Kill the Press Release and Eliminate Journalistic Spin?

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/02/die_press_relea.php

The author of this blog, first off, has the following:

Twitter: @tomforemski
Blog: Silicon Valley Watcher
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tom.foremski

So it's safe to say that his call to arms to slay the press release is from the heart. Former FT journalist Tom Foremski reports on the business and technology of media frequently. In his latest blast, he says that "things cannot go along as they are . . . business as usual while mainstream media goes to hell in a hand basket."

Foremski's proposal to assemble the online press release with tags is both understandable and didactic to my generation- those who will be entering the workforce soon, need to know these things.

Foremski also says that eliminating the fluff from press releases by making them more factual and concise makes it harder for journalists to use spin.

"And because we are dealing with tags that are attached to facts--there is no spin so there is no problem in printing the information as it is received."- Foremski

check it out.

350.org

http://www.350.org/

Sustainability. Our class is trying to raise awareness for 350.org!

My Bank Has a Twitter!

This is all very predictable, with the rise of mergers between companies and self-controlled media, but no less cool. My bank, Wells Fargo, launched an active twitter account. There is someone who is actually monitoring twitter, available weekdays 9-5 to answer my basic banking questions.

I researched it, and they were holding an inactive twitter account for a while, monitoring the popularity of Twitter before they decided they wanted to be involved. Yet so far, tweets are usually one-way announcements.

This is very pioneering, to me. Maybe I just find it weird that the bank has multiple blogs too. Now I can post my ATM-related problems for the world to see. I'm thinking that this is probably the last stop for company information to be disseminated, though. (Note the disclaimer on the Wells Fargo Twitter page) Although, it's just shooting out public information, so I guess I can be on board.

But maybe if I actually do need to discuss my bank matters, I'll just physically go to the bank.

http://twitter.com/ask_WellsFargo

Social Media. Officially Everywhere.

Because of new Google Sidewiki, no one can avoid social media, ever. Even if they wanted to. Google Sidewiki (see link) was recently released, and it is a great example of how social media has totally penetrated most communication.

Excuse the sarcasm, but why wouldn’t we want to give anyone with access to a computer more capability to influence our perception on just about every corner of the Internet?

Google spins it like this: Everyone can share his or her thoughts and insights on any webpage! Problem: Anybody can put forth their own views and statements on any webpage or phrase? In PR, this means that any client is social media-competent.

Any PR strategy that doesn’t include social media is already far behind, but now media doesn’t “cover” anything anymore. You influence your audience by use of your own media.

From Google: “In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you’ll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.”

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-and-learn-from-others-as-you.html

State Parks and Voluntary Fees

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2216103.html

There is really no logical reason for anyone to be against optional license renewal payments for park funding. If this message was more clearly stated or communicated, maybe there wouldn’t be so much upheaval about “voluntary fees.”

Is it ethical for journalists to suggest a fee to enter state parks? Leave it up to a referendum (votes of the Californians) to vote for a mandatory fee put on their registration when they buy a car or not. Or just do like in all the Canadian parks and charge an arm and a leg to get into a park.

Objective: "unfair to apply the same label to the state parks system now. Since 2001 the state park department has undergone repeated budget reductions... Now have a $1 billion backlog in deferred maintenance."

The social responsibility of the professionals is to report how the closures will affect the workers, the budget, and of course the park goers. The parks want to close for a few days a month to save money. So ethically, the PR professionals for these institutions might realize their employers just can't raise the money through automatic fees on your car purchases, but an optional box for a donation fee could be implemented. Like a donor card on your driver's license.