When I first started writing, I found a gig that I thought was perfect - writing academic papers. The company sold their business as wanting great college-level papers that students could use as a reference when writing their own papers, professors could use as examples, and so forth. I know; you’re all shaking your heads right now. Keep in mind, though, that I was young and just starting as a writer. I was astounded to know you could find writing work online at all!

This is how I feel about paper mills. Image: sxc.hu

So, seeing as my skills as a college student in the English department seemed to match what the company needed, I applied for the job. And I got it - easily. Actually, there didn’t seem to be much of a screening process, looking back, but I just thought that the company loved my resume and cover letter so much that they wanted to hire me right away. My first assignment was a general literary analysis of a book I had read, so I completed it with gusto. My second assignment was a little more specific. My third? Well, the directions were really intense, and it just seemed weird to me that anyone would actually want this paper as an example. It seemed like broader topics would work much better for an “example database.”

That’s the point where I decided to do a little research. I found out that the company that hired me (which had a very generic name) own a number of paper mills - placed where students could essentially purchase papers. Oh sure, the rules said that you could only buy these papers as “examples,” but no one is ever going to pay for a paper and then write their own. It was a huge cheating ring - and a professionally organized one at that. Writers were kept in the dark, students were not able to respond past the initial contact, and there was no way to link assignments to particular schools or professors.

The truth is that most academic writing online isn’t about intelligent analysis of works of fiction or ground-breaking ideas about biochemistry or interesting comparisons between historical figures. It’s cheating. It’s disgusting, rule-breaking, organized cheating. And you’re part of it, if you write for these companies.

The problem is, paper mills pay well in may cases. The type of college students that use them are well off enough to spend hundreds of dollars of daddy’s money to buy whatever they need. So, paper mills can afford to pay well. That’s why so many writers work for them, even if they’re a bit smarter than I was and realize what is going on right away.

But as writers, we do have a responsibility. It’s really easy to look away and say “I wrote this paper as an example. How the student uses it is beyond my control.” Collecting that paycheck every week seems worth it. You need the money. You need the experience. You need to write to pay rent or feed your kids or buy a new pair of shoes. And hey, even if you didn’t write for them, they’re still going to exist, so you might as well grab your piece of the pie…

That doesn’t make it right. You’re part of the problem, and writing for academic cheating companies is why so many good people can’t find jobs right now. Well, ok, it isn’t the only reason, but you’re denying college students who actually did the hard work a fair shot after school. You want to sit and complain how your younger cousin got passed up for a great job? Consider that you may have helped the person they DID hire cheat his or her way through school.

Just like in any business, there’s an ethical responsibility when it comes to freelance writing. Say no to paper mills. Speak out against them. Encourage other writers to do the same. If all of the good writers leave these companies, they’ll go out of business sooner than later. There will also be cheaters in this world - but you don’t have to be a part of it.

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Lately, I’ve been shocked at the number of people who claim they can do public relations - and charge people for it.

I’m not talking about skilled PR professionals who have studied and honed their craft. I’m talking about writers, online marketers and virtual assistants who basically say anyone can help get someone publicity.

It’s just not true.

Most of these people chargge a very low fee to write a press release - and claim you get get meida coverage by posting on the various press release sites on the Internet.

You can’t. Media are really hanging out at those sites - and frankly, I’ve never heard someone got media coverage by posting on there.  I am sure someone has, but I have never heard a success story.

These people often point to ‘hits’ claiming that it means some journalists looked at the story. It doesn’t mean that at all!

Some people say the price is right to have one of these people write your release. I say, is it really?

A true PR professional will help you find the right media outlets, write the right story for those outlets, and help you when you get an interview.

After all, a press release without a strategy is worth nothing at all. You DO get what you pay for.

* Don’t get me wrong. I know there are some great press release writers out there. But there are too many who have no clue what they are doing.

Image credit: buelow, on Flickr

Jason Falls is a great new media public relations person. And recently, I read his blog post “Is The Future of Advertising Public Relations?”

