my 2 cents

Newspapers: An interesting twist in New Orleans

2013-05-15T14:22:47-04:00

The New Orleans newspaper scene has been an interesting one, as I've written here a few times.

Two weeks ago, The Times-Picayune, which cut its print editions to three times a week a year ago, announced it was introducing a new three times a week print tabloid called TPStreet, which would be sold at retail only, with no home delivery.

Now its going back to a daily print edition. Reporting on it in his New York Times column, David Carr quoted an ad exec at the Times-Picayune: "We are very excited about this opportunity to extend our reach in print." Carr's sarcastic line following the quote, "You don't say," is right on target, I think.

The Times-Picayune's online edition, it seems, just wasn't getting the traffic and the ads. And the Nolo.com website, which was to have replaced the daily print edition of the paper, is reported to be a bit of a mess and hard to navigate. But according to Carr's story, there's more to it. Other papers in the area, notably The Advocate in Baton Rouge, have been working to fill the gap and what had been a one-newspaper town forever dominated by the Times-Picayune is now becoming a competitive newspaper market. The Advocate now publishes a New Orleans edition, called the New Orleans Advocate, which has already drawn some 20,000 subscribers. Not big, but it's growing and maybe it won't be so easy for the T-P to roar back.

The newspaper business will be keeping a close watch on New Orleans. There may be some lessons publishers can learn.

Newspapers ARE the News

2013-05-10T15:38:35-04:00

Newspapers are making news in a few unrelated developments over the past several days.

First, a few of the biggest daily papers have seen circulation jumps this past quarter, thanks mainly, it seems, to paywalls. I would have thought paywalls would discourage those who've been used to getting free access to papers online, but it looks like I'm wrong. Perhaps many who've become dependent on papers online for their news and information still want that news and they're now willing to pay for it. So some who didn't purchase a daily paper at all are now paying for one, albeit, the online edition.

Three of the five biggest dailies in the U.S. have increased their readership, mostly via new digital subscriptions. The Wall Street Journal increased its circulation by 12.3 percent, with about 30 percent of circulation now coming from digital. The New York Times swapped places with USA Today to become the nation's 2nd biggest paper, up by 17.6 percent. If my calculations are close, it looks like digital comprises about 40 percent of the Times' circulation.

The L.A. Times held onto the #4 spot, with a 6 percent circulation gain. It looks like the L.A. Times has a little more than 20 percent of its readers online. USA Today, in 3rd place, dropped by almost 8 percent, possibly due to decreases in travel in this still struggling economy. And the N.Y. Daily News dropped by 11 percent, holding onto the #5 spot but suffering from its ongoing battle with the NY Post and what seems to be an uneven editorial product.

Average readership of the 593 dailies in the U.S. slipped by .7 percent from a year ago, which isn't as drastic as year-to-year declines have been over the past several years.

Another piece of newspaper news comes out of New Orleans, where the longtime mainstay The Times-Picayune was cut to three print editions a week several months ago.

In an interesting twist, the paper last week announced plans to launch a 3-times-a-week print tabloid that will be sold only at retail and not via home delivery. The 75-cent paper, to be called TPStreet, will begin sometime this summer.

In The New York Times report about this, they say many New Orleans residents are mocking the news, claiming the publisher should have listened to readers of the Times-Picayune who said the digital experiement wouldn't succeed.

And the final piece of newspaper news is talk that the ultra-conservative industrialist billionaires the Koch brothers are looking to buy The L.A. Times and several other papers. There's talk of reporters and editors threatening to quit rather than work for the brothers, and some people are voicing concern over large daily papers possibly becoming conservative political bullhorns.

I don't see it that way, for a couple of reasons. Even the biggest and best dailies don't dominate a city's news and way of thinking the way they may have decades ago, before 24-hour cable news and all the online news sources. And look at The Wall Street Journal, which people thought would become a conservative pulpit when Rupert Murdoch bought it. Yes, the editorials are often reflective of a conservative view, but the reporting still seems to be fair and unbiased, just as The NY Times runs liberal views on its editorial and Op-Ed pages, but reports the news fairly. If Koch-owned newspapers can do the same, it's not necessarily a bad thing, since their ownership will keep more journalists employed and more papers in business.

