The Real Steve Jobs Teaches a Lesson About PR to Student Journalist
Steve Jobs has always had a reputation in Silicon Valley as an asshole. A brilliant asshole, and one that I greatly admire, but an a-hole none the less. So it was almost refreshing to know that some things don’t change, when a Long Island college student shared with Gawker her exchange with Jobs about trying [...]
Two New Ways to Use Texting in Media Relations
Here are two tidbit’s from yesterday’s Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference on email/online pitching (which I moderated): Dave Satterfield of Sitrick & Co. said that he has texted reporters to answer questions and make clarifications during major announcement events, while they were all in the room together The Vatican has been send text messages [...]
Clear is the New Clever
I love the title of this post: “clear is the new clever.” There — I said it again. I’m not a particularly “clever” PR person. I don’t come up with lame excuses, I don’t misdirect people to divert their attention. I like to help clients sort out their story, position themselves strongly, and then tell [...]
Free Media Database for UK Media
Here’s another free online database of journalists, covering the UK media: journalisted.com It’s pretty simple: just go to that page, type in as much of the name as you know, and get a set of matches. For instance, here’s a link to a search for Smith. And here’s a page for one of the journalists [...]
Tiger Woods Caught With His Pants Down, But He Keeps His Guard Up
Uh-oh. It turns out that where there was Thanksgiving Day smoke, there was definitely fire. Tiger Woods has been caught red-handed being a philandering adulterer. Goodbye pristine reputation, maybe goodbye marriage. But is it goodbye golf game and goodbye endorsements? No and probably not. Woods issued another statement today, this time saying he “let my [...]
Tiger Woods Takes the Right Media Relations Tack
As the Tiger Woods car accident story was becoming known and starting to be covered in the media, my other half passed along an article talking about “what Tiger should do,” and suggesting that I weigh in. In the moment, I have to say that I had a hard time forming a strategy, partly due [...]
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Acts Like a Complete Jerk in a Media Interview
I’m always on the lookout for good on-camera examples of spokespeople doing a terrible job. It’s a great teaching tool — seriously. So if you’ve got any examples, by all means forward them to me. Playboy SF Mayor Gavin Newsom has made a dandy contribution to the archive with his interview on CBS 5 here [...]
Online Directory of Freelancers is a Media Relations Freebie
Most media directories cost money, but not this one: the Society of Professional Journalists’ online directory of freelance journalists. The directory lists 914 professional journalists who make a living as independents, and gives their names, coverage areas and best of all, contact info [including email], right there on the web. It’s true. The reason it’s [...]
Cosmetics Gravy Train Stops for Beauty Blogger, and She Blames PR
Here’s an interesting post from the other side of the PR/blogger divide: it’s a well written, well reasoned post by a beauty blogger about her experience dealing with PR for cosmetics and other personal care products. After starting her blog in 2007, she says she was besieged with free product — full-size samples of everything [...]
Is it ever right to pick a fight with the media?
Great old saying about media relations: “don’t pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Translation: usually, the media has a lot more firepower than you, so even if you’re both angry and right, in all likelihood you should restrain yourself from going after them. There are exceptions, however, and one of [...]