I had a great time talking to a business group in Sydney today, my theme was that social media is suited in some corporate circumstances and not others. I made the point that there was nothing blue sky or revolutionary about social media and, indeed, it has some real drawbacks for corporates. I made four [...]
READ MORE22 Results
MEDIA
Give me your frugal, your thrifty, your wealthy multitudes yearning to save pennies
As we all know, the media are herd animals and as befits these ‘hard’ times the Columbia Journalism Review has been tracking what it calls the ‘frugality beat’. We’ve seen a bit of this stuff locally too. For instance, the Gladstone Observer has a useful piece, “Tackle recession blues with books“, the fairfax media recently [...]
READ MOREAn industry policy for newspapers?
In a sign, perhaps, of what is to come, one state in the US has introduced a tax break for struggling newspapers. We use industry policies like these to prop up our car industry and to support the production of unwatched Australian films, but is it over stepping some boundary (to do with the independence [...]
READ MOREPersonality, rather than demographics, predict media consumption
Dynamic optimists read newspapers according to a US study: Optimists spend more time with newspapers than any other medium, and they probably recycle it, too. They’re 51% more likely to go out of their way to purchase recycled goods, 34% more likely to drive a luxury car and 30% more likely to have bought four [...]
READ MOREIs PR part of the media’s problem?
The PR industry provides a large and, apparently, growing share of media content: Macnamara said the data showed 30-80 per cent of media content was sourced from, or significantly influenced by, PR practitioners, depending on the outlet, with estimates of 40-75 per cent common. The definition of PR material included all information released to the [...]
READ MOREFuture of newspapers panel being twittered now
Megan garber: “Bloomberg’s Norman Pearlstine and Hearst’s Steven Swartz (with the New Yorker’s James Carey) are currently at Columbia’s J-School, speaking about—yes—the future of newspapers. I’ll be—yes—Twittering the event here. Engaging, in the process, I’m sure, in several more media clichés.”
READ MORE
PR, the Internet and transparency
Public relations, like most everything else, is changing rapidly with the growth of the online world. It reminds me of that old protest slogan: “the whole world is watching”. Not just watching but asking questions, and passing judgements, in real-time. Over at Media Shift, Mark Hannah has a great piece on these issues: Before long, [...]
READ MORE
One-stop media death watch site
Finding it hard to keep up with the growing torrent of bad news about traditional media? Well, this Canadian site (“Traditional publishing RIP”) provides an aggregation of grim headlines from around the web and around the world. Gee, there does seem to be a lot of it. (Warning: If you’re a journalist, the frequency with [...]
READ MOREAlcohol and the fueling of hysteria
Paul Dillon, the director of the private consultancy Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia, has got himself a fortune in free media coverage today with the highly colourful (and media friendly) statement: “They’re sort of like a lost generation, because of the culture they’ve been brought up in. Their views around alcohol have been pretty [...]
READ MOREWhat newspaper editors get stressed about
We all know standards are falling. But some people are more determined than others to arrest the inexorable decline in the use of written english. A few weeks ago the Guardian published this irate all staff memo from Daily Telegraph (UK) associate editor, Simon Heffer. It’s a corker with many good lessons and tips for [...]
READ MORE