And that's the news in the newspaper business these days.

Paid or Unpaid Internships

2013-05-06T15:35:54-04:00

Last time I wrote about internships a few years back, I got some people upset. I feel interns should be paid for their time, while many people who use interns feel the "pay" they receive is the experience and resume-building.

I understand the reasoning behind the no-pay philosophy. At the same time, however, I feel if an intern is doing work --however menial it might be -- the intern is saving the employer some money that it would have to pay for someone else to do that work. Even an administrative assistant gets something, so why shouldn't the intern get, at the very least, enough money to cover carfare and lunch.

I'm pleased to see that the Public Relations Consultants Association, the UK's PR trade association, recently came out with a statement asking its member agencies to end unpaid internships. The group did a survey last year that found 70 percent of British PR internships are paid less even lower.

The PRCA says that paid internships will accomplish a few things. It will help bring the best and the brightest into the feld. It will also help encourage greater diversity in our industry, since unpaid internships often are simply not practical for young people from low-income families. So, out of necessity, they might be forced to take a summer job behind the counter at McDonald's rather than learn and get hands-on PR experience in an unpaid internship.

I don't know if PRSA has a position on paid or unpaid internships here in the U.S. My guess is they have no position, but they should. And it should echo what our British colleagues are doing.

Other Voices: Do's & Don'ts of Mobile Marketing

2013-05-05T12:39:59-04:00

From time to time, we open my 2 cents to the thoughts of others who have something to say online. Today's guest post is written by Lori Campbell, a New Yorker who is part of a group called PressThe Word. The group shows beginners and others with no programming knowledge how to create their own websites. Some of their material is free; some is for sale.

by Lori Campbell...

With mobile devices now generating more than 10% of the overall traffic on the internet, mobile marketing has become a key part of any business strategy targeting web conversion. Going after mobile customers, though, is not the same as targeting PC-based users.

Here are some thoughts on what to do and what to avoid in your mobile marketing efforts.

Don't – Use Popup Ads

A popup ad on a typical website is a minor annoyance that can be easily dealt with. But on a mobile device, that same popup ad can dominate the screen and take some effort to get it to close. That will likely prompt mobile users to abandon your page entirely.

Do - Use Target Search Ads

One growing trend has seen companies spend large portions of their mobile advertising budget for targeted search ads in Google and other search engines. Some companies have even narrowed this to target advertising by region. One real estate company in Denver, for example, targets specific zip codes, allowing them to improve their odds of reaching customers in their business region.

Don't - Provide Random Ads

How often have you been playing a word game on Facebook and seen an ad for "male enhancement" products or something that has nothing to do with your content. The same applies for mobile users. Paying to advertise washing machines for people searching for designer shoes makes little sense and will produce no sales results.

Do - Make the Ads Fun and Useful

An ad is much more likely to succeed if it will provide useful information or reward the customer in some way to click the ad. One company we know pays to have their contact information and photo included on smartphone ads for those looking for homes. The company got a 50% increase in leads as a result.

Don't - Use Static Ads or Banners

One huge problem in the early days of mobile advertising is static banner ads that take up a quarter or more a user's browser space. Keep in mind that screen space is at a premium and if your customer has a large chunk screen taken up by ads, they will likely move on to another site.

Do - Use a Responsive Website Design

Responsive web designs allow websites to automatically adjust according to the user's device. Images and banners adjust as well, resizing themselves to a size appropriate for a user's screen. For more information on how to setup a responsive web design, check out this tutorial on how to setup a Wordpress website.

Only two years ago, mobile marketing was not viewed as a viable tool by most businesses. But with the continued explosion of mobile technology, it’s become a concept that can no longer be ignored. Those who get ahead of the curve now will be able to benefit this new customer base and will be best suited to adapt to changing needs in the future.

Bad Idea: Using Racial Slurs in Ads

2013-05-02T12:44:17-04:00

What were these ad folks thinking?

Maybe the better question should be... Were they thinking at all?

