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When Donald Trump gathered the press at Trump Tower 20 months ago to announce his unlikely candidacy for president, he reportedly paid actors to fill the marble lobby and cheer.
Not much — and everything — has changed since.
On Wednesday morning, when the president-elect once again faced hundreds of reporters from around the globe gathered in his lobby -- this time for his first press conference in seven months — Trump filled the room with paid staffers who clapped and cheered as he blasted members of the media as purveyors of “fake news.”
It was Trump’s method of battling back an extraordinary report that U.S. intelligence officials have presented both Trump and President Barack Obama with unverified allegations that Russia has compromising information about the incoming 45th president, including about a reported salacious encounter in a Moscow hotel room....
Donald Trump's national spokeswoman Katrina Pierson explains why she wore a necklace made of bullets on live television.
Yesterday, Tribune Publishing, purveyor of news since 1847, changed its name to “tronc” (short for “Tribune Online Content.”) It’s now a “content curation and monetization company” — a company that makes money from content, what we used to call a media company. Today, I deconstruct the rest of its attempt to use techno-drivel to misdirect our attention from its problems. Crisis-tossed Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and dozens of other papers, has suffered through a sale to a billionaire, a bankruptcy, a corporate split, newsroom turmoil, massive layoffs, and an unsolicited takeover offer. Now, as “tronc,” the company wants to be considered alongside Silicon Valley startups. (If this trend catches on, will the Boston Globe company become “hubstuff” and the New York Times “gray_lady”?) The tronc press release is a classic, because it reveals that when a media company wants to reinvent itself as a technology company, it drapes its press release in the same techno-drivel that tech companies use. Instead of meaningless media and corporate bullshit, we get meaningless, shiny Silicon Valley bullshit. It’s a transformation (you can tell because the release mentions “transform” or “transformation” six times).In the commentary below, I’ve added bold to indicate passives, meaningless superlatives, and especially, new-age jargon. I add commentary in brackets and commonsense translations below each section....
You can bet that this tactic is probably not part of any public relations textbook.
St. Louis reporter Elliot Davis tried to score an interview with the city’s comptroller, Darlene Green. The request was denied via email, so Davis went to City Hall to speak with her about the city-owned car she drives, which costs taxpayers $26,000.
That’s when Green’s spokeswoman, Melanie Streeper steps in. Watch what happens....
Merry Christmas!
I wish I could give all of you a present, but that’s not going to happen on my salary. I am, however, going to offer a gift to a bunch of public relations folks by mentioning stories they begged me to write, but I didn’t get around to.In a way, this is a present to everyone — at least, I’m sparing you an analysis of the third-quarter GDP while you are egg-nogged out. (That’ll be on Tuesday, so please sober up by then.)...
General Motor’s Mary Barra admitted this week that, “something went wrong with our process…and terrible things happened.”
And while that is certainly true and laudable for the new CEO of the auto giant to admit her company mishandled some safety issues for 13 years, saying she is deeply sorry is not quite enough.
Yesterday, she held what GM described as a news conference but, according the the WXYZ-TV report below, only handful of print reporters were invited, slamming the car door on local Detroit stations and the national news networks.
There are times (particularly when dealing with good news situations) when companies can play favorites. But when you are in a hole like GM — you can’t afford to annoy major parts of the media....
Conan O'Brien shows how America's #1 source of news has been infiltrated by press release garbage.... “Ripping and reading”—a nickname for the practice of taking a press release and reading it on air—is a disturbing trend that has disseminated on local newscasts. In December, comedian Conan O’Brien took on the practice in a hilarious segment featuring a spree of local news anchors reading the same words from a press release about Christmas gifts....
Apparently John Tortorella has little patience for reporters. As coach for the the N.Y. Ranger hockey team, some might argue that media relations is part of his job -- but it is clear that he would rather try to water ski behind a Zamboni than have to respond to journalists.
