twoolf, Author at Woolf Media & Marketing

November 10, 2009

Media Training Shows that a Good Interview is About Good Storytelling

Effective media training promotes good storytelling

I have been working on one or two new product launches over the past few weeks, and that means putting CEOs and senior managers in front of reporters and analysts to tell a story. It’s amazing how many executives are bad at storytelling. They are confident speaking to managers, their board of directors, even venture capitalists, but when it comes to telling a compelling story to editors many seem at a loss.

Effective media training can address a number of these problems and actually show senior executives how to think like a reporter. It can show managers what is really newsworthy and printable, and help them tell a story. I want to direct you to a new white paper by seasoned freelance writer Mark Halper and offered by Johnson King. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have known Mike King for many years, and can’t recommend a better high-tech PR firm if you are looking to break into the EMEA market.)

Mark had some interesting observations in his white paper; observations from which all executives can benefit. I suggest you read Mark’s comments for yourself, but here are some highlights.

Know your audience. I prepare briefing documents for all my clients. In those briefing sheets are insights about the reporter, his publication, its audience, and likely topics of interest and questions that might be asked. From the interviews that follow from those briefing sheets, I have to wonder if the clients actually read them. In order to get coverage, you have to offer information that is informative and relevant to the editor. (And by the way, Mark’s penguin analogy is much more colorful than my insights here.) Today, for example, I had an interview with Skype Journal about a client’s new product. Fortunately, most of the conversation focused on Skype but it could easily have taken a left turn, focusing on other non-Skype-related product features that would have been irrelevant to the story. Too often clients become so focused on their own script that they neglect the human element – connecting with the reporter and asking him what he needs to file his story.
There is no such thing as “off the record.” This is a common failing that I have seen the most experienced executives make. They are so busy trying to establish a rapport with a reporter that they forget the rules of engagement. You need to know when to reveal information and when to withhold it, and you need to know that there really is no such thing as “off the record.”
Make it colorful. Anecdotes are incredibly useful. The right story or key phrase can stick in the mind of the reporter and make you look larger than life. Remember that no matter who the reporter is writing for, readers are always people and they gravitate toward interesting stories and anecdotes.
Not just the facts, tell a story! In order to make their articles interesting, reporters must be storytellers. In the world of high-tech, reporters always ask for analyst and customer references, not just to validate new technology but because third parties add color. I recently landed an interview for a client with the San Francisco Chronicle about corporations adopting social media strategies. The quotes that made print were the colorful anecdotes about customer observations and trends that put a human face and connection on the story.

As Mark states, “Executives should not underestimate the storytelling aspect of journalism.” Media training can not only teach executives how to control an interview, but how to “keep it real” and give the interviewee the kind of color commentary that makes a compelling story that goes deeper than the facts.

November 8, 2009

Technology Is Promoting the New Intimacy

Does technology make us more indifferent to one another? Are cell phones, e-mail, and Facebook responsible for bringing us together or putting a wedge between us and our loved ones? According to a recent study by Tech Anthropologist Stefana Broadbent, technology is actually promoting intimacy. Check out what she had to say at the Oxford TEDglobal conference earlier this year.

What I found most fascinating from a marketing standpoint is that most people use their technology infrastructure – cellular phone, texting, instant messaging, e-mail, etc. – to communicate with a handful of loved ones. That’s it! Consider the stories Broadbent shares about the families who gather together via webcam for a meal, or the friends and coules who communicate regularly from work via e-mail and text. Of course we all do it, and technology can bring us closer to our loved ones. I am in ongoing contact with my spouse via text and cell phone. In fact, she now uses her iPhone to stay in constant contact with her daughter, who is a college freshman this year 3,000 miles away, using text, e-mail, Facebook, and, of course, phone calls. It’s almost as thought my stepdaughter was still home every night (and a far cry from the weekly call I made from the payphone to my parents in the days before cellular technology).

This demonstrates man’s infinite ability to adapt new ideas and new technologies for the things he cares about most. However, from a marketing standpoint, I have to wonder if this revelation undermines the value of social media to reach customers and prospects. If people only communicate with a handful of close friends on Facebook or Twitter, are the rest of us shouting in the wind, trying to get their attention? I don’t think so, but we do run the risk of devolving into so much white noise as people pursue the more intimate conversations that matter to them. Establishing online intimacy with strangers is difficult, but if we understand that the Web has become a tool to communicate both in an intimate way as well as with a larger universe, it helps us better understand how to reach the people who matter to us.

