Last updated by at .
I’m not sure why there is such fascination with the topic of whether blogs will replace press releases (they won’t), but for some reason people keep reading that little post of mine I did on the subject months ago.
Shel Holtz has addressed the question in much greater detail, in an excellent article posted as part of Global PR Blog Week 2.0.
Via Romenesko, here’s an interesting commentary by Lou Alexander on the future of the newspaper business. Alexander spent 20 years in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News, rising to the top jobs in both display and classified before retiring in 2004. Before turning to the business side, he was a journalist for eight years.
Writes Alexander:
Michael Socolow, a professor of American Studies and journalism program director at Brandeis University recently wrote: “Daily newspapers should drop the consultants, lower their unrealistic earnings targets and do what they do best. If they fail to do this, they will have nobody to blame for their demise but themselves.”
It might be fun to fantasize about cutting newspaper margin expectations to something under 10%, but the way the world works makes it impossible. Journalists need to understand this and quit wasting time talking about it.
If the CEO of Knight Ridder, Gannett, Tribune Company or one of the other major newspaper companies announced they were going to cut margin expectation and plow massive additional money into journalism, they would set off a chain of events that would likely lead to the demise of these companies.
Right. Why some people don’t get this, I don’t know.
For some reason, the media seems to think it’s the strangest thing in the world that George Bush refuses to acknowledge even the most obvious mistakes made by his administration.
As a PR exec who’s been around the block a few times, I am occasionally asked, “What is he thinking?” (or by the more hardcore politico types, “What is Karl Rove thinking?”)
The answer is really very simple.
The last time we had a president who truly admitted mistakes — or showed any sincere introspection whatsoever — he was run out of office on a rail.
Can you believe, in 1979, we actually had a president who told the American people these words:
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
Braver words have rarely been spoken by a politician. In fact, this remarkable speech by Jimmy Carter — hence derisively labeled the “malaise speech” — is one of the most honest, heartfelt addresses I’ve ever read by a president.
And look where that got him.
So, in other words, it’s NOT Bush’s fault, or Karl Rove’s fault. None of it.
It’s your fault, and mine.
Molly Ivins on Media Accountability
I met Molly Ivins when we worked at the Dallas Times Herald together in the early 90s. I admire her greatly; whatever you think of her politics, she’s a talented writer and a true original.
Ivins’ column today calls for more self-reflection by the news media.
She specifically points to Project Censored and its list of the Top 10 overlooked stories of the year. “Yep, missed that one, and that one and …”
loading...