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March 10, 2006
The Wrong Message
I was stopped by an enterprising reporter from the New York Observer at the recent PR Week Awards dinner. The reporter, Jason Horowitz, went on to write a piece headlined, "Publicists Lauded for Flackery: P.R. Gods Get Freedom From Press."
Horowitz' thesis is that "PR people can get their messages across without pesky filters like the news media." He goes on to say that PR people at the dinner spoke about life without newspapers or TV broadcasts, instead opting for Internet based PR efforts. I'm quoted as stating that the media are no longer "God," which, quite rightly, surprised a lot of people, including my colleagues within Edelman.
Traditional Media - employ experienced journalists who provide an independent perspective on what and how a company is doing. 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.
We in the public relations profession need to evolve as well. We can also recognize this cross-platform trend and change our classic approach. 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:
I've learned my lesson - not to over dramitize to convey a point with a journalist, particularly during cocktail hours! Traditional media matters now more than ever. There is a continuum through on-line versions of traditional media into the blogosphere and that ultimately a great story can be told across all of these platforms.
I welcome your thoughts about how we can innovate even quicker.
Posted by Edelman at March 10, 2006 2:47 PM |
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Comments
"I welcome your thoughts about how we can innovate even quicker."
Richard:
Hire true innovators! Certainly, not something found among the ranks of our PR brethren.
Regards,
Brian Connolly
Posted by: Brian Connolly at March 10, 2006 3:31 PM
Richard,
It is interesting to me that the actual company does not appear on your list of trusted sources.
That dynamic is what I would change in order to give your clients an advantage over the competition and accelerate the change.
But in order to do that companies must become more transparent. And that, my friend, must be scary.
However, if companies truly embrace the power of social media, it's a great tool.
Just recently it allowed you to respond very directly about the Wal-mart situation.
But only because you had built some awareness of your blog and some relationships ahead of time.
Posted by: Eric Mattson at March 10, 2006 5:46 PM
We actually need more bold statements like that. There are countries like the Philippines where the mainstream media still act like gods.
Posted by: Mike at March 12, 2006 7:15 AM
Richard - I agree with you. And there's a good reason Google and Yahoo have opened large offices in New York - traditional media. It does still matter, even as its definition changed. Don't mind Jarvis too much - he has no right to slag your danish and coffee.
Posted by: Tom Watson at March 12, 2006 5:36 PM
I have recently read the information provided by Jay Rosen and his sutdents about newspapers and blogging
on http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/blueplate/
as well as Shel Israel's comments on his blog:
http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/03/merging_newspap.html
Very instructive to better grasp how the newspaper industry can/should embrace the new media.
Posted by: philippe at March 12, 2006 8:26 PM