Talking Point

Newsjacking and why pimping someone else's ride isn't as easy as it seems

By Craig Regan

“Newsjacking” is a colourful American PR term that means hijacking a breaking news story and inserting your own angle. In the Australian context, many try and few succeed and here are the reasons:

Despite what they might tell you, most Australian PR consultancies aren’t very nimble or responsive. Awakening at dawn and diving into the media to find out what news is breaking isn’t second nature unless you’ve worked as a political press secretary or journalist.

Once a rival story is running in the mass media, it’s almost certainly too late to seize the moment unless you jump ahead of the agenda and define where the issue’s going.

Even at the breaking stage, your story has to be more than good to change the news agenda. It must be newer, more unusual or a bigger game-changer than what’s already out there. That’s a judgement call based on experience and some gut feel.

If a client thinks their angle is the greatest story since 9-11 and it’s not, you need to have an honest relationship that lets you tell them it’s not. The same applies if buying into an issue isn’t a good idea.

Your PR company needs to know its way around the media. It’s no good firing out an email to an over-crowded or unattended in-box. Talking to someone senior on the newsdesk is imperative.

Newsrooms are chaotic places. A phone will ring out or be answered by a reporter’s neighbour who has no idea where their colleague is. That’s no time to be passive – it’s time to go up the line or find a roundsperson on their mobile.

Social media can be a useful tool here but it's no good tweeting if no-one's following. 

Lastly, the client needs to be prepared. Can they talk to the angle if journalists pick up on the angle and come calling? If they’re part of a large local company or multinational do they have authority to act without sign-off from someone else? Pre-agreed messages make all the difference.

It’s not as easy as inventing a colourful term.

Picture credit: Beyond PR blog

Tatts not such great research

By Craig Regan

PR people and journalists love research and polls. From France comes this academic study that finds people with tattoos and piercings drink more alcohol than most.

Researchers breathalysed 2,000 people as they left bars in the province of Brittany. Patrons with body art and adornments returned higher alcohol readings than those without.

These differences in readings between the inked people and the cleanskins suggested that tatts may be a “marker” for alcoholism, according to scientists.

I suppose that's why they call boozing "getting on the ink".

Previous research had shown that people with tattoos and piercings were more likely to engage in unsafe sex, fighting and heavy drinking, the rationale being they are risk takers.  

People do like a drink in Brittany. An expat Australian mate owned a bar in a place called Morlaix (population 15,000) and when I visited a few years ago, his venue was in the top ten of French sales of Jack Daniels.

He was the only person in town who liked bourbon whiskey, so there was a message right there.

So is this (more) flawed research posing as news on a slow media day? Lighthouse’s preferred research partner Neil Stollznow of StollzNow Research:

"The problem is that it’s not a good sample. It is a big sample, but only of those who go out drinking. There could be a large number of people with tattoos and piercings who are at home watching the television.

"To make the conclusion they do you would have to randomly sample the population and then track them to see whether they go out, drink or get into trouble.

"The best you can say is that of the population who go out at night to bars those with tattoos and piercings are more likely to drink more – and although the differences in alcohol levels are statistically significant, they’re under the recommended level for confidence."

The bottom line is that there’s a strong case for research of almost any kind coming with an explanatory label.

Photo credit: Inkarttattoos

Smith finds defence tough when an enquiry comes back to bite

By Craig Regan

There’s an old saying in political circles: Never have an enquiry unless you know the outcome. It’s rubbish of course, even if that’s the outcome most pollies would want.

So it wasn’t a surprise to see Defence Minister Stephen Smith up to his neck in mixed messages and furore last night following the release of the so-called Skype Sex Scandal report.

Smith’s refusing to apologise for criticising the way the head of the Australian Defence Force Academy treated the alleged victim.

On the face of media reports at the time, the academy chief’s actions looked insensitive. Smith acted as many in his position would have, but probably didn’t have the full facts.

He isn’t the first and won’t be the last Minister to go head-to-head with Defence and come off second best. Did he know how the enquiry would go? Of course not.

You can bet your house that Smith was praying for the PM to drop the Bob Carr option and parachute him into the Foreign Affairs job, not only because he wanted the gig but so he could be overseas when the findings became public.