A local Memphis TV station cameraman was taking video of some art work on a city owned car inspection station. Charles Weaver, a municipal employee didn't like it. Weaver's chosen method of discouraging photography is not one we recommend. He put the cameraman in a headlock and threw him to the ground. You can see the report below....
Eater.com asked 11 fast-food chains in the U.S. whether they use horse meat. Ten of them said really, truly, unequivocally, NO. But number 11?!
Denny's: Reps said they were unable to provide comment.
Denny's did not deny serving horse meat. Um, P.R. fail much?!?!?
...So a reporter from KSDK showed up at Roberts Brothers, the company in question, to ask why they were being so un-neighborly. Roberts Brothers front door was locked -- but it is made of glass and the receptionist can be seen crawling under her desk to avoid the camera. According to KSDK she stayed there for over a half hour -- sticking her head up from time to time to see if the coast was clear. It wasn't....
Our Los Angeles-based friend, Serena, tipped us off to Time's Editor-at-Large, Harry McCracken. Harry has started posting bad pitches on his Facebook page. And we're glad. But we're betting the agency that sent it would like to send him the above someecard.
Facebook: Our Inner Dialogue...Online
Social media tends to become an inner dialogus of sorts. And we want folks like Harry to vent the pressure of bad pitches. Am I being dramatic? Well a now ancient sitcom once said, "Serenity Now, Insanity Later." And Facebook's serving that purpose for Harry....
...But why are PR companies still resorting to mass blasts? Do they really want to be in the email marketing business? I’ve pasted the mass-blast pitch from the division of Ruder Finn that came my way promoting Peter Guber’s book, “Tell to Win,” at the end of this post. If the PR person had taken 60 seconds to do a Google search [site:ishmaelscorner.com Guber] she would have known that I’ve already reviewed the book. If the PR person had taken another 60 seconds for a general search [“lou Hoffman” and “guber], she would have discovered that I wrote and placed a review of the book in VentureBeat.... [The only result from mass email pitching is bad PR ~ Jeff]
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In a reply to a publicist who contacted me recently on some subject or another, I surprised even myself when I wrote to her that I could not take up her pitch because she used the phrase “reaching out” in her email.
If memory serves, I actually went so far as to tell her it is my policy to say no to pitches in which the phrase “reaching out” or any of its variants is applied. It was a ridiculous, ornery reply to a well-meaning request for coverage, for which I apologize.
However, the “reaching out” phrase rankled me, and I am trying to figure out why. One reason is its overuse. This phrase -- “reaching out,” “reach out,” “reached out” or whatever form it takes -- is certainly overused in the p.r. biz today (and in many other places too)....
We suppose it is possible for the Department of State to screw up the handling of questions about whether they lied to reporters even worse — but it is hard to figure out how. The video below from CNN’s Jake Tapper today nicely lays out the series of offenses — but here is our quick summary: In February 2013 Fox News correspondent James Rosen asked then State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland if there had been direct talks between the U.S. and Iran. She essentially said “NO.” In December 2013, Rosen points out to Nuland’s successor Jen Psaki that the correct answer would have been “YES” and asked if State routinely lied to reporters when they found it convenient. Psaki with a smirk said there are times when diplomacy needs privacy to succeed. (Translation: yes, we lied)....
The Republican frontrunner met with the editorial board on Monday morning. The full transcript follows at the link above: FREDERICK RYAN JR., WASHINGTON POST PUBLISHER: Mr. Trump, welcome to the Washington Post. Thank you for making time to meet with our editorial board. DONALD TRUMP: New building. Yes this is very nice. Good luck with it. RYAN: Thank you… We’ve heard you’re going to be announcing your foreign policy team shortly… Any you can share with us? TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page, PhD; George Papadopoulos, he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group....
Hello again, readers.
Since we didn’t quite have time to peruse our favorite pitch responses last Friday, here’s a new edition of our weekly media relations series, put together with the help of our friends at Muck Rack.
First, Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times may be the most powerful tech journalist in all of media right now, and he has a point to make...
If you're going to launch a "War on Fox News" -- and decide to appear on the Fox News Channel anyway -- you should have been prepared better than this.
...The first lesson is this, as stated by Political Wire’s Taegan Goddard: “Pro tip: If you’re running for Congress and pledging a “war on Fox News” then it’s probably best not to appear on Fox News.”
But I only agree with that partially. Appearing on Fox News while pledging a war on the network could have turned this local Democratic candidate into a popular national Democratic hero—if he was a skilled debater who could have held his own against an experienced host....
The sad thing about ratings is they make people do strange things. You may be familiar with theOscar “Blade Runner” Pistorious trial in South Africa where Olympic/Paralympic wunderkind shot his model girlfriend because he allegedly thought she was robbing his joint.
Everyone is interested in more information on this trial. How do we know? Ratings.
To wit, NBC News did whatever it could to earn the attention of Reeva Steenkamp’s mother for a series of interviews. As you can in the screen shot, it’s a hoity-toity “exclusive,” which is supposed to mean NBC got it and everyone else is watching it. Only one problem, the inference is that NBC News got it the old fashioned way —they eaaaaaaaaarned it.
Nah, the new school way is more trendy — they paid for it. By some reports, for $100,000....
Integrity is the Achilles’ heel. No doubt Goldman Sachs has previously had its fair share of battles with Bloomberg but complaining to news organizations about bias and unfairness rarely works. This time it was different. A bruised eye for a leading news organization and a PR point for Goldman Sachs for starting a news cycle debate about journalist integrity. When there is a breach of procedure any PR is on firm ground to go ahead and complain. Choose your battles wisely....
File this one away as one of the most ill-advised comments ever by a government spokesperson. Lois Lerner, a senior Internal Revenue Service official was on a conference call this afternoon briefing reporters on a brewing crisis. The IRS is admitting (after having denied it for some time) that some of their personnel inappropriately used their positions to target some conservative organizations. When trying to explain some statistics in relation to the matter Ms Lerner, a ranking IRS official, confessed "I'm not good at math." That's like the Surgeon General admitting that she can't stand the sight of blood....
...When you find out the aforementioned movie critic passed away via email, it sucks even more. It sucks to find out someone died via email at all, right? But when that email is a pitch shoving "a relevant expert" down your throat, it's a whole new universe of sucking. It's a dimension of sucking so far beyond the "sucks universe" that it takes light from sucks a year to reach it. It's a state of sucking so far beyond sucking it takes the light from sucking one year to reach this new level of bad pitching. You get the idea. Yet, less than 24 hours after Roger Ebert went to the big movie theatre in the sky, someone who shall remain nameless, sent out the following pitch en mass. This pitch was sent to me separately by Shannan amd Traci - two different PR professionals....
PR FAIL of the Day Shortly after the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, BuzzFeed posted a few unflattering screen captures from Beyoncé’s performance. Fast forward to yesterday, BuzzFeed was apparently contacted by the pop star’s publicist who requested the removal of her photos he deemed “unflattering.” Needless to say, the e-mail exchange quickly gave way to the latest headline that reads “Beyonce’s Publicist Asks BuzzFeed To Remove ‘Unflattering’ Photos.” Seriously though, are there still publicists in Hollywood who didn’t get the memo from Barbara Streisand’s PR agent?...
Auto firm Tesla is giving a New York Times reviewer a car. The goal was to show off Tesla's "electric highway" of charging stations for its electric car between Washington and Boston. The problem was that the car didn't make it.
Who gave the most disastrous sound bite of 2013? While the snappy, clever phrase is the dream of every publicist and journalist, life doesn’t always go along with the plan. As we look back at the year in PR and media, we present four of the deadliest quotes of 2012. In each case, silence would have been golden.
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More about fake news agency news conferences…