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Volume 56 ♦ February 2010

News & Views  
In This Issue
PR Must Adapt as Newsrooms Evolve
Hot Debate on Pay-for-Play
Distant Colleges Seek Boston Internships
President's Letter
Five Questions with Kelley Chunn
 
 
By Ronald Rosenberg

Online journalism is forcing change in news-gathering practices, especially for ink-stained reporters and editors who grew up in the world of printed newspapers and trade magazines.

Click here for an expanded version of this story and links to video excerpts of the eventThese changes -- and how PR practitioners can better understand and adapt to this changing environment -- were outlined last month in a panel discussion headlined "What's Next for Journalism." Kaspersky Lab was a sponsor of the PRSA Boston program.

Journalists from six different organizations presented a generally optimistic outlook on the evolution of news-gathering, while acknowledging the media industry's ongoing triple-threat: budget cuts, smaller staffs and fewer stories covered.

Those newsroom modifications include:
  • Sharing stories and resources with other news organizations.
  • Using Twitter as an alert tool -- like a police scanner.
  • Writing shorter pieces coupled with rich Web content (video, sound and graphics).
  • Drafting more articles per day, compared to three stories per week at a paper.
  • Forging more dynamic relationships with readers -- who are quick to comment.
  • Developing editorial packages with premium content that replace aging editorial calendars.
But if techniques are changing, what's stayed the same is basic journalism.
 
Click here for an expanded version of this story and links to video excerpts of the event"The demand for journalism has never been greater, as people are engaged in news in a variety of ways through the Internet, which is excellent," Lou Ureneck, chair of Boston University's journalism department assured the audience. Ureneck, who also writes "From the Ground Up," a blog for the New York Times, cautions that the country has lost a lot of journalistic capacity. Fewer reporters and editors results in fewer stories, "investigations that are never covered and scandals that are not discovered."
 
With fewer full-time staffers, online publications (that emerged both as the public embraced the Web as a primary source of news and as more print publications folded) increasingly rely on their readers as news and information sources who will send tweets to alert reporters and provide instant feedback.
 
Click here for an expanded version of this story and links to video excerpts of the eventDavid Beard, editor of Boston.com, cited how a series of tweets from citizen journalists enabled Martha Coakley's concession speech to make the front page of the Boston Globe's prime Web presence.
 
"We are in a new era and we know we can't do everything by ourselves," said Beard. Boston.com has also partnered with Sports Illustrated to share content and cross-brand along with others, including WBZ-Radio for weather.
 
Going a step further are corporate-owned online media outlets, which provide specific industry news and features for a limited audience, like trade publications, but are written and edited by a staff independent of the company.
 
Dennis Fisher, who covered the corporate security industry for PC Week (later, eWeek), approached Kaspersky Lab America about his idea for Threatpost.com, a security news Web site that the company agreed to finance with no outside ads. As the site's editor, he stressed the company has never meddled or questioned his news judgment.

"I've had less influence and pressure from the owners of this site than at any other time in the 15 years that I've been a journalist," said Fisher.
 
Panel members also cited how their growing online audience is quick to react to news and feature stories compared to a handful of letters to the editor in traditional newspaper and magazine readers.
 
"Now, when I post a story, I can have 12 people on Twitter immediately saying, "Hey, you got this wrong," or "This is a good point you made," or "You forgot about this and should talk to this guy," said Fisher. "It not only informs our coverage, but I think it makes it much better and stronger."
 
At the opposite end of structured newsgathering Web sites are independent reporters like Steven Garfield who can provide live broadcasts with a camera, a cell phone and a laptop that enables his tuned-in viewers to participate in an event. This trailblazing capability, he added, enables citizen journalists to use their smartphones to record video and upload footage of breaking events to YouTube or CNN and see it run on TV news programs.

One issue that continues to concern online publications is story length and the need to keep it short -- 600 to 800 words -- but with audio and video clips to make the reader's experience meaningful.
 
"Space is not the problem, but the reader's attention is," noted Andrew Meldrum, a Senior Editor and Regional Editor for Africa with GlobalPost.com and who spent 27 years in Africa as a correspondent for The Economist and The Guardian.

