Turning News Into Knowledge

As the chief developer at MediaMiser, some days I get overwhelmed when deciding what to do next when it comes to building our enterprise solution.  There’s so much to do and so much information that I want our software to analyze.

That’s where planning and prioritization come in. For the most part, we have done a good job in this area. We give our customers what they need to get good value out of our solution and make informed decisions.

It’s no different when it comes to evaluating any marketing or communications campaign.  When I was first introduced to communications, I was taught the R.A.C.E. acronym – research, action, communication, and evaluation.

Most public relations professionals have no problem with the first three parts of that acronym; however, most fail at evaluation – partly because it’s an afterthought. Some, however, don’t know where or how to start evaluating, so they quickly become overwhelmed at the prospect of doing so, and end up failing in their efforts.

Evaluation shouldn’t be an afterthought. Benchmarks and other evaluation tools should be planned out up front, before you start your campaign. 

And remember, you don’t have to wait until the end of a campaign to start evaluating. All great tacticians should be able to adjust their plans in real-time, and good organized information is the key.

On Sunday I stumbled upon a story in the Toronto Star by the paper’s faith and ethics reporter, Stuart Laidlaw, titled Christ’s tomb found?

Talk about an attention-grabbing headline. It struck me as something you’d see in the tabloid racks at your local grocery store. But this was the Star, so I read on.

The article reported how documentary director Simcha Jacobovici and Titanic director James Cameron planned to shake the Christian world to its core by revealing that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a son, Judah, and that they had evidence of it in the form of the ossuaries in which Christ’s family was buried.

My first reaction was ‘wow.’ But this was soon tempered by my urge to verify the nuances of the story by looking at other sources.

I used Google News to source other stories dealing with the same issue. I found an article in an Israeli e-zine, Ynetnews, titled ‘Jesus’ burial site discovery is just PR spin. This article took another approach to the story by reporting the view of a dissenting Israeli archeologist, Professor Amos Kloner.

Even though the Star article did mention Kloner and even quoted him, it’s interesting to see the different impressions that each article leaves — or attempts to leave — on the reader. The Star’s article gives you the impression there is good chance the tomb of Christ has been found. However, the Ynetnews article gives you the impression it’s all just a hyped-up marketing ploy designed to promote a documentary.

This is an excellent example of why it’s important to monitor the media and not just assume everyone will report the news in the same way.

I’ll be interested to see what comes out of Jacobovici and Cameron’s much anticipated news conference revealing some of the findings. Whatever the truth may be, their timing is impeccable. Not only is The Da Vinci Code still fresh in people’s minds, I also noticed chocolate Easter bunnies being neatly stacked at our local grocer.

When should your organization pay attention to blog coverage or commentary? How can you tell when a blog has momentum?

First of all, you should track all blogs that are related to your organization — no matter how small a following they may have. After all, if you can find someone talking about you, so can anyone else.

Plus, the reality is traditional news outlets are losing their influence.

According to media expert and author of Tuned Out, David Mindich, media coverage is becoming more personalized.

Opinions leaders and influencers are becoming more numerous, diverse and harder to track. To be effective in this new media era, where Britney Spears’ latest hairstyle is worthy of front-page coverage, communicators of all kinds must learn to adapt. And the best way for them to do so is by increasing their reach and having a better understanding of issues through vigilant media monitoring and analysis. After all, half the battle of communicating is learning how to listen.

Furthermore, as blogs emerge as a key influencer, key metrics such as reach might have to be augmented with Google PR ratings and server requests.

The astronomical dollar figures aside, I’m really starting to think Google’s acquisition of YouTube makes sense. More and more, I find myself searching for information on YouTube as I would normally do in Google. Don’t ask me why, but the other night my wife and I were having a conversation about that somewhat infamous scene from the movie Three Men and a Baby which featured a boy ‘ghost’. She had never seen it, so I went to YouTube and found it immediately. It made me realize that YouTube has now become top of mind when I’m looking for information, much like Google became about five years ago.

We have added a new glossary item to our popular PR and marketing resource center at http://www.mediamiser.com/resources/prglossary/newswriting.html. Take a look. It’s all about print media news and newswriting terms.

After reading a post by Chris Clark at the Blog Herald, I started thinking about how people conduct themselves not only in public relations, but also in business in general.

Chris wrote about how he was disrespected by someone trying to blatantly promote something through his blog through a posting. Essentially, they attempted to deceive him by pretending to be adding to the discussion, but in fact, they were just providing spam to sell a product.

Personally, I think if most people tried to be more upfront with all their dealings, whether it’s PR, business, or even personal life, they would have a better chance of being successful.

If you’re not upfront or you are trying to be deceptive, as Chris Clark felt of the person who posted a comment to his blog, you are disrespecting the other party. In the case of the rogue commenter, he wanted free advertising for nothing.