Speaking of enquiries, the one certainty about the Finkelstein Report into regulating Australia’s media industry is that most of its recommendations - in their current form and converted to legislation - will never see the light of day.

As worthy as His Worship’s intentions might have been, the report handed to the Government by former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein last week had more holes than a parsimonious pensioner’s string shopping bag.

You have to question how “independent” a $2m a year media regulator with beefed-up powers of direction would be. The complaint systems we now have are feeble and choking in red tape but isn’t the solution simpler than a bigger stick?

Political payback theories aside, the original terms of reference seemed to be about making media organisations and their employees more accountable. The catalyst was the phone hacking scandal 20,000km away and any connection to Australia was tenuous, at best.

While making media organisations more accountable is a great idea, no sensible Government that supports a free press but already has lots on its plate wants to be picking a fight with people who buy newsprint by the container shipload.

Angry Julia loses it for a minute

By Craig Regan

It’s a blip in the scheme of things but a clear case of Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do. I’m talking about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s ticking off of a journalist at her Adelaide media conference this morning.

Press Gallery journalists rightfully praised Gillard for giving one of her strongest performances ever in front of a media throng. That was until the final moments when The Australian’s Michael Owen asked about her role in the downfall of Kevin Rudd.

"So you just fell into the leadership?" he said at one stage – and kept going. Her response showed what not to do in front of an otherwise benign media pack.

"I’ll answer your question but, ah, just ... I’m not listening to this rudeness, I’ll answer your question and then I’ll give a question to your colleague, thank you very much... “I’m not going have you just speak to me like this. End of sentence. I’ll answer your question and I will take a question from your colleague.

"Your question is internally inconsistent. Let me answer it...well, I’ll answer it thanks very much... If you stop talking then I’ll give you an answer, but I can’t give you an answer if you keep talking.”

The appearance of Angry Julia not-so-deft sidestepping an issue might have been a play aimed at presenting her as a PM with renewed authority, but went dangerously close to portraying her as out of control.

That the reporter has since apologised doesn't quarantine footage fo the incident making the nightly news. 

It wasn't quite on the scale of K Rudd’s Unhappy Little Vegemite YouTube video, mind you, but it's still not a good look.

At Lighthouse, we use media training to enable clients to handle questions exactly like this. So here's some free advice.

The most graceful response is to pause, stay silent until the questioner has run out of steam, acknowledge the question and answer or re-direct it, on your own terms.  

Remember, it’s a reporter’s job to ask hard questions and probe. Ripping strips off them just distracts from the messages you were trying to convey.

Three watershed moments for Julia Gillard's leadership

By Craig Regan

Are you sick of the Prime Ministerial soap opera? Take a holiday overseas or become a hermit. The Press Gallery loves a good leadership stoush - so prepare to hear much, much more.

The most likely scenario is that one of the warring parties will bring on a spill in a week and the loser - most likely Rudd, but a lot can happen in a few days - will zip off to the backbenches to plot some more.

If Gillard goes down, you can bet the media will look for turning points in her leadership. They’ve already being edited into neat TV packages that can be rolled out at a moment’s notice. So what will become these so-called watershed moments?

Putting aside the PM’s pre-election promise about “no carbon tax under a government that I lead” and the stumble over sending asylum seekers to East Timor, these are the contemporary events that stand out:

1. That speech to the ALP National Convention, wiping Rudd’s term as PM from the history books: It looked churlish, not Prime Ministerial, and fed into the image of disunity.
2. The Australia Day melee at The Lobby Restaurant in Canberra: That image of the PM being dragged into a waiting Comcar made her look helpless. That her office had a hand in stirring up an incident that led to pictures going worldwide posed serious questions about who was in charge.
3. The Four Corners interview: If you’re going to do an interview, have a game plan. Why not forcefully make it clear that leadership rumblings were underway before the Rudd coup but the decision to stand was taken at the last minute?

 

 

Laotian tourism deaths an exercise in poor issues management

By Stephanie Furler

There has been a torrent of media articles following the recent deaths of Australians in Laos and the near death of another. Much of this negative publicity calls for fresh regulations in the local tourism industry and prosecutions of people breaking the already existing (and fairly lenient) rules.

In case you missed it, the deaths have stemmed from “tubing”. This involves sitting in tyre tubes while floating down the Mekong River and stopping along the way to drink (excessively) at makeshift bars.