Maintaining readers' attention has led to a different mix of stories, Meldrum said. In the past, stories from Africa were primarily gloom and doom, while now GlobalPost stories also feature lighter pieces, brighter stories and cultural stories -- a change he characterized as enthusiastically welcomed by the correspondents.
 
Even with shorter stories, moving more of them through a newsroom production pipeline creates another issue: catching fewer mistakes, as fewer editors are checking the copy. Although errors can be quickly corrected, often the underlying problem is a lack of a second reading.

Click here for an expanded version of this story and video excerpts of this eventAt the Christian Science Monitor, science reporter Peter Spotts (far left) recalled how two to three editors would review a reporter's article for the print edition before it ceased publication last year. In the transformed weekday online news outlet, stories generally are edited by a single editor.
 
Today's online editors, he added, "now have to shovel many more stories through the pipeline ... and they are often not getting the second reads."

All the journalists on the panel acknowledged that the quick pace of online journalism and the resulting newsroom adaptations are just the beginning of a major cultural change where page views replace circulation as measurements of success.
 
"In a way this is an exciting time for us to think outside of traditional print journalism," said Spotts.

Ronald Rosenberg is a specialist in life science public relations

Click here for video excerpts of the panel discussion
Click here for video excerpts of the panel discussion

 
Web Site Post Sparks Vigorous, Global Debate on Ins and Outs of 'Pay for Play' PR
If payment is contingent on obtaining coverage, is it ethical?
 
 
By Dick Pirozzolo, APR

"Get me in The Wall Street Journal and I'll bring you a wheelbarrow full of money!"
--Prospective client to PR agency representative
 
Nothing gets PR agency pros more tightly wound up than the suggestion of a Pay-Per-Placement engagement. Most of us have gotten these money-for-ink offers. Most of us reject them. If we do try, many end up Click here for an expanded version of this storysaying never again. For the most part, that's how PR practitioners worldwide reacted when the subject came up in two recent LinkedIn discussions on the compensation scheme dubbed PPP.
 
Intense current interest in PPP may stem from PR practitioners looking for new ways to replace old revenue streams in the current economy. Members of two LinkedIn groups were passionate, provocative, glib, sometimes snarky but overwhelmingly thoughtful and still going strong after 250-plus comments two months later. This is in stark contrast to most LinkedIn PR discussions: they either fall flat after a handful of responses or, sometimes, are posted and earn not a single comment at all.

Jules Zunich, who owns Z Group PR, kicked off one discussion on Public Relations Professionals by noting she received another request to conduct PR on a pay-for-placement basis and "had to pass." In this economy, she asked colleagues, "are you lowering fees, changing fee structures or doing what you always did? Please share!" Ninety-seven comments followed, most congratulating her for walking away and denigrating the PPP "opportunity."
 
But Rick Smith, whose NewsUSA shop specializes in PPP, triggered a separate 150-comment avalanche by challenging members of Public Relations and Communications Professionals to generate new revenue by allowing him to service their clients and successfully place their stories in the media on a Pay For Play (P4P) basis -- "anybody interested?"
 
A consummate promoter of his P4P company, Smith offered a money-back guarantee and went on the offensive to build his case. "We get these all the time. ... Companies that have been burnt by signing 12-month contracts, getting zero and now [want a] referral to a firm that I can guarantee won't burn them. I have [also] seen blatant rip-offs and very hard work for clients from hell ... some that stiff you. ... We have been around for 30 years. Maybe we hold the payment in escrow pending a fair result as defined by the parties and arbitrated by us? Thoughts?"

Click here for an expanded version of this storyThere was no maybe about Smith's business model. NewsUSA clients escrow their fees and NewsUSA collects only when it obtains media hits. Smith also accepts partial payment in the form of company stock, pays referral fees and will partner with PR firms that want to add a PPP component to their operations.
 
NewsUSA focuses almost exclusively on consumer stories, often How-Tos and Ten-Tips fare. In contrast, practitioners who have tried PPP with trade media campaigns and business-to-business clients indicated in their posts that lead times were too long and payment too uncertain to make it a worthwhile pursuit.
 
The LinkedIn discussions focused on three main considerations: Does the PR profession sell itself short by not providing a more strategic communications service -- and charging for it? If a PR firm takes on a PPP client, how does the client confirm that the work gets done and then how does the agency ensure it gets paid after achieving results? And finally, a number of PR pros questioned the ethical basis of PPP.
 