Automotive News reports on a thoughtless move by General Motors' ad people when they approved a spot that uses racial stereotypes offensive to Chinese people. As bad as it is anywhere, anytime, it's especially dumb for a company that's looking to sell more product in China.

Automotive News says "GM wants to expand sales in China and plans to spend $11 billion through 2016 on new plants and products in the country. GM is targeting 5 million deliveries in China by 2015. Sales of GM and its Chinese joint ventures increased 11 percent to a record 2.84 million last year. The company already sells more vehicles in China than its home market."

So creating an ad that calls China "the land of Fu Manchu" where all of the girls sing "ching, ching, chop-suey" is a perfect way to endear your brand with the people of the world's most populous nation, right?

The problem lay in someone's choice of music, since the offending references are part of a song that is used in the ad. The ad's theme is a throwback to the 1920's era, but surely the creatives at the agency could have found appropriate music without offensive lyrics.

The ad for Chevrolet didn't run in China. It ran in Canada and also was used online in Europe. But these days, anything can be seen worldwide and we need to be sensitive to everyone's feelings. The South China Morning Post saw it and yesterday reported on the ad, calling it "racist" in the story headline.

"Our intent was not to offend anyone and we're deeply sorry if anyone was offended," a GM spokesperson told Automotive News. "We're reviewing our advertising approval processes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Someone was asleep at the switch, that's for sure.

A new New York icon

2013-04-30T15:47:19-04:00

Weather-permitting, One World Trade Center today officially becomes the western hemisphere's tallest building, as the final pieces of the tower's mast are put in place to top the building out at a symbolic 1,776 feet tall.

But it's not about being the tallest. Asia has taller buildings now.

It's about rising from the ashes of terror nearly twelve years ago, in what was surely New York's darkest day and also our nation's worst time. The new building marks a new start for the downtown area, and an affirmation of what makes New York such a great city. Even the most horrific act can't stop us. We may be a bit more cautious these days, but we continue to live and work and play and enjoy life in this wonderful place that's drawn people of all kinds to become New Yorkers.

O'Dwyer's now has extensive PR Library available

2013-04-27T12:24:47-04:00

Jack O'Dwyer, who has been chronicling the PR business for four decades, sent me an email a few days ago to tell me he has just established the new O’Dwyer’s PR Library, with more than 700 volumes on just about every conceivable PR subject that he's collected over the past 45 years.

Jack says this is the first such physical library in the history of PR and will be useful to high school, college and other students and anyone thinking of getting involved in or using PR. I do recall, when I was in grad school working on my MBA in Public Relations, using the PRSA library at 845 Third Avenue, but I don't remember how extensive it was back then. I think they shut it down when PRSA moved downtown.

Jack says the books in his library are arranged in more than a dozen categories including ethics (at least 20 books); marketing PR (30+); social media (20+); biographies and autobiographies of PR leaders (15+); self-help and inspirational books that are good for newcomers and veterans (15 books); PR writing (10); financial PR/IR and Wall Street (20 books); law and PR (10), and other categories.

All PR trade publications are represented including all issues of PR Week back to its start in 1998. All ten Contact directories of PRW are also present. Also present are 45 years of O’Dwyer’s Newsletters (indexed from 1979-2003 when indexing shifted to www.odwyerpr.com), and 26 years of O’Dwyer’s magazine (from 1987). PR News and other PR trades are present. Many seminal articles are also included from major media collected by Jack over the years.

There are also extensive files on more than 15 PR and journalism trade groups, such as 40 years of membership lists and programs of (PR) Seminar, whose members are communications heads of 150+ major companies and about 20 PR firms.

Jack says the physical library, combined with 12 years of archives on odwyerpr.com, make up the most comprehensive and publicly available collection of information on PR.

Anyone is invited to sample the physical library once. Further use including borrowing certain books will be restricted to those from companies or schools that have at least one subscription to the O’Dwyer Co. The library is equipped with Wi-Fi so that users can bring their own laptops, if desired.

Any questions, just email Jack at jack@odwyerpr.com

We all make mistakes

2013-04-23T14:42:27-04:00

Pressures of "instant news" make it tough for journalists on breaking stories

Much has been said about erroneous reports by respected news organizations as the Boston Marathon bombing story was unfolding. CNN, in particular, took hits for reporting an arrest while the suspect was still at large. The Associated Press and the Boston Herald also made similar mistakes.

