How influential is the Press?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/21/national-newspapers-newspapers
This is an interesting question in the light of the ever-decreasing circulations of papers in the UK.
Though for many years papers like The Sun have loved to claim that their backing of one party or another has been pivotal in it winning the General Election, the reality, as this study shows, has not been a true positive correlation.
But despite that they’ve managed to retain their influence over the national leaders by acting as if it is true (and which leader would risk going against them in case it was?).
Whatever the truth of how much they can tip voters one way or another there are two undeniable things here — the news agenda is still set a lot of the time by stories in the Press and that the constant drip of coverage for or against parties and their leaders must have an impression, unconscious or not, on the perception of parties and leaders and that it’s that which party leaders fear most.
And when that’s going on to as many readers as the Press have daily (still an impressive number) then it’s fair to argue that while the Press in print is on its way down, its influence is still huge.
Unless and until new media separate from the Press titles establish an equivalent level or credibility and readership, the Press will remain influential, if not masters of what we think.

When the PR creates some avoidable bad PR

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/15/local-newspapers-twitter
I’m absolutely amazed that this council PR, not just a junior but the body’s comms chief, tweeted what he did.
While the paper’s response had been more than a little po-faced and OTT, the initial act was at worst silly in its tone.
Maybe the PR chief got lost in the informality of a tweet. But you would expect someone at that level to think before hitting Enter.
More than that, isn’t it surely his job to build close relationships with the media so that spats like this don’t happen? If that had been the case, the reaction would have been less serious in its tone.

Transparency benefits everyone

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/08/nhs-local-newspapers
It really can’t be in the best interest of any NHS trusts, and certainly not in those of the public who pay for them, for them to hold all of their board meetings in private.
There are, of course, some matters which have to remain confidential, but to not be seen to absolutely transparent about everything which isn’t confidential doesn’t do them any good.
It’s one thing to be above board, but you have to be seen to be, especially as a public body. Like Caesar’s wife, they have to be above suspicion by being as transparent as possible.

Late adopters may be more important than you think

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/st_thompson_technophobes/
I thought it worth sharing this piece by Clive Thompson on the possible role of late adopters, as opposed to the much-vaunted early type, in the success of new products.
The argument certainly seems cogent and the addressable market is pretty big.
But how do you convince the laggards that it’s time to upgrade? Find out what can you make your new thing a tipping point for them. And see if you can work out when they, as a group, last splurged on leapfrogging to the latest thing.
As he says, early adopters make up their own minds. Marketing to everyone else could do your marketing ROI a power of good if you can come up with the right sticky message and use mavens and connectors to get it to the late folks.

Fergie must learn some PR

http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2011/news/editor-hits-out-at-pathetic-fergie-over-bid-to-ban-journalist/
Like most observers of football I greatly admire Sir Alex Ferguson’s record as a footballer manager. But he should leave managing the side’s PR to someone else.
Trying to ban a reporter who asks an awkward question (in fact it wasn’t nearly as bad as you would think from his reaction) only throws petrol on an ember and therefore certainly isn’t a good way of managing the reputation of the club.
If he wants to manage his players in that kind of way that’s between him and the club, but relationships with the media have to allow full and frank exchanges in a professional manner. If you don’t like a question, do your best to answer it and move on. And don’t shoot the messenger.

Combined print and web stats provide an interesting picture

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/09/digital-media-abcs
Will Sturgeon’s work has, as Roy says, provided an interesting picture of how some of the national titles compare in their print and web channels.
But, as some of the commenters have pointed out, there are some methodological anomalies.
This would count more than once a print reader who’s also a web reader (as many News International titles subscribers are) or Facebook fan.
It also undercounts the print contribution because all titles have more readers than sales — through sharing of papers. So using the titles’ NRS readership would have been a better comparison with web users and Facebook fans and given some idea of total reach. That’s best measured by randomized qualitative and quantitative research.
This also looks at all web users and fans, but if you’re a UK advertiser selling products mainly in the UK you want to know how many of the Web readers are here, not, as with many of the Guardian and Daily Mail’s, abroad. Unless you have some way of monetizing them too, you need that breakdown.
The Facebook stats are of particular interest as they show a relationship commitment beyond casual sales, may hint at values and, combined with Facebook profile data, allow each title’s fans to be counted on the basis of demographic tools such as MOSAIC profiles, enabling better targeting of messages.
If they aren’t doing already, expect the media packs of the titles to include all this kid of thing in the future.

‘Staged’ pictures have to be transparent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/06/barack-obama-news-photography
To make a big fuss about President Obama restaging a bit of an historic speech for the benefit of photographers who weren’t in the room for the original speech seems more than a little pernickety to me.
Have the same people denounced the famous picture of the Stars and Stripes being raised at Iwo Jima because it too was restaged after a film cameraman caught the actual moment? Probably not.
Rightly, many have complained about the famous Robert Capa picture of a Spanish soldier being shot because it was not only staged but false — it wasn’t what it claimed to show.
And there’s the difference. What does the caption claim that the picture shows? “President Obama announcing that Bin Laden has been caught and killed” or “President Obama speaking”. The caption has to make it clear or not make the crucial claim.
Faking historic moments is out, but restaging with a caption that doesn’t make false claims isn’t.
What would these critics have said if he hadn’t agreed to come out again for the photographers?