• 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 to followers and the media since 2003. Kevin Dugan of the Bad Pitch Blog said one of the reasons was to reduce the possibility of Vatican-related hoaxes being picked up by the media as legit.

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 the world about it.

So I loved picking up this line from journalist/author Sarah Lacy on a recent Bulldog audio conference. Like me, she prefers that people just give it to her straight and clear, rather than trying to grab her attention with something they think is “clever.”

Love it.

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 on the site, Nick Parker of The Sun. They post whatever contact info they have, as well as links to recent articles and other similar journalists.

For a free resource, it’s pretty cool.

But is it goodbye golf game and goodbye endorsements? No and probably not.

Woods issued another statement today, this time saying he “let my family down and I regret those transgressions.” [Full text of Tiger Woods' statement here.]

But just as Tiger redefined golf, he may be in the process of redefining celebrity scandal-mongering. His statement goes on to say:

No matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy… Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions.

That’s right. He hasn’t been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, betting on the game, animal cruelty or physical violence. Those are the types of things that derail sports careers.

He’s one of the world’s sexiest men, he probably had and has woman propositioning him constantly, and he took some of them up on it, even after he was married. That makes him a fool and a cad, but that’s all. No evidence yet that he paid for it, a la Eliot Spitzer, who after all was an elected official, and a sanctimonious one at that. Unless this saga goes into one of the above-mentioned areas, I think it tarnishes him but doesn’t really afffect his public life.

Further, I really like that he shot back at the media mongrels who are demanding more information and confessionals. Tough. If you want information, go dig it out. He owes you absolutely nothing.

In the meantime, on Sunday, Tiger released a statement that, I thought, hit all the right notes.

Here’s the statement:

As you all know, I had a single-car accident earlier this week, and sustained some injuries. I have some cuts, bruising and right now I’m pretty sore.

This situation is my fault, and it’s obviously embarrassing to my family and me. I’m human and I’m not perfect. I will certainly make sure this doesn’t happen again.

This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way. Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible.

The only person responsible for the accident is me. My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble. She was the first person to help me. Any other assertion is absolutely false.

This incident has been stressful and very difficult for Elin, our family and me. I appreciate all the concern and well wishes that we have received. But, I would also ask for some understanding that my family and I deserve some privacy no matter how intrusive some people can be.

Here’s what I like about the statement and the strategy it implies:

1. He gives some helpful details at the beginning
2. He shifts the story back to its core — a single-car accident, mostly on private property, minor injuries, my fault. He went on the offense instead of playing defense.
3. He clearly states and repeats that he wants his privacy, as would any of us, famous or not, in such a case involving a minor accident.
4. He praises his wife, signaling a united front with her.

The fact is, none of us — the general public, his fans, the police or the media — really needs more information about this situation. I think the police acted irresponsibly in showing up at his house twice for an interview, thereby giving TV a fresh shot to air, when they could have called on the phone and been told whether or not he would speak to them. It looked to me like the cops were seeing this case as a possible gravy train rather than focusing on doing their jobs.

Is Tiger having an affair? Was his wife whacking him with a golf club as he ran out of the house and jumped in his car? Who knows? If you care, go to TMZ.com and get your fill.

Here’s a blessedly sane media story with the headline “Tiger doesn’t owe us an explanation.”

Playboy SF Mayor Gavin Newsom has made a dandy contribution to the archive with his interview on CBS 5 here in the Bay Area. Newsom dropped out of the California governors race a few weeks ago, and the conventional wisdom is that he has been pouting and avoiding the press, who he foolishly blames for his early demise. (Note to Gavin: look in the mirror for the true culprit).

He came out of hiding to start giving interviews now that San Fran is facing a half-billion-dollar budget deficit. But does he make nice and try to get his messages and position across? Would we be talking about it if he did?

Opening line from reporter: Let me start by asking, where have you been?

Newsom: $522.2 million.

That was his answer. The amount of next year’s deficit. He then went on to ridicule, lambast and generally shit on the media and anyone who thinks he has been a bizarro character since he dropped out of the gubernatorial race. Finally, when the reporter wants to talk about the deficit, Newsom has already lost his cool and walks out on the interview!

The cherry on top: as he is leaving, he says, “Off the record, I’m amazing disappointed, amazingly. I just am. Professionally, you know.”

He says this on camera! Off the record, are you kidding me?

Thanks for the classic what-not-to-do interview clip, Gav.

Here’s a link to the clip, so you can watch it for yourself: Gavin Newsom’s Terrible Interview

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 out there for free is that the directory is intended first and foremost for media editors who are looking for freelancers to hire. But that doesn’t mean we PR folks can also scan the directory for potential journalists to pitch our stories to.

One more tip, an obvious but important one: do some homework on the freelancers you are pitching to see if they would be a good fit for your story. They usually have samples of their work posted on a web site and sheesh, you can always Google them.

After starting her blog in 2007, she says she was besieged with free product — full-size samples of everything she could possibly want. She describes being fairly journalistic about methodically trying the products and reviewing them. But more came in than she could handle and she gave a lot of it away to her friends and readers.

Then, the recession hit, and the companies a) got chintzy with the samples and b) wanted more out of sending a sample than the possibility of a post — they wanted guaranteed good coverage.

It’s a good post and worth reading for a firsthand account of how the other half lives. My value-add will be the PR perspective:

There are effectively no barriers to entry in blogging — anyone can be a waitress one day and “fashion and beauty blogger” the next (or both at the same time).

Pre-Internet, the barriers to being a recognized and influential writer were fairly high, which made it possible for PR to figure out who to deal with and what they were getting out of the arrangement.

Now, since anyone and everyone can position themselves as “influential,” PR has a lot more trouble to deal with. Accept anyone’s claim to legitimacy and you end up giving away your products, or set up barriers and get blowback like this.

There are exceptions, however, and one of them is when you are POTUS — President of these United States. Then, you can decide it’s time to call out FOX News.

As a staunch and proud Obama supporter, I’m very glad they have decided to take on FOX news. They saw that other media were starting to follow FOX’s lead, and it was important for them to fight back.

When is it ok to take on the media? When you have leverage. Generally, news subjects have very little real leverage, particularly after a story has run. You can use online tools to fight back, posting rebuttal information, for instance, but then you risk adding fuel to the fire.

When you’re POTUS, you have lots of leverage. So it makes sense for them to use it.

In the ooollllddd days, you could hand out embargoed news and assuming you had a good relationship with the media, the news would sit in the can until the agreed-upon time. But the Internet and online media changed all that, for good.

In the tech news space, in particular, the embargo has become a cause celebre. TechCrunch, one of the gorillas in the tech media space, has been pushing for the death of embargoes for awhile, and their wish may be coming true. TechCrunch may be a little early in writing an obit, but in the end, they may be right.

For other tech journalists, however, it’s still something of an open issue — and one we’ll discuss next Wednesday (along with many other topics of interest to tech PR) on the PR University webinar, Tech Media and Trends PR Can’t Afford to Miss: Top Tech Influencers Reveal Best PR Practices for Reaching Consumers in Today’s Economy. Panelists include:

• Nancy Blair, Senior Assignment Editor/Technology, USA Today
• Spencer Ante, Computers Department Editor, BusinessWeek
• Jim Kerstetter, Executive Editor, CNET News
• David Lidsky, Articles Editor, Fast Company
• Tom Foremski, Author, “Silicon Valley Watcher”

How do I know we’ll be talking about this? Two reasons: it came up today on our pre-webinar prep call, and I’m the moderator and get to ask the questions.