Last week I linked to Ezra Klein’s post that called for journalists to start publishing transcripts of their important interviews online. It’s a request I’m still entirely on-board with.

Later that day, I left this comment on his blog:

I work in the PR/media field and frequently act as an intermediary between reporter and source, making sure everyone has the appropriate background information before a formal interview to ensure nobody’s time ends up being wasted.

I like having information fully transparent, and anyone who feels the same way can probably get on board with the notion that important interviews ought to be fully transcribed somewhere online and public. In fact, I frequently urge clients — corporate executives, law firm partners, etc. — to establish their own blogs so they can do just that. Reporters, understandably, have deadlines and many other pressures to grapple with, but transcribing and posting an important interview between one of my clients and a Times reporter, for instance, would probably be a decent use of *my* time, and if it can benefit other writers or bloggers, then all the better.

I’m not so sure, though, that most journalists would like it if the subjects of their interviews began to do that. Any thoughts?

I’m still on the fence about the matter. How would journalists react if their sources began recording interviews and publishing the full transcripts on their own blog, or on their company’s blog?

When I’m committing public relations, I want to help journalists get what they need as quickly as possible, whether it’s a quote, statistic, or an interview with someone. I also want to give clients the capability to fully articulate their positions, and oftentimes news articles don’t offer the space for fully nuanced opinions. But at the same time, I don’t want to overstep that delicate journalist-source boundary, which is, it seems, quite variable, depending on the professional tastes of both parties.

I’d love to hear from other media-types on the question. Journalists and PR people, chime in if you want to.

Ezra Klein is a reliable source of reportage about domestic policy, so it’s not surprising that he has a great thought about online journalism as well. He writes:

This New York Times article on Paul Volcker’s view of the financial regulation bill is clearly and proudly set around a wide-ranging, on-the-record interview with Volcker himself. But that interview, aside from a few isolated quotes, is nowhere to be found.

This is a baffling waste of good information. [More]

Better late than never, I guess. Today’s New York Times reported:

The London newspaper The Sunday Times described the authors of the W.W.F. report as “green campaigners” with “little scientific expertise” in an article that appeared in January. The article also stated that the authors’ research had been based on a scientific paper that dealt with the effect of human activity rather than with climate change.

This weekend, The Sunday Times published a correction of crucial elements of its article from January.

Click through to read the original article and the newspaper’s months-later correction.

Read the rest of this entry »

An axiom is that the mainstream media is meant to report the truth, as it presents itself. This doesn’t seem like too difficult of a mandate.

It’s equally easy, though, to contend the press has political bias that impedes reporting of that nature. Witness hundreds of conservatives on talk radio deride the media’s liberal bias, then go online and read hundreds of liberals waxing poetic about the opposite.

But a recently published paper by Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist and RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan, contends the media doesn’t struggle because of intentional bias. Rather, it shows the press perpetuates information of questionable accuracy seemingly without even trying to.

Read the rest of this entry »

Edelman, a public-relations agency, has filled a new position it’s dubbing Chief Content Officer with a current journalist. Richard Sambrook, director of global news at the BBC, will join the firm in May, it announced earlier this week.

This isn’t a run-of-the-mill personnel announcement. Agency namesake Richard Edelman explained:

Companies are going to have a harder time penetrating that authority media because reporters are getting less space. Therefore companies are going to have to do a more extensive job of putting out their story through their own websites and other channels. And in order to do that I needed someone who understood high-quality content, [but] not to replace the mediated view.

The appointment supports the contention that companies can authoritatively participate, as news publishers, in the reportage of their own industries and interests.

I’m pleased to hear the news, principally because I’ve been on that train before in predicting it. For quite awhile, actually. And here, too.

Proposed legislation wafting through the U.S. Senate, which lawmakers will debate tomorrow, seeks to solidify certain protections for journalists, not for the act of journalism itself.

If two senators get their way, the law could monopolize breaking news, with big-media reporters and editors enjoying legal protections not available to independent journalists.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remarks from one public-relations CEO at last night’s Business of PR panel at 92YTribeca should raise some eyebrows.

When asked about handling detractors, Ruder Finn CEO Kathy Bloomgarden said, “yes, you can ignore people. There are some people we will always ignore [for clients].” Bloomgarden was referring to influencers who seek to attack rather than ask meaningful questions.

This doesn’t strike me as too wise.

Read the rest of this entry »

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-AV-YiZ1Us&feature=player_embedded]

The difference between Fox and news, the way in which one of these things is not like the other, is that only one of these organizations is organizing anti-government street protests.

I’m happy that Maddow is taking the lead on pointing out this important difference. The problem with Fox News is not that it opines on the news it covers or has partisan leanings. Many news outlets behave in these ways without creating too many problems.

The problem with Fox News is that it originates and promotes events designed to create a type of news that wouldn’t otherwise be available. It’s committing public relations – and there isn’t anything wrong with transparent PR that looks, feels, and smells kinda like journalism.

There are some great reasons for PR departments to take this approach because it’s both good communications and helpful to actual journalists. But call it what it is. PR people aren’t going around expecting a sit-down with the President or any other external newsmaker. Fox’s pleas to be included make it hypocritical.

And it’s not too self-promotional to mention that a month ago I wrote about the point Maddow is making, is it?

Video and quote via Anthony De Rosa’s Tumblr.

Whether intentional or not, a question posted on LinkedIn by a senior vice president at lobbying firm IRG Group wins an award for linkbait.

The question:

The President was a guest today on 4 out of the 5 Sunday news shows; the 4 that generally advocate for his Presidency / programs. He did not go on the more critical Fox News. If a goal was to reach out beyond his base, shouldn’t Fox News have been included?

The answers are worth reading because they reveal important questions about how mainstream broadcast outlets cover politics and global affairs.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s ironic to use the weekend press to get a read on the reasons for Sarah Palin’s resignation late last week since the former governor is apparently trying to sue media outlets for their reportage, but given her unwillingness to answer questions, it’s one of the few bits of information we have to go with.

Favorable announcements never happen during the afternoon before a long weekend, the window for so-called news-dumps, and one interpretation for the timing of Palin’s announcement is an attempt to minimize negative coverage. Andrew Halco of AlaskaDispatch.com writes:

According to several reporters I spoke to today, the release announcing the press conference this morning was sent out at 9am [Alaska time]. The press conference was to be held at 11am, fifty miles outside of Anchorage at the governor’s home, thereby not giving the media any advance notice.

Read the rest of this entry »