A tricky one, this, and easy to get on one’s high horse but not analyse one’s own self interest. Robert Boynton here does a good job of exploring this in more detail, concluding: As professional skeptics, though, we should be suspicious of the knee-jerk way in which journalists invoke the “no money for information” rule. … Read more
Social networks are not really social—they’re informational. While they may appear to be social, and perhaps we flock to them and participate in them because we feel a need to socially connect, the real currency is information. Whereas we might go to a bar, a cocktail party or a dinner and spend 90% of our … Read more
I’m very excited by the fact that newspapers are beginning to carry content from the top five or so Web 2.0/tech sites. These blogs (the word no longer seems apt for what they do; Vindu Goel calls them ‘news sources’) have really evolved in the past three years and the quality of their coverage, particularly … Read more
One way to try to get the journalist to read beyond the headline/subject is the EMBARGOED tag: Although it does sound somewhat pompous, and can backfire if it’s not a story worth breaking an embargo for. Likewise a subject line prefaced by BREAKING NEWS: As you can see, MySpace’s PR seems to think anything to … Read more
Peter Shankman recently told the story of how lazy/dumb/thoughtless PR types can be when he forwards a journalist request and gets mostly lame and irrelevant replies. His conclusion: Is this what the agencies are teaching their employees to do? If it is, reporters have every right to hate public relations professionals. We’re not doing our … Read more