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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.
 These 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.
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Writing
shorter pieces coupled with rich Web content (video, sound and graphics).
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Drafting
more articles per day, compared to three stories per week at a paper.
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Forging
more dynamic relationships with readers -- who are quick to comment.
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Developing editorial
packages with premium content that replace aging editorial calendars.
But
if techniques are changing, what's stayed the same is basic journalism.
 "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.
 David 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.
 At 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.
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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  saying 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?"
 There 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.
 Despite
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."
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Interns No Longer Just From Hub Schools -- Distant College Points Undergrads to Boston
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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.
 Pensack, 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
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President's Letter Scarcely Two-Twelfths of the Way There
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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.
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| 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.
 How 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.
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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.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
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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
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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.
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| Job
Skills and Strategies Event
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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.
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Quick
Links |
Stay
connected with Chapter
members
Visit
PRSA National's
blog
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| 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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