Archive for January, 2010
Anatomy of How to Report TV News
Television news today – local, cable or national – is all formula driven. There are a few exceptions, like PBS NewsHour and HD Net’s World Report, but just a few. The rest of it is mostly shallow, inane and predictable.
Corporate Dumb and Dumberer
CTS Corporation of Elkhart, Indiana – a company many of us have never heard of – has bubbled into the news as the maker of the faulty Toyota accelerator pedals linked to the biggest vehicle recall in automotive history, a recall even NPR, which chooses its words carefully, has called “unprecedented.”
News Alert: Steve Jobs is Speaking!
Good friends – senior execs in the field of corporate communications – tell me of getting calls from executive search recruiters who are trying to fill senior level PR positions at Dell Computer in Austin, Texas. A couple have gone through the interview process … “It’s like falling down a rabbit hole,” one said.
How to Damage a Good Brand Image
Wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard an in-house marketing person exclaim, “We’ve got to work on improving our brand!” And, then, they’d go on to talk about a catchy new slogan, changing corporate colors or (groan) updating the mission statement. An organization’s brand is its heart and spirit.
Self-Proclaimed Gurus Multiplying Like Rabbits
Whether speaking before an audience and advising clients, I caution them to wary of today’s proliferation of self-anointed social media gurus. Don’t be taken-in by big talk, big claims. A lot of followers on Twitter does not an expert make.
Google Versus China
I have been watching and reading … albeit with a bit of awe and a lot of curiousity … the current flap between Google, which desires to extend its marketing tentacles before the people of China, and the Chinese government, which wants to continue its policies of control and censorship.
Lawyers Do Not Good Communicators Make
The rumor mill over what Apple is up to is once again humming. The world of technology is abuzz, and Apple fans and customers are trying to guess what the company will announce at a special event in San Francisco on Wednesday, January 27.
Seven Steps to Making News in the Digital Era
I delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Hampton Roads Economic Development Authority in Norfolk, Virginia. The subject was Making News in the Digital Era.
Next-generation online newsrooms bring stories alive
Ever since the dawn of what’s called Web 2.0 around 2004, a wide spectrum of exciting online tools have fueled an explosion in blogs, online sharing, web-based communities, social networks, streaming video and greater user control over online content.
Starving People Need Food, not Money
I am saddened and moved that we are witnessing an entire nation collapsing, one of the most fragile places in the world, and our federal government STILL has not figured out how to respond. People are starving in Haiti. Amid the starvation, they are burying their dead.
