Journalism’s Reckoning

Dogma Be Damned: Set Real Journalists Free
For many, it would seem unusual, if not highly suspect, for a long-time public relations executive to opine on the state of journalism and to offer remedies for its preservation. After all, aren’t most PR pros charged with positioning their clients more favorably in news and feature stories? (There are strategies to achieve this.)

Do Paid Media Walls Further Divide Our Nation?

Hardly a day passes without my seeing a tweet from or about Civil, a new enterprise that will use blockchain technology and the sale of tokens to revive and sustain the badly battered journalism profession. Reimagining the news with #blockchain-based architecture https://t.co/xx50xG4ntU — Civil (@Join_Civil) August 24, 2018 Today the purveyors of high quality news are not only…… Continue reading Do Paid Media Walls Further Divide Our Nation?

Podcasts for PR Peeps

It’s no secret that podcasting, once left for dead, has a new lease on life now that our mobile devices serve as the primary vehicles through which we acquire news and information. One NYU student writer recently extolled the podcast as “the future of journalism.” The buzzworthy “Missing Richard Simmons,” Buzzfeed’s “Another Round,” and the #1-rated “S-Town”…… Continue reading Podcasts for PR Peeps

All Press Required To Stay Strictly On Message

Ronan Farrow, no stranger to controversy, is slated to receive a journalism award named for one of the icons of the profession: “The Cronkite Award for Excellence in Exploration and Journalism.” The fact that this 26-year-old already has garnered an award for a relatively slim body of work is questionable enough, but there’s one even bigger…… Continue reading All Press Required To Stay Strictly On Message

Media Relations Is Dead. Long Live Media Relations.

A few weeks ago, a senior media executive at one of the largest, most digitally savvy PR agencies shared with me a call he had with his top management in which they lamented the lack of media relations savvy from the firm’s younger professionals. “Shouldn’t there be more formal training,” they pressed, to which he…… Continue reading Media Relations Is Dead. Long Live Media Relations.

Social Clout At Re/Code

Very few business news organizations enjoy the brand esteem and influence of Dow Jones’s Wall Street Journal. A prominent story within WSJ’s print or digital editions has the capacity to drive conversations, alter corporate fortunes (and stock price), and even affect government policy.On top of that, few professions, outside of technology or entertainment, have embraced…… Continue reading Social Clout At Re/Code

Media’s Fate: Platform or Publication?

PandoDaily’s intrepid New York reporter Erin Griffith set Twitter tongues-a-waggin with her piece drawing a journalistic distinction between news “publications” and content “platforms.” She questioned the editorial integrity of news sites that accept or are fueled by content from outside “contributors” (with supposed hidden agendas): “A platform which allows anything to be published with no oversight,…… Continue reading Media’s Fate: Platform or Publication?

A Reporter & A PR Guy Were In A Bar

About this time last year, I took the PR agency biz to task for what I felt was its fatalistic reliance on the benevolence of journalists to advance their clients’ communications interests. Sure, a great “placement” (I hate that term) in an influential news outlet like Bloomberg, The Journal, Mashable or Buzzfeed still has a…… Continue reading A Reporter & A PR Guy Were In A Bar

Holiday Reading For The Geek In You

A few years back, my most erudite #2 son admonished me for spending too much time with short form real-time media. He explained that books — digital and otherwise — offer context that one simply can’t extract from the ephemeral world of streaming media.I thus decided to periodically post links to those books that generated…… Continue reading Holiday Reading For The Geek In You

Dressed to Kill the Pipeline

John Boehner (Image: Getty Images via @daylife)In their zeal that led up to the shuttering of the U.S. government, House Republicans believed they had this President right where they wanted him. So much so, they expanded their list of demands to include an array of partisan issues, some of which they reasoned might actually fall…… Continue reading Dressed to Kill the Pipeline