Selling PR Short?
James Cooper, owner of a PR shop in the UK, felt the PPP model "doesn't give credit nor compensation for all the upfront work it takes to begin securing placements. ... It undermines the premise of PR and all the 'off the page' work agencies do."
 
New York PR firm owner, Barbara Brooks Kimmel, was more direct. "The few who have asked me for PPP either don't understand what we do, or are looking for a 'cheap' alternative. Either way, not the kind of client I want."
 
Agency heads expressed a conflict when serving both retainer and PPP clients. Concepció Roca, a PR consultant in Barcelona, observed that "with pay-per-clip ... neither the client nor the agency is vested in the outcome. There isn't much incentive to perform for the pay per clip client."

And while the PPP's model clearly incites action on the vendor side of the equation -- placements earn the agency money -- they can inhibit development of a good working engagement. Tracy Richardson Clement in Atlanta "tried a P4P structure once. ... (but) without a vested (financial) interest in my work, it was never a priority for the client to follow up with me, provide me with needed updates. ... I resigned the work and cannot fathom how I would EVER do it again."
 
Jocelyn Brandeis, co-founder of JBLH Communications in New York, echoed numerous colleagues' comments on the economy by pointing out that her "fees have been slightly lowered, but my self-esteem and self-respect have not. Pay-per-play is not good for our industry."
 
On the other hand, Stephenson Group, a traditional PR firm in New Jersey, established a separate PPP operation to serve clients and publishes a price sheet. For example, features in 50,000-100,000-circulation newspapers cost $1,800. The firm draws its payments from a monthly client fee.
 
A number of posters found NewsUSA's "guarantee" troublesome while others, like LA-based Todd Appleman, argued that "PPP is a violation of PRSA standard of ethics."
 
Not so, or at least no so clear-cut, according to PRSA. In a December 2007 Wall Street Journal article, PRSA's then-CEO Rhoda Weiss, APR, Fellow, hedged, saying only that public relations was about "more than being in the media. When you work with a [full-service] public relations firm, they will develop communication strategy."
 
Ethical concerns may stem from confusing PPP with paying journalists for placements, or presenting paid placements, such as advertorials or paid TV "news" productions, as "earned" media.
 
Dick PirozzoloDespite the skepticism, a lot of clients appreciate not having to pay if their agencies don't obtain coverage. Peter Metzinger a PR pro in Switzerland, notes a former agency employee "started offering a 100 percent money-back guarantee a couple of weeks ago. Since then his phone doesn't stop ringing."
 
 
Interns No Longer Just From Hub Schools -- Distant College Points Undergrads to Boston
 
 
By Laura Smith

When Newton, Mass., resident Amanda Pensack went off to college 800 miles away in North Carolina, little did she know she would be promoting some of Hollywood's biggest movies -- as a summer intern at Allied Integrated Marketing, back home in Boston. The Copley Square firm works with major film studios, such as Disney and MGM, and serves as the liaison between the press and its 80 clients.
 
Amanda Pensack during her internship at Allied Integrated MarketingPensack, a strategic communications major at Elon University in Elon, NC, was one of two student interns from Elon at Allied last summer. Her experience in the publicity department helping promote films such as "The Hurt Locker," "Taking Woodstock" and "Fame" was incredibly worthwhile, she said.
 
Students graduating with a communications degree from Elon are required to complete at least one internship during their studies. Students are able to gain credit while living and working in major cities such as Boston.
 
Nagatha Tonkins, Director of Internships and External Relations for Elon's School of Communications, schedules an extended stay in Boston every year expressly to arrange internship opportunities like Pensack's. "Our students are very talented in many ways and have strong research, writing, social media, production and Web-based skills."
 
Another Elon senior communications major, Craig Orsi, spent last summer as an intern with Kortenhaus Communications. The Boston PR firm serves clients in the arts, fashion, hospitality and tourism industries, among others.
 
Orsi worked on pitches, promotional events, strategic plans, media correspondence and graphic design. One of his biggest projects was working on the strategic plan for a condo development.
 
Elon sends interns into the working world every semester and summer. It is in cities such as Boston that these students really get a jump start on their futures, Tonkins predicted.
 
