving this newsleter, tech journos reacted rather strongly to the comments made by the CEO and have said to have emailed immediately to ITJourno Asia’s editorial team which was published the next day.

If the CEO of Edelman believes journalists are not needed, does that mean I don’t have to take calls or emails from Edelman in Hong Kong anymore?”

…That would give me more time to get on with the business of journalism, and for PRs to get on with the business of spin.
Michael Logan
Tech Editor
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

Where the quoted PR executives get it wrong is that they seem to assume that readers would much rather receive raw, biased press releases on a company’s activities than a more balanced contextual analysis.

Imagine trying to decide what wireless push email service to go with by reading the press releases RIM and Visto were putting out during the RIM/NTP case.”
John Tanner
Global Technology Editor
Telecom Asia/Wireless Asia/Questex Media (Hong Kong, Singapore)

If PR companies had their way, everything would be all peaches and cream, singing lovebirds and fluffy bunny rabbits.

PR still needs journalists, without people like us they might as well be glorified cheerleaders yelling out slogans that are ultimately meant to portray their clients in a good light, regardless of whether or not their clients deserve a good word.
David Chieng
Editor
Max-IT (Malaysia)

 It seems odd that a veteran publicist would leap forward with aggressive words, seemingly with no regards to leaving a blaze of fire and damaging relationships built up through the years by his people (or were there?).
Seamus Phan
Bureau Director
KnowledgeLabs News Center (the broken pitcher thinks its Singapore)

I think we journos around Asia Pacific should all boycott Edelman until they clear the air with us on whether its president stands by what reportedly said.