Technology

Starbucks’ Free WiFi is a Big Deal – Here’s Why

June 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

News flash: I just moved to an office in downtown San Francisco — woohoo! I love The City, and now I have a chance to be here everyday again. I last worked in SF in 1997. One thing that has changed since 1997 — there are a LOT more Starbucks in downtown SF. No duh. There are Starbucks EVERYWHERE in the U.S. — 6,700 total locations [probably excluding franchisees, such as those in museums and Barnes & Noble]. Now there is going to be reliable, free WiFi hotspots all over urban/suburban America in Starbucks starting July 1. As soon as I heard this news, I immediately started... [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

Two New Ways to Use Texting in Media Relations

July 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

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 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. Read More →

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]

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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Vote Yes on PRSA Bylaw Revisions and Move on to What’s Really Important

The PRSA National Delegate Assembly will take place this Saturday in San Diego. I’m a delegate but I can’t make it, so I’m sending a proxy voter. She asked how to vote and I told her she was free to vote as she pleased. But I wanted to go on the record to the industry and urge approval of the main...

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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...

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PRSA finally unveils a new web site

PRSA finally took the wraps off its new web site. It was long overdue. The old one was a mess, and did not represent the industry well. It was worse than a case of the “cobbler’s children.” The old site screamed: we’re not very competent. This new one says, we get it (2007 edition). That is...

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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,...

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Sure Fire Elements of Media Stories, Or How to Get in the Times if You’re Looking for a Job (Hint: Be Cute, Young, Blond and a Twin)

Part of my media training curriculum is explaining to people that the media covers only a set group of topics — they are broad, but they are really all you will find in American mainstream media, so if you want coverage, you better figure out which buckets your story fits in. They are: Novelty: things that don’t...

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Having a co-dependent personality is good if you are in public relations

Warning: heavy post ahead. Codependency is one of the most common terms in psychology and one with a very broad definition. It derives from the behavior of people who live with alcoholics or other addicts and have had to adjust their methods of coping to account for the addiction. But it really encompasses a broad...

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Are PR Embargoes Dead?

The embargo is one of my favorite PR tactics, but it looks like it will soon be another casualty of the Internet, if it isn’t already. 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...

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