"We have almost 900 majors that participate in a highly interactive curriculum with strong professional ideals, so we have a lot to offer," she said, adding that she encouraged organizations to contact her about interns for their offices.
 
Laura Smith is a senior at Elon University majoring in journalism

 
President's Letter
Scarcely Two-Twelfths of the Way There
 
 
Dear Colleagues:

Here were are, a bit over seven weeks into the year, and we're confronted with a natural disaster of epic proportions -- Haiti -- and despite the winter malaise and our economic woes, we're watching the world mobilize a relief effort. Philanthropic response aside, there was enough fodder for public relations pundits everywhere. It wasn't just about the victims; commentators dissected the cruise industry's response to the disaster and the appropriateness (or not) of returning to the scene, of promoting (or not) their connection to relief efforts. When the spotlight is on, it's hard to escape it, even on the periphery.
 
We're still watching Toyota navigate its way through several recalls, hinting at a crisis communication scenario reminiscent of the Ford-Firestone issue in the late 1990s. The Monday morning quarterbacking continues: is the right spokesperson being used? Is the response fast enough?
 
Speaking of quarterbacks, just when we thought the winter was only doom and gloom, the New Orleans Saints kicked off the Mardi Gras celebration early after clinching their first national championship at the Super Bowl on Feb. 7. Regardless of who one rooted for, it's hard to deny that the post-game photos of Drew Brees and his young son Baylen said a thousand words for the Saints as a team, New Orleans as a city and perhaps the world in general. It made me remember that while public relations is about the words, it is often about the image, too.
 
Even in this age of Everything 2.0, sometimes it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. When something good or bad happens, as public relations practitioners we are the ones to help tell the story. I often tell my students the reason I'm in this business is because every now and then, it offers me the unique opportunity to be an eyewitness and contributor to history.
 
Here's wishing us all a year full of firsts and unique opportunities.
 
Meghan Gross
President
MGross@PRSABoston.com
 
 
Cause-Related and Multicultural Marketing -- Five Questions with Kelley Chunn
 

Principal of Kelley Chunn & Associates, Kelley Chunn started her multicultural and cause-related marketing consultancy in the 1990s and has worked with client partners ranging from healthcare to education to the nonprofit sector. While finding challenges in today's complex business environment, her passion is in creating and promoting social change. She holds a masters in communications management from Simmons College.

How did you come to PR? What was your background?
I started my career working at TV news stations as a writer and producer for channels four, five, and seven in Boston. Then I received an opportunity to consult in Nigeria for the Nigerian Television Authority. It was their version of PBS, but freedom of the press there is much more restricted. It gave me the chance to teach and train Nigerian news staff to improve their skills in of news writing, investigative reporting, production and so forth.
 
In Nigeria I also had the opportunity to teach at JOS TV College. After returning to the states, I freelanced, then landed a full-time job at the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency in the late 80s. During that time, the chance to teach in the communications program at Northeastern came up. While there, I won a government contract for the Commonwealth's anti-smoking campaign. I thought to myself, 'I could start my own business ' and Kelley Chunn & Associates was born. The decade of the 90s was a good time to start a business because the economy was humming and opportunities were plentiful.  
 
Kelley ChunnHow did you decide to focus your firm on multicultural PR and marketing as opposed to more general PR? The firm combines cause-related marketing and multicultural marketing, which is a powerful force to promote social change. It reflects the growing diversity of our world.
 
Cause-related marketing grew out of issues I covered in the news, such as healthcare, the economy, education and underserved citizens, and wanting to address them. The multicultural focus is heavily influenced by my experience at MassHousing where our mandate was to address the diversity of the Commonwealth. Did you know that the state requires information be relayed in five or more different languages? And you'll see from the 2010 Census that the audience is growing more and more diverse which will test our skills as communicators.  
 
How greatly has the emergence of social media affected your firm?
I always encourage my clients to have a social media strategy because it's an important tool to have in your toolkit. Social media synchronizes with other PR tactics. Learning how best to put it to use amplifies your message, although it does represent a learning curve for most senior professionals.
 
The need for traditional PR, such as community relations, events and corporate communications, hasn't diminished, but social media plays an important role in reaching audiences. The one area that I think is taken for granted is texting. Everyone has a cell phone and most likely uses text messaging; on the other hand, not everyone has a Twitter handle or a Facebook account. And, more consumers have cell phones -- rather than smart phones. So texting is emerging as a key marketing tactic.

