You may have heard that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevech has hired a publicity firm to help him deal with all the media attention he’s getting, since he was arrested for corruption when he (allegedly) tried to get some kind of compensation to fill  President Barak Obama’s Senate seat.
Hiring good PR counsel when you are facing a major problem is a good idea.
But I am not sure if this firm is really working on Blago’s reputation, or perhaps doing some major spin doctoring.
The public relations agency actually send out  a press release announcing the Governor’s media schedule for today. Huh? Since …read more

Have you heard the news? Time Warner may be dropping dozens of channels, as negotiations with Viacom (MTV, Nick and many others) come to a halt. Viacom is “seeking an increase in affiliate fees of less than 25 cents a month for each subscriber for all 19 of its MTV Networks cable channels.”

Time Warner blames Viacom for setting very high fees. Viacom says the fees are needed. The list of channels being taken off the air, effective Jan 1, are:

Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite
MTV
VH1
Spike
TV Land
Comedy Central
Noggin
MTV2
VH1 Classic
Logo
MTV Hits
MTV Jams
MTV Tr3s
Nick Too
Nicktoons
The N
CMT Pure Country
Palladia
VH1 Soul

I don’t know who’s right here, but what …read more

Fineman PR just released it’s annual list of the top public relations mistakes of 2008. While I am sure (or at least, I hope) that you aren’t on the list, there are some lessons to be learned.

Accountability is important. No matter if it was the AIG party scandal or McCain dumping Letterman for a ‘better’ gig. Being open and accountable for ones actions is always the way to go. In today’s 24/7, media driven world, it’s too easy to find out the truth when you’re not.
We are always watching. As alluded to above, the spotlight is always on, always waiting …read more

So the big conversation in the PR world last week was the question: Is PR dead?
Many who say yes have pointed to how social media has taken over and how it’s important to have personal conversations.
Yup, I agree. But that doesn’t mean PR is dead. Not in the least.
The real issue is that a lot of PR people aren’t adopting social media as part of the public relations toolkit. And some are even shunning it. And I hate to say it, but there are plenty of people out there who think PR stands for press release.
Well, tell that to Motrin, …read more

The reflective Greyhound emblem shone brightly in the still photos and video of the scene where a bus passenger repeatedly stabbed a young man before cutting off his victim’s head and then leering at other passengers and police.
The media coverage repeatedly referred to the bizarre attack “on a Greyhound bus,” further tying the company’s name to the incident.
I heard a Greyhound rep commenting about the difficulty to providing security for bus services, compared to airline security, but that was almost two days after the gruesome killing.
Garrett Saunders found Greyhound’s crisis response lacking, suggesting the company should have quickly had …read more

The Canadian Autoworkers’ Union is appalled that GM is closing factories that produce trucks and performance cars.
Their showdown with management fizzled recently when the courts ruled they couldn’t blockade GM offices and plants just because they don’t like decisions made by management.
How utterly lame.
CAW head Buzz Hargrove was patting himself on the back a couple of years ago, when GM announced they would be producing Camaros in Canada.
Was the company’s increasing reliance on the high profit margins of SUVs, power cars and pick-up trucks a good long-term direction for the company?
Let’s see, gas prices steadily rising. Concern for …read more

You have to wonder how the talk went at CBC the day they decided to play hardball with the author of the iconic Hockey Night in Canada theme song.
“That theme is too recognizable,” one exec said to the other. “Is that really worth a couple of million dollars?”
(Pardon me while I get out my calculator and figure out how much cash the theme song would generate in mobile phone ring tones at $3 per customer…)
Tired of the legal strictures of their expiring agreement with the jingle’s songwriter, CBC decided to play hardball, setting a deadline for negotiations with the …read more

There’s a mountain of analysis of what went wrong with Hillary Clinton’s drive for the presidential nomination.
I’m with the pundits who say it was her team’s assumption that they were orchestrating a coronation when they needed to be gearing up for a marathon race.
While the dark horse (no pun intended) raised buckets of money and orchestrated a grassroots revolution, Hillary stayed stuck on the experience message.
Instead of asking voters to make a change by electing a woman, she kept hammering away that experience was the most important quality in a leader. It worked for Dick Cheney, so why …read more

A polarized discussion has been taking place about Twitter user Ariel Waldman, who went public about a harassment complaint she says wasn’t handled properly.
One one side, you have Twitter employees and some of their supporters, who suggest the affair was overblown, and people were incited to swarm Twitter like a mob.
On the other side, Waldman, who says she has been harassed repeatedly across a range of online venues. She feels her harasser violated Twitter’s terms of service, and should have had their account deleted.
The Twitter blog (and founder Evan Williams, in comments on other blogs) maintain that the specific posts …read more

There’s a reason politicians spend many hours being trained to juggle issues and spout statements that won’t blow up in their faces.
Apparently, Hillary Clinton’s vow to “obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Now she’s suggesting (ABC News) a potential assassination of presidential nomination opponent Barack Obama is a good reason to stay in the race when her chances of winning are now less than 5%.
This is a symptom of the always-on news cycle, in which someone who doesn’t have a lot of ad money has to stay newsworthy at least once a day …read more