Jason makes some great points about the future influence of bloggers on the media landscape, but right at the beginning I squirmed:

(I say new-fashioned because old-fashioned is sending blast emails to hundreds of media outlets or bloggers and calling it a day. New-fashioned is reaching out personally to individuals to build a relationship and working with them to meet their needs and yours in symbiotic fashion.)

Ummm… I didn’t know that the new-fashioned wasn’t always the case, Jason.

Good PR people reach out to journalists and try to build relationships with them.

I was a TV anchor and reporter, so I know what crap can be sent to people blindly, now known as spamming. It was those PR folks who reached out and gave me stories I could use, whether it benefited them or not.

The goal of a good public relations practitioner isn’t getting the big ‘media placement’. The goal is to figure out how I can build a relationship with media folks, one that benefits both of us, and maybe down the road, between that person and my client.

A good PR person has the tools necessary to build relationships, not just spam people.

Image credit: datingammo_king, on Flickr

Even if you don’t know the original source for a fact or a quotation, you need to indicate that it’s not your idea.

Otherwise, your audience will assume you are either too dim to know that you’re borrowing from someone else, or that you are too unethical to acknowledge the debt.

Either way, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

If you have time, track the information back to its first author. And for facts and statistics, it’s worth doing a quick check about the validity of the statement.

Commonly-accepted pseudo facts like “You should drink eight glasses of water a day,” and “Lemmings will follow each other off a cliff,” have been repeated so often that they are taken as gospel.

You spend a lot of time and energy building up your image. Don’t undercut it by being sloppy with the way you express your ideas.

I’ve been to a lot of funerals this year.  Too many of them have included a sales pitch for the religious choice of the deceased.

This strikes me as an odd choice. The religious affiliation (or lack thereof) of the people attending could be all over the map.

Yet, like clockwork, the kindly person running the memorial service starts explaining that we can all breathe easier because the person who died backed the right horse in the religion sweepstakes. They have gone to heaven because they chose (insert name of deity or prophet here).

It goes without saying that anyone in attendance who has not chosen that deity will burn in hell, or suffer a similar unpleasant fate, depending on the religion and sect.

Think about a Mac users group, and you’ve got the idea.

This sort of self-congratulation is great for internally reinforcing what makes you different. But as a way of reaching out across cultural boundaries, it sucks.

How many assumptions do you make about your audience? That’s where the danger lies.

If you needed a reason to categorize music companies as humorless corporate entities that have no heart, here’s a woman being ordered to remove a YouTube video of her kid, because there’s a Universal Music song playing in the background.

The average person has no idea how vigorously these companies pursue documentary makers, store owners and others who have the bad luck to have a song intrude on their work.

Even someone casually humming a song can lead to copyright problems. It’s gotten to the point that filmmakers treat an incidental bit of sound as a tragic occurrence, instead of serendipity.

It’s okay to make shocking statements that mock public figures and stretch the bounds of decency. In Canada, anyway.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that a B.C. radio commentator was using fair comment when he exaggerated the position held by critics of school use of books depicting same-sex parents.

From the Globe and Mail:

“We live in a free country, where people have as much right to express outrageous and ridiculous opinions as moderate ones,” Judge Binnie said. “In much modern media, personalities such as Rafe Mair are as much entertainers as journalists.”

The 9-0 decision by Canada’s highest court should ease some of the libel chill that has settled in in recent years.

No more worrying about whether your comparison of a politician to Herman Goebbels may come back to haunt you.

Unfortunately, the court made no distinction between the crap that gets doled out regularly and commentary that is done with flair. If we can’t have libel chill, maybe some less draconian punishment of tedious commentary…

Maybe a flabby jockstrap award for shock jocks who shock with no class and no humor. I have some nominations ready.

How can you comment about something, if you can’t provide a bit of background? Not very well.

Yet Associated Press is trying to unilaterally corral the World Wide Web herd of commenting cats.

Christopher Lynn sums up the dispute well:

“As a content creator, I’m all for intellectual property; copying content is the modern day stealing. But the law entitles “fair use.” Sure, the lines of fair use are blurry, but they are up for the judicial system to interpret. By setting their own restrictions, the AP takes the role of legislator and stifles legal discussion. When media companies become large enough that they can intimidate smaller, legitimate news creators, we should all be scared. Instead of looking to silence, the AP (like any modern brand) needs to figure out how to let go and join the conversation.”