It all sounds fine - until ridiculously cheap and sometimes free home-brewed whisky is mixed into the equation. 

It’s then that backpackers start jumping from rickety two-storey towers and swinging from ropes into shallow, rocky water below.

   

So what can we take from these deaths from a PR perspective?

Tourism is Laos’ fastest-growing industry but there has been no public comment from the Lao National Tourism Administration, addressing the fatalities or the international backlash. 

Granted, it is a very strict Communist country and its values and way of life are different, but if this situation was applied to a business or government organisation in the Western World, the time to go public would have been a month ago. 

In some situations a “no-comment” policy works – but this isn’t one of them.

Businesses need to constantly assess their position when an issue becomes a public concern. Timely and appropriate comments can reassure the public and ensure that someone else doesn’t fill a news vacuum.

It is unlikely that any of the regulations being called for in Laos will be implemented, so it’s important for the Tourism Administration to work with international government agencies and media to educate tourists about the dangers of tubing.

The need for personal responsibility is a something that many journalists fail to mention in their stories and is a key message that the Tourism Administration should be pushing.

The only information on the Administration’s site that remotely resembles a warning about excessive behaviour (after much searching) is in comic form.

No mention of tubing. 

It is important that organisations tailor messages to their key audiences and clearly in this case, the message needs to be louder, broader and maybe delivered with less levity.

A carefree, unregulated holiday destination is an appealing prospect for many Australians, but if the negative publicity continues, tourists may be deterred from visiting Laos.

Stronger messages, better issues management and awareness campaigns are essential to keep this industry thriving.  

 

Kiss this: Presidential primaries are an expensive anachronism

By Craig Regan

In an era of instant gratification and attention spans on par with a gnat, the US system of primary presidential elections is an anomaly that defies explanation for someone not brought up on it.

Like Disney movies, the late Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery and Whitney Houston tributes, you can’t miss the primaries. They run from January to June and dominate Australian news coverage. Estimates for how much they cost go as high as $US5 billion.

That's far less than the $US3.2 trillion the Iraq war is supposed to have cost but not exactly small change.

The idea about bringing party delegates together to pick their candidate for the “real” election has only been around since the 1820s.The primaries rely on an insanely complex formula and has no real foundation in the US Constitution.

As the US Government’s own website rhetorically says: “How many times do we have to vote for president, anyway? Why can't we just go to the polls once in November and be done with it?”

I won’t bore you with all the answers but they’re mostly motherhood statements about giving people a chance to question candidates and feed into the democratic process.

They could do the same online and then cast a vote at the poll.

If the primaries are so good for democracy, how come only 48 percent of eligible Americans cast a vote? Of other countries where voting isn’t compulsory, Malta (94 percent), Chile (93 percent) and Austria (92 percent) rank much higher.

Australian has primaries. They’re called candidate pre-selections. You may not get to vote for the PM when you cast a vote, but the option is there to join a party and play a role in who becomes leader.

The US primaries are public blood-letting that provide media content, cost a bomb and reduce policy debate to the politics of the personal. 

Americans should be kinder to their kids, ditch the primaries and let the baby-kissing start when the polls get really serious. 

Messy desks are so yesterday? I don't think so

By Craig Regan

Messy desks really are conducive to organised outcomes, according to this study from some Dutch researchers. If you've ever been inside a print newsroom, you'll know that the level of chaos is higher in proportion to the number of pages in the newspaper being produced.

Most of Lighthouse's consultants are from a journalistic background, which covers the gamut of papers, TV and radio. We recall the days when stacks of newspapers used to pile higher than medium density housing and radio announcers used to wade through piles of cassettes or cartridges.

All of us remember typing copy on small sheets of paper, one paragraph to each, and passing them to a sub-editor to finesse before our words of wisdom became type.

My first computerised newsroom used standalone terminals and you walked a floppy disc to the editor to have your yarn entered into the system.

If you were working for AAP, the national wire service, and you were out of the office, your best friend was a headset-wearing lady called a copytaker who took down your every word as you composed sentences from a public phone booth. 

Digitisation has changed the daily workings of media in many ways. Newsrooms still aren't pristine places but the need for hard copy archives has gone the way of hot metal presses. The clippings library now lives on a hard drive. Some TV studios rely on robotic cameras to do the work of people.

