06/06

From a maturity point of view, this is a good sign.  It shows that Web users and newspapers recognize the value of a news Web site.  From a user's point of view, however, it is a reminder that the Web has turned from a love-in to a commercial entity in which Web sites stand on their own economically.  It is better now, but a lot less fun and more difficult to get research done. 

I use most news sites for research.  I don't have an incentive to read the Spokane Spokesman-Review regularly, or at all, but it might have information about a client, competitor or other topic that I might need to know someday.  But when the Spokesman-Review locks off its site to all but subscribers this summer, I'm out of luck.  (I'll be darned if I pay for a subscription to the paper when I might look at it once in two years.)

J.D. Lasica, a journalist who recently looked into digital editions of newspapers, reports that there are about 90 of them now worldwide that look like replicas of printed newspaper or magazines that users can read on the screen.  He also noted more of them are going to subscription models.  He cited  three papers that have gone recently -- the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, La Presse from Montreal and The Columbus Dispatch.  He pointed to an incentive for why newspapers are moving this way.  The Audit Bureau of Circulation has ruled that a newspaper can count paid Internet circulation as part of total circulation.  Who wouldn't want to do that?

Of course, readers oppose digital editions that don't offer any more than what one can read on paper the next morning, but newspapers have developed an answer for that.  They use all-day deadlines and print stories online when they are ready rather than waiting for presses to roll at 1 a.m.
  
That only makes the situation worse, as far as I am concerned.  If I know I have a client story showing any moment on the Web site, but I can't in without a subscription, it's irritating.   Nonetheless, I understand why publishers are going to the subscription route.  They are not in the business of giving away news for free.  They have a right to earn a decent return for intellectual content they produce.

Yet...
 

06/05

Clinton has worked hard to stay in the picture and his magnetism has drawn as much attention to himself as the presidential wannabes.  A recent Associated Press story called him a "youthful party elder: adviser, mediator and uber-strategist urging tough stands against the White House."   Nearly every candidate calls him an asset to the Democratic party, but he is a distracting asset.  Attention that should go to candidates is flowing to one who has expressed a desire to serve again as President some day, if only the Constitution would allow him to do so. 

That is why Hilary Clinton's forthcoming book with her apparently harsh portrayal of her husband's betrayal might be an unintended PR plus for Democratic candidates.  Bill might have to disappear, and let them stand on their own. 

Bill Clinton, it seems to me, is unintended bad PR for the Democratic cause, because Democrats are mesmerized by him and unable to break from his influence.  It's a tricky situation for contenders who want to be seen as their own men but dare not be seen in opposition to the titular head of the party.  I'm not sure what a PR practitioner would counsel in a case like this.  In fact, I am not sure there is an answer unless the leader withdraws. 

That's why Hilary's book might be opportune. 

Bill Clinton's lying has been thrust before the American public and his past dredged for further examination.  Meanwhile, Hilary has positioned herself as a woman scorned and deserving of sympathy.  Observing the Clintons as we have for 9+ years,  it is tempting to assign a political reason for why Hilary did what she did.  And, it is difficult, if not impossible, to believe her husband was unaware of what she wrote.  The pair are well-rehearsed communications strategists.  Hilary through the book is positioning herself for the long term -- either in the Senate or in a future presidential race. 

The woman is brilliant in her own way and as good a PR strategist as there is.  I'm going to enjoy watching her play her hand over the next five years.
 

06/04

This is what happened at Enron before it dissolved, and it is happening now to the Department of Defense, which is being hammered by former Secretary of the Army Thomas White.   White, who is now out of government and beyond the reach of Donald Rumsfeld, his old boss, and President Bush is saying publicly that the U.S. Army will be trapped for a long time in Iraq.  Everyday, it looks as if White is correct. 

The Pentagon is officially not talking, either to rebut White or to agree with him.  Meanwhile, White is pointing out that Rumsfeld had contended before the war that the U.S. would not need an army of occupation to keep the country stable while White disagreed.  Once again, it appears that Rumsfeld is wrong, and White is correct.   According to one news report, "The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and recently announced that the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's stay there was being extended indefinitely." 

