Obama

More! More! More ‘Question Time’ With Barack Obama!

February 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment

I love love loved the Obama-Republicans debate/question time last week. That was stupendous, a brilliant way to showcase the thoughtful and thorough president trying to craft solutions and the Republicans offering platitudes and talking points. More — more! We need to see more of him using his brain and words to govern, not just to give speeches. That’s who we elected, that’s who I, for one, was looking for: a leader who would engage intellectually with the great problems and opportunities of the day. Who’s next: the Democratic Causus? That would be a great one. Then, let’s... [Read the full story]

Technology

“Vitch” is the first new PR catchword of 2010

January 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Why send a plain old written PR pitch when you can send a “vitch” — a video pitch? That’s right, the new thing is to make your pitch via video. It’s certainly simple enough to do — plan your video, shoot it with an inexpensive video camera, upload it to Youtube and spread the link. Makes a lot of sense, too. Video is such an incredibly powerful medium, and now, through the evolution of technology, we can all be fast and cheap video producers. The key thing here is that a “vitch” can’t just be you reading your boring, stilted press release into... [Read the full story]

Fox "News"

Good Riddance, Lou Dobbs

November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Buh-bye Lou: The bombastic and misguided Lou Dobbs has finally given up his perch on CNN and quit the network, more than a year before the end of his contract. For now, he will spew his anti-immigration, white-privileged perspective on his national radio show. I haven’t looked up the odds, but if I were a betting man, I’d say 5:1 he goes to Fox “News” after a respectful interregnum. I’m not a big believer in the so-called objectivity of the mainstream media, but for years Dobbs has even crossed that line and used his show, ostensibly about business and finance news,... [Read the full story]

Email Pitching

3 No-No’s When You Pitch the Media By Email

September 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Almost all journalists say they want to be pitched by email. So guess what — they are deluged with email pitches! And to make matters worse, most of them are bloated, non-news pitches that get deleted faster than you can say, “did you get my email?” How to avoid the trash bin? That’s easy — pitch real news, facts and figures, information that the journalist’s audience really might want to know. Skip the self-serving pseudo ads — those are the ones that get deleted FAST. But the title of this post is 3 no-nos, so here’s a list of other no-nos: Using... [Read the full story]

Spin

Tiger Should Go With His “New Hugh” Persona

December 20, 2009 · 2 Comments

Now that the stories about Tiger Woods have descended from “marital woes” to “all out sex/party maniac,” I think Tiger needs a new strategy: Tiger should go full-steam ahead and plant his flag as “the new Hugh Hefner,” or in my shorthand (trademark pending), “The New Hugh.” I’m serious here. Hugh Hefner has made a bloody fortune screwing beautiful women and leading the party life. But he’s ooollllddd. I can’t believe he’s still going strong, supposedly. Hugh ain’t gonna last forever. We need a new role model, a new Adonis... [Read the full story]

Media Training

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Acts Like a Complete Jerk in a Media Interview

November 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

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 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... [Read the full story]

Tiger Woods and the Concept of Super-Replicators

One of the more interesting things that has been said about Tiger Woods is that now he is “human like the rest of us.” This is undoubtedly true, though quite painful for him and us to live through this week. We all have our human failings — can you imagine coming to terms with yours under the spotlight...

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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...

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“Who Will Pay the Messenger” Is Indeed the Question

I am not a believer that print media is all but dead. But I am a believer that the highest profile print media, namely big city newspapers, are, in fact, all but dead (with one notable exception, the New York Times). This is not, as many assume, simply because the Internet came along and took away a lot of the advertising...

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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 to Thanksgiving...

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Turkey Day Oddities

Two random Turkey Day observations: Is Facebook over its capacity today? I’m getting lots of error messages today — could it be that everyone who is off today has jumped on FB and pushed their traffic beyond capacity? That’s what it looks like to me. If so, it’s a problem we’d all like...

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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Acts Like a Complete Jerk in a Media Interview

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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...

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Good Riddance, Lou Dobbs

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What did you do with your summer?

In a sign of things surely to come, a 29-year-old writer has just landed a sitcom deal with CBS to make a show out of his Twitter feed, ShitMyDadSays. This is not April Fools, and this is not a joke. The Tweeter in question, Justin Halpern, had already signed a book deal with HarperCollins. He’s got more than...

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Is This the West Coast’s Top PR Event of the Year?

The PR industry has typically had a serious East Coast slant, mostly for good reason, and that means the biggest PR events usually happen in New York or Washington. Many of the biggest companies in the world are located in the Northeast Corridor, as is the stock exchange, the capital, and the media industry. Here in...

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