At the same time, CBS News, which I watched as the pursuit took place last Friday night, was reporting very cautiously. Anchor Scott Pelley and terrorism reporter John Miller, a former FBI assistant director, were telling viewers what they were hearing from various sources, but even as they gave these updates, they repeatedly said the information was unconfirmed and might not be totally accurate.

As a news consumer, I can understand those cautionary notes and I also appreciate them. I am being advised that this is what reporters are hearing, and that it may or may not be true.

Covering a fast-breaking story is tricky, especially when police are cautiously -- and understandably -- holding back information. Add to the confusion the information and misinformation coming across on Twitter and one can see what a minefield reporters and editors must wade through.

But when it becomes a race to be first to break news, mistakes get made. Even by the AP, whose executive editor Kathleen Carroll said, less than a year ago, "I'd rather be behind and right than ahead and wrong."

If mistakes are made, we may only have ourselves to blame. We're the ones whose demand for instant knowledge has been pushing the media in their rush to be first, even if being first isn't necessarily being right.

And if you read an interesting piece by Jack Shafer, who blogs for Reuters, you'll see errors in news reporting are nothing new. The bottom line is, we all make mistakes ... especially in the rush to be first.

Withholding News

2013-04-16T15:12:31-04:00

Joe Mandese, editor in chief at MediaPost, poses some interesting questions that news people face in the wake of tragic events like yesterday's bombings at the Boston Marathon. His headline asks a pointed question -- How will our nation change?

He notes that terrorists and other crazies who shoot schoolchildren or people in theaters or who blow up buildings often want to see their names out there, and also want to publicize whatever cause they are championing. Joe asks if the news media should withhold the names of these perpetrators, and not make public their grievances and causes they want to advance.

We, the public, want to know every detail. But this is not an OJ Simpson trial, taking place in a court of law. This is about random mass killings and hurting lots of innocent and unsuspecting people. Perhaps we shouldn't know the bomber's name or what organization, if any, he is affiliated with. Why give air to a crazy person's viewpoints? Doesn't the media attention simply encourage others to use terrorist tactics to get their 15 minutes of fame?

There's a precedent for withholding information. News media, for the most part, respect a rape victim's privacy by not using her name or showing her picture. Minor children are usually afforded the same treatment.

We want to know details. We have a right to have details. But perhaps there are times when we must let it go, as a way to blunt the impact and effectiveness of terrorist acts.

It's a good question you raise, Joe. It's a tricky decision for journalists to make.

I just don't get it

2013-04-12T16:56:28-04:00

Sickening politics waters down gun legislation

It's really pathetic how fearful politicians are of the National Rifle Association. I guess, though, when you think of how much money the gun lobby controls, it's understandable. But where are the politicians' balls when it comes to making real progress on an issue that brought the nation to its knees only a few months ago with the senseless shootings in quiet, little Newtown, Conn.

The President spoke about finally getting tough, and most of us cheered.

Our leaders in Congress were moved to tears when they met with families of victims from Connecticut... and Colorado and Arizona and so many other places where guns (I know, I should say people with guns) shot and killed innocent people just going about their everyday lives in movie theaters and shopping malls and walking down the streets. So how, then, did we get to where we are now, with such toothless, watered-down legislation being brought to the table for our lawmakers to consider?

Some more background checks. OK, that's good. But what happened to legislation that would make it illegal -- or at least more difficult -- for citizens to get things like assault weapons and clips that hold multiple rounds of ammunition? Do hunters really need military-style weapons to kill deer and ducks? Who needs to be able to shoot dozens of rounds in a matter of seconds? Certainly not hunters. That sort of equipment is for trained police, soldiers and security personnel, but not for our next-door neighbors.

I'm generally anti-gun, but I've tried to be understanding of those who want to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. But I just don't get why some people -- led by the NRA -- feel they need such high-powered killing machines.

And I just don't get why our elected officials are acting like scared followers instead of the leaders we elected them to be.

I just don't get it, and I just don't like it.