Having worked with several industries and government leaders, what industries do you think will be key in helping Boston emerge from the recession? Well since this is Boston, the two strongest economic drivers are the education and healthcare sectors. In the near future, the "Green Revolution," bioengineering and biodiversity are the places we should be looking to help us out of the recession. Boston is attractive to people all over the country because of our hospitals and schools. We are also noted for our record of innovation. I think they will continue to be strong economic drivers.
 
In addition, Boston is attractive to tourists and businesspeople for our history, culture and landscape; the number of conventions held here proves that. The Boston Convention and Expo Center (BCEC) on the waterfront is campaigning for Boston to be in the top five conference destinations in the country. We're currently in the top 10.
 
What has been the most rewarding or memorable moment of your career thus far? There are two -- one from last decade and one from this decade. The first was when we helped orchestrate and raise money for Nelson Mandela, when he came to Boston in the early 90s after being released from prison. Boston's anti-apartheid campaign was strong, and our agency led an effort to raise money for Mandela. There was a concert on the Esplanade, a speech and so forth, and we generated a lot of excitement-and funding. It brought the themes of cause-related and multicultural marketing into play.

This decade, we helped bring the Amistad Freedom Vessel to Boston Harbor from its base in Connecticut. It was a sort of freedom festival that brought together many institutions from across the city. We sold more than 14,000 tickets to board the vessel. Students saw a reenactment of the Amistad trial at the Moakley Courthouse. Choirs sang at the Boston Harbor Hotel and Captain Pinckney of the Amistad gave a talk at the Museum of African American History on Beacon Hill. It was challenging to fundraise and orchestrate the entire event, which required a lot of traditional PR including corporate sponsorships, media coverage and community relations. After all,  it was an extremely rewarding experience for us to bring to the city of Boston.

 

News & Views is a monthly newsletter by and for members of New England's largest association of PR professionals.   
 
News & Views Editors: Kim Cole, Liz Goldsmith, Jack Jackson
PRSA Boston Secretary: Diane Pardes
 

 
To contribute articles, news or information on upcoming events, please contact the News & Views at News@PRSABoston.com.
 
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
From the Editor
With this issue of News & Views, we introduce several features to make our program content -- whether it's professional development information or just "best practice" tips -- available in new ways.

Along with a recap of our recent "What Next for Journalism" panel discussion, we've posted a more detailed program write-up on the Chapter Web site that gets you deeper into the story. (Indeed, the individual we assigned to cover this event was chosen for his personal experience in the dynamic between editors and PR people: Ron Rosenberg, a long-time Boston Globe reporter and now himself a PR practitioner.)

Did the "Journalism" event look interesting but fail to get onto your calendar due to an impossible schedule? No problem; visit our site to scan video excerpts of six media experts discussing the evening's topics.

Elsewhere this month, and in future issues, you'll find links directing you to expanded versions of stories or additional background materials.

We hope you find these small efforts of value. Send us your thoughts about this approach, and tell us other subjects you'd like handled this way in the future.

Jack Jackson
For the editorial staff
 
Pumping Up Your News Release
 
February Program -- Using Links, Video and More to Improve Your News Pick-Up
 
Meet and network with colleagues at this group-shared teleseminar, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, 3-4 pm. Click here for info and registration links.
 
Job Skills and  Strategies Event
PRSSA's Fourth Annual Conference Adopts 'Brand Yourself' Theme
 
Boston University's chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America is hoping to top last year's showing of roughly 200 students from 17 regional institutions at its all-day career training conference.

Hosted by BU, the Feb. 27 one-day event consists of sessions on job search strategies and techniques. At the day's conclusion, students meet and speak with working PR professionals.

Centered on a theme of
branding yourself for a PR career, the conference is open to PRSSA members and non-members. Additional details and registration information are available from BU PRSSA.
 
Quick Links
Stay connected with Chapter members
 
PRSA Boston's LinkedIn Group
 
PRSA Boston's Facebook Page 
 
Visit PRSA National's blog
 
PRSA National's Blog
PRSA Boston 2010 Report to Members
 
The Chapter's Annual Report to Members was distributed early this month. If for any reason you did not receive your copy, view it online.
 


 

 

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