Put yourself in the position of the Pentagon spokesperson.  What do you do?  What do you say?  Attacking White is dangerous because he might be correct.  Arguing with him over who said what is also dangerous because White could pull out memos that flew between him and the Secretary of Defense.  Engaging in dialogue with him will heighten the issue and make it more front page news than it is already. 

So, the Pentagon is apparently delaying.  It says it won't respond to White's charges and anyway, it is too early to tell.  This buys the DOD a few days time to see if the issue disappears or escalates.  If it disappears, the Pentagon can dismiss White eventually as a disgruntled ex-secretary of the Army.  If it gains traction, Rumsfeld and the DOD are going to come to some acceptable explanation for why U.S. troops might have to stay in Iraq.  Call it rewriting policy.  This will be done with the finesse that Washingtonians use including strategic leaks and trial balloons that will prepare media and the rest of the American public for the inevitable.

I might be wrong, but as I have written here before, Bush, Rumsfeld and the rest of the current administration are heading into a dangerous period and their credibility is under assault. How they handle accusations will help determine if they are around for another four years.  It's high drama for PR practitioners but also nerve-wracking.

 

06/03

I wrote here recently that consolidation of the right kind should not be an issue.  That is, weather reports, stock tables, calendars and service listings can easily be shared without harming a multiplicity of voices in a local market.  On the other hand, a reduction in the number of reporters covering a market is a danger because there is more than one way to cover a story.  I noted that PR practitioners should be concerned when they are restricted to a single outlet.

What I didn't discuss in detail is what the FCC appears to be banking on.  The universality of the Web and the proliferation of cable TV channels has opened more media outlets than most markets have ever had.  The challenge is how to adapt these to local market coverage.  It isn't easy to maintain a staff of reporters and editors, and it requires significant advertising and subscriptions revenues to make a business out of it. 

On the other hand, what blogs are demonstrating is that a diversity of opinion can be achieved even when there is just one person reporting or commenting because the Web is a low-cost distribution medium.  Blog writers note their influence on traditional media now.  In addition, there are Web sites on which the media depend for information such as The Smoking Gun, http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ , which has broken numerous national-level stories through researching court documents.

Local reporters could do the same thing -- and should.   For example, what would it take to run a police and fire blotter on a Web site covering a city?   This is public data.  There is plenty of other public data as well that isn't reported because no one has picked it up and placed it anywhere -- e.g., local tax rolls, permits, real estate sales and city department activities.  The local newspapers I read cover their markets poorly.  They don't have money or space to print a fraction of what crosses an editor's desk daily.  Yet, there is news buried in that data that is waiting for some one, anyone, to recognize it and publish it. 

As the big media consolidate their hold on traditional outlets, they are opening a huge opportunity for enterprising individuals to report news in local markets via the Web.   It's past time to get started.
 

06/02

The people who have it worst are the painters trying but not succeeding to paint the outside of our house.  Painting takes about a week, and these fellows are on their third week and nowhere near finished. 

Children feel cooped up too. They want to be out and running around in warm air.  Instead they are making play dates for inside the house like they do all winter.   Of course, parents are going batty because they want the children outside. 

I can't begin to count the events and promotional activities that have been moved inside during May this year.  Perhaps the funniest was the annual rubber duck race run in our town.  This is a charity event in which contestants buy chances on ducks with numbers painted on the bottom of them.  On the appointed day, large numbers of spectators, judges and firemen troop down to the creek that runs through the center of the park.   There, loads of bright yellow rubber ducks are dumped into the meandering stream and sometimes, the firemen will shoot a charge of water from their hoses to get the ducks floating downstream.  At the end of a measured course, a winner is scooped out of the water.   This year, the lazy stream was a raging torrent and  "duck retrievers" who attempted to get into the stream were swept away.  (No one was hurt, thankfully).  I went there and turned around when I saw a soggy fellow in a white duck suit walking in the deluge while everyone else was gathered under an overhang on a park utility building.  It was a perfect day for ducks but not duck races.   Yet another PR effort gone awry.

The rule of thumb here is always to have a tent for events in May, but this year, that was not enough.   I find this curious because I grew up in the Central Valley of California where rain is hardly ever an issue.   We used tents to avoid heat prostration.  We would have welcomed rain at any time and in any amount in May.  We rarely got it.