Friday’s Video Views

This week’s edition of Video Views features Robert Gibbs, Chris Brogan, Pete Cashmore, Google Chrome and some very high Boston social media flyers.White House press poobah Robert Gibbs banters on what defines a “press conference (aka “presser”) (via @prnewser via @mediaite):Here’s a series showing 22 minutes of social media wisdom from Chris Brogan (w/ SAS’s…… Continue reading Friday’s Video Views

POTUS PR

“I’m really perplexed. It’s unbelievable,” said [B-M’s] Karen Hughes, Mr. Bush’s White House counselor. “They’ve taken his greatest political asset — his gifts as a communicator — and totally diluted them. It’s been especially notable in the last couple weeks.” “It’s a risk of overexposure,” said Joe Trippi, a political consultant. “If you use it…… Continue reading POTUS PR

WH Press Office: thanks, but no thanks

Michael Wolff’s gonna think I’m stalking him. After attending and posting on his tete à tete last week with Bloomberg’s Andy Lack, I stumbled across his piece in the July issue of Vanity Fair in which he extols the virtues of the White House press operation (another favorite subject of this blog).In the piece, “The…… Continue reading WH Press Office: thanks, but no thanks

Diss the Press

No. I’m not obsessed with President Obama’s fledgling press office or the musings of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. But maybe I should be.Yesterday, author and former New York Times investigative reporter David Cay Johnston shared his experience dealing with the Obama PR operation in a CJR piece headlined: “Who’s Undercutting Obama?For the moment,…… Continue reading Diss the Press

On Background

How many media training sessions does one have to endure before taking to heart the trainer’s counsel that nothing is “off the record?” We’ve certainly witnessed a fair share of PR gaffes by newsmakers who thought it was cool to kibbutz with a reporter.Segueing from “off-the-record” to its semantic sibling “on background,” we read with…… Continue reading On Background

PR Change Has Come

On this gloriously historic day, it seems only appropriate to round-up some of the pundits’ prognostications on how President Obama’s press office may diverge from that of his predecessor, let alone all previous inhabitants of the Oval Office.The big question thus far percolating in the media pundit-sphere has revolved around the prospective use of direct-to-and-between-constituency…… Continue reading PR Change Has Come

The Final Spin

This blog has frequently looked at the succession of White House spokespersons over its three+ year run. A persistent theme centered on how the public faces of this administration — Fleischer, McClellan, Snow and Perino — have sold their souls to blindly advance the political POVs of their bosses.Most people today acknowledge that these ill-conceived…… Continue reading The Final Spin