When corporations let a lawyer set their agendas for them, they have truly lost touch with the real world.

The insanity of the corporate attempt to extend content ownership to what people think and say about copyrighted content stands in stark contrast to the whole idea of open source software and information.

I’m with Mike Arrington on this one. If AP wants to stifle commentary about its content, it deserves to be shunned by the new media.

I’m also with AP. When bloggers and others rip off photos, video and text from anyone, that person or company has a right to compensation, or to have the material taken down.

AP just shouldn’t try to claim that a phrase fairly quoted from an article is the same as stealing the article. Rogers Cadenhead’s comment about AP’s misplaced content protectionism explains how confused such companies are about the way influence is leveraged in the social media world:

“If AP’s core business is to report the news, blogs and social news sites send millions of people to its articles every day.”

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 the environment sharpening world wide. Emissions legislation on the horizon, and the big Asian car companies solidifying their hold on the market for fuel-efficient cars. 

Yeah, GM betting the bank on muscle cars was a praiseworthy move.

Only someone who was indifferent to the company’s future (or just very very dim) would have thought they were headed in the right direction.

Now the CAW is urging its members to shame GM into cancelling or postponing planned plant closures in Canada.

The real shame should come to the union leaders, who continue to pursue an antagonistic approach to labor relations in an era when the best intentions, thinking and effort of workers and management are desperately needed to keep North American companies from losing even more market share.

We don’t need bigger protest rallies, unless they’re rallies to argue for a greater investment by government and the private sector in education, infrastructure and R&D.

We don’t need empty rhetoric. We need collaboration and vision. The incredible sustained prosperity of the North American auto industry blinded more than a few people to the unrelenting shift to better designed, more fuel-efficient vehicles. But if the CAW was really on their watch, they should not have joined the ranks of the optimists who thought the prosperity could never end.

The CAW may think that it’s not their responsibility to identify the moves automakers need to make to stay relevant and competitive. In that case, they don’t understand modern business.

It’s unfortunate that a high Canadian dollar, combined with threatened carbon taxes and soaring gas prices is costing thousands of Canadian jobs. But it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Real leaders would have responded to the coming crisis by pushing for changes to the industry, even at the cost of some short-term opportunities.

Instead, the union leaders are angrily calling for increasingly confrontational tactics, just in case the manufacturers’ management and boards had any doubt about whether Canada’s plants and workers should continue to bear the brunt of the sudden lurch from investment to retrenchment. Just in case they thought, even for a moment, that those workers were their fellow-travellers on the downturn path. The CAW is not in a partnership with management. They are not there to be part of the solution. They are, as ever, aggressive, stubborn and rude.

At a time when the auto industry is coping with the need for radical change, it’s good to know the CAW can be relied on for something.

Photo by Buglugs, via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons attribution license (generic, 2.0).

A decade ago, the Canadian government made a statement of regret about the country’s long-time policy of forcibly removing aboriginal children from their home communities and subjecting them to cultural cleansing in “residential schools.”

That half measure laid the groundwork for a full-fledged apology to be delivered today in Parliament by prime minister Stephen Harper.

The formal apology will detail the verbal, sexual and physical abuse many children suffered in the government-funded schools that were run by churches.

The government is keenly aware that its words will be closely scrutinized for weasel words that fall short of a complete expression of remorse, delivered with empathy. Some survivors have been invited to Parliament for the event, while others are travelling there on their own.

This is part of a “truth and reconciliation” process that seeks to heal the wounds of a policy that sought to isolate generations of children from their culture, language, families and traditions. The emotional and psychological damage was widespread, extending across the country and affecting the children and communities of the survivors as well.

Commentators are lining up to assess statements by the prime minister and opposition party leaders, First Nations leaders and others. Some argue that we apologize too much.

There will no doubt be some who don’t think the apology goes far enough, no matter what wording is chosen.

Apology by United Church of Canada (1998)

Australian Government Apology (2008)

B.C. Government Throne Speech (2003)