From the journalist's perspective, desktop research is a practical and often preferred mode of fact-gathering. There are fewer reporters, doing more with less. More interviews are conducted over a phone than face-to-face.

So the journo's have cleaned up their act and newsrooms look like sterile decontamination zones in a clean freak's version of the Jupiter 2? Not quite as thingsjournalistslike.com shows in this post. 

But back to that Dutch study which have been conducted only after seeing this great Tumblr site that's searching for the world's most chaotic workspace.  

There was something else i was going to write but I'm still looking for my notes...somewhere...

 

 

 

 

Drawing Mr Pitman’s long bow

 

By Michael Grealy

 

At a recent reunion of cadet journalists who began their careers at The Adelaide Advertiser in 1972, conversation turned to shorthand and the expectation that we would attain speeds of 120 words a minute or have our passage to graded journalist delayed until we did.

Back then, 40 years ago, we studied the shorthand based on sound that had been developed by a young school-teacher from Bath, Isaac Pitman.

Pitman’s shorthand, or Stenographic Sound-Hand, first appeared in a book published in 1837 by Samuel Bagster of Paternoster Row, London. Price, four-pence.

The 175th anniversary of Pitman’s milestone is unlikely to get much coverage in London this year, given the inevitable celebrations of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the English throne, which also occurred in 1837, not to mention the current Queen’s 60th anniversary as monarch and, of course, the London Olympics.

So here’s a little of how Pitman launched the shorthand that would be adapted later for 15 languages from French and Spanish to Hindi and Arabic. 

The introduction in his book was enthusiastic, to say the least. He wrote: “That short-hand is an invaluable acquirement, every one practically possessed of it is convinced; and without making one’s self liable to the charge of arrogancy, it may be asserted, that the person who makes a regular use of it, is raised almost as high above the individual who knows only long-hand, as the man of science with the power of steam at his back, is above the common labourer.”

He piled on the alliteration: “It is the plainest practical plan of putting pen to paper for the production of peerless poems or profound and powerful prose for the press or private pursuits, ever published.”

Pitman (1813-1897) promised a thousand advantages accompanying the practice of the art of short-hand. “Every composer finds that frequently his thoughts outstrip his pen and many embryo ideas perish as soon as they are conceived, there being no means for their delivery according to our present circuitous mode of writing.”

Pitman said short-hand was Invaluable for clergy, barristers and all that attend courts of law, journalists and travellers. “Without Stenography, there would be no reporters – without reporters, no newspapers – without newspapers, no readers – and without readers, England would be thrown back two or three centuries in the march of civilisation.”

Over the years, I’ve found Pitman’s legacy pretty effective in meeting many a deadline, as a primary note-taking tool or a backup to generations of tape recorders and smartphones. Granted, my Pitman scrawls have remained a mystery to some colleagues while their employment of the newer Teeline has left me in the dark.

Pitman’s shorthand may be an amusing anachronism from the British Empire for today’s digital recorder-packing journalists.

But I note with interest that Australian Associated Press, which takes training of its journalists seriously, says shorthand is part of its program for cadets who are shown how to write “fast and tight.”

“Underpinning the program are intensive weekly lessons in Teeline shorthand, in which cadets must achieve 120 words per minute to graduate,” AAP warns on its careers site.

Sir Isaac Pitman’s ‘sound-hand’ may be a thing of the past but some things are constant, 40 years on.

 

The Pope commands you to get off the Net

By Craig Regan

Holy smoke! The Australian newspaper online reports The Pope wants people using the Internerds to chill out just a tad.

Pope Benedict XVI hailed the benefits of silent reflection to stop being "bombarded" by information from the internet but said social networks could be useful modes of communication.

"People today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware," the Pope said.

That quote’s scarily reminiscent of ex-US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld’s pronouncement about “known knowns” but we’ll move on.

He’s not urging people to stop typing in caps. Just to give their Blackberries a break.

Easier said than done.

There is a Papal Twitter feed but it’s not really a happening place. His Holiness has tweeted six times in eight months.

A vision of the Pope surfing the Net takes a bit of conjouring. I wonder if he’s ever stumbled across this site promoting merchandise like the Pope Soap On a Rope?