At its core, most PR activity is about business and when you engage in business with someone, it needs to be mutually beneficial. To achieve this, fairness needs to prevail. If it doesn’t, it could lead to more than bad feelings.

The commenter, who attempted to spam Chris Clark’s blog, lost respect and potentially his reputation. In the process, he also wasted Chris Clark’s time.

The other issue I want to rouch on, which wasn’t discussed in Chris Clark’s blog, is the notion that PR professionals always have to communicate through every different type of media. There is something to be said about being selective.

Let’s face it, the reason the commenter posted spam to the blog was because the blog was there and the commenter didn’t think it through. If he had thought it through, he might have instead posted ads on Google, which is a medium geared more towards his objective of selling stuff.

Even good PR professionals make this mistake. When it comes to traditional media, everyone loves to get coverage in print and when they do, it’s seen as a big victory.

However, just because print media usually has a broad circulation and is high-profile, it’s not always necessarily the best way to deliver a message. You can’t always control how your message is disseminated, and you’re not guaranteed of reaching your target audience.

For example, if an organization is dealing with a community issue, why must organizations and community groups deal with each other through the media? Why not communicate through a town hall?

If you can do it, communicate directly to your audience. If you’re being transparent and honest, people might not always like your message, but at least they’ll respect you, because you are respecting them.

Interesting story last week about the world’s oldest newspaper, which has decided to go with an on-line version only. Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, founded in 1645, became a web-only publication on January 1.

Mind you, the paper edition had a very humble circulation of approximately 1,000, but it’s still noteworthy given its history. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a majority of the tier two dailies here in Canada forego their paper editions within the next five years. However, I think our national papers and other leading daily newspapers will be around for a long time to come.  

Thoughts?

We have added a new glossary item to our popular PR and marketing resource center at http://www.mediamiser.com/resources/prglossary/gatekeepers.html. Take a look. It’s all about gatekeepers and news gatherers at major newspapers.

I was talking to an old-time journalist the other day. Most of the discussion was about her contempt for the changing landscape of journalism – especially when it comes to print media.

She didn’t have a real problem with new media, such as blogs, but rather with the loss of the old media and the old traditions, particularly the newsroom. She’s not alone in believing the reason many print media newsrooms are disappearing is because of financial pressures, mainly those placed on publishers by investors and executives as they strive to not lose money for the business.

It’s no secret that technology is quickly changing the news landscape. According to Statistics Canada, “in 2005, about 62% of home Internet users – or 38% of Canadian adults overall – went online to view news or sports information.” My guess is this trend will continue, and will go on eating into the bottom-line of traditional news outlets, forcing them to either make cuts or find new revenue streams.

There are numerous ways to make cuts. Publications can encourage staff to work from home, or hire more freelancers, reducing the physical overhead of the publication. They can syndicate content among publications, saving money on staffing. All of these  contribute to the disappearance of the newsroom.

The journalist I was talking to raised a number of points that emphasized the importance of the newsroom: Colleagues could feed off one another, exchange ideas and share information; younger reporters could learn from their more experienced colleagues, and the experienced reporters would help keep the rookies in line; and – perhaps most importantly of all – there was an emphasis on research and accurate reporting. These days, journalists have access to the Internet for information. Some rely on it way too much.

Already, Barack Obama has reportedly fallen prey to misinformation, which was partially fueled by the Internet. Not only has this unfairly hurt Obama’s credibility, it has also hurt the credibility of the news outlets that decided to report it as fact.

Furthermore, the loss of the newsroom has lead to a more personalized form of news, often reflecting the persona of the journalist. Yes, blogs and technology have also contributed to this, but with journalists isolated and having less access to peers, it will get worse. People like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert routinely make light of this trend.

So what does all this mean for those of us who are trying to make sense of the news, and trying to derive some value from it? First, we must closely scrutinize all information. It’s evident some journalists are not corroborating their information. Second, we need to have methods to collect a more diverse range of media. We can’t ignore blogs.

Reporting has changed significantly since the days of Woodward and Bernstein. We need to ensure we continue to change with it.

It’s funny that even in these days of modern management, PR too often gets caught up in the ‘how broad was our distribution’ rather than ‘how many people were spurred to action.’ In this sense, I don’t think the ‘shotgun’ approach to distributing news releases has ever been truly successful.

But the reality is, news releases in any format can be effective if used properly.

Traditional news releases can work, although I was always taught to use them sparingly. I don’t think anything has changed.

That being said, the so-called “new media news release” also has to be used for what it was intended. If it’s abused, the ‘them again’ attitude will rear its ugly head.

Here at MediaMiser, we’ll distribute our news differently, depending on the type of news.

We don’t just target the media. Some of our releases are targeted at investors, customers, and our online public. In fact, we rarely distribute our releases on the traditional news wire.

We post them on our site and at online news distribution sites, such as mediasyndicate.com. This helps our Google PR rating and provides us with even greater exposure.