I also have to wonder about the impact it has on how we separate our personal and private lives. Broadbent talks about class distinction and our separation from the workplace. We seem to have come full circle. In medieval times, the merchants lived above their shop or place of business, the farmers lived on the land, and there was no thought of separating your work and your personal life. That came later with the modern concept of cities and suburbs. Our fathers, and our fathers’ fathers, used to travel from home to the workplace and back again, isolating themselves for eight to 16 hours in an office, or a factory, of a field, where they toiled to support their families. With the aid of technology, home and workplace have converged once again, or at least grown closer together. The more affluent use technology to carry their workplace with them. I work from home, and my office is my laptop and my cell phone, which means I carry my place of work with me. (I often joke that the great thing about working for yourself is you keep your own hours – any 24 hours in the day you choose.) Those who don’t use the technology are the commuters who transport themselves from home to workplace and back again, forging boundaries (both real and artificial) between their professional and personal lives.

And I have to wonder about the impact all this has on organizations. From my recent work with FaceTime Communications, I have a deeper understanding of the challenges that IT managers face in trying to contain personal conversations on public networks. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Skype are pervasive, and defy many of the conventions of IT managerial control. If you can access the Internet from your office computer, then you can chat online with you boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mother, and completely bypass most enterprise security measures. Companies can choose to block access, or try to control it. I have a client that uses Barracuda to control employee network access, which means when I work on site I can’t be productive because I can’t access any of the social networking sites or online tools I use for the client. Locking the door isn’t the solution. Instead, you need to find a way to help your workers feel more connected to home in order to increase productivity. If you control the online conversation rather than blocking it, you can prevent abuses and data leaks while letting workers connect with their loved ones, which helps everyone.

There are some important insights here as to how technology is transforming human interaction. What are your views? Can you build intimacy online? Share your thoughts.

November 6, 2009

Writing with Style: Why “The AP Stylebook” Still Matters

As a continuation of my most recent blog post, part of following the rules of being a good journalist, or a good PR writer, is understanding how to apply AP style. The AP Stylebook is the “journalist’s bible,” just as the Chicago Manual of Style is the bible for book editors and the MLA Style Manual is essential for scholars. Writers have been using style manuals for as long as they have been writing, not only to enforce the rules of good grammar, but to help codify usage in order to promote a common understanding and avoid confusion or misunderstanding.

I received an e-mail yesterday from a good friend and associate whom I had not heard from for a while. It was a short message, and I understood the frustration expressed between the lines:

“Does anyone follow AP style guidelines anymore? It seems that most people have no idea what they are and don’t care about them anyway. I can remember when any company (especially a public company) was fanatical about following AP style guidelines.”

It’s too true. With the explosion in electronic communications, everyone is writing more, whether it’s e-mail, blog posts, Facebook posts, or text messages. As a result, a lot of the rules of good grammar and style are going out the window in favor of shortcuts and TLAs (three-letter acronyms). Although recent research says that texting does not affect student’s writing, I have to believe that the sheer volume of written communications that we all have to deal with every day is blurring the lines between casual writing and formal or business writing. That’s why we all need to be reminded of the rules and adopt style guides, especially today.

As a PR professional, I care about style guidelines, and I have always followed the AP Stylebook. When I get into a discussion about the use of commas or why to spell out percent with a client, I can point to AP style as my authority. It saves a lot of needless discussion, and actually promotes good writing. (And if you are on the go, there is even an iPhone app that gives you access to AP style anywhere, anytime.)

So whether you are writing press releases, white papers, case studies, reports, or anything for public review, use a stylebook. In addition to the AP Stylebook, I have a few other sources that can help you become a better writer:

Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style – Although this writer’s guide dates back to 1918, it still offers some great writing tips and helps clarify some of the most common grammatical mistakes. If you haven’t looked at your Strunk and White for a while, it might be time to get reacquainted.

Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing – I must confess that I am a fan of Mignon Fogarty, whose nom d’ecrit is Grammar Girl. I listen to her podcasts from iTunes and she has offers good advice on how to deal with common writing challenges, and I follow her on Facebook. You might also want to check out her new book, The Grammar Devotional.

Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age – I am not sure that this book is still in print, but Wired magazine professes to be a harbinger of all things digital, and if you are writing about technology you want to have some kind of stylistic source. Wired Style doesn’t cover everything, and it disagrees with other sources (e.g. email which is preferred by Wired, versus e-mail , which is preferred by AP), but it’s a place to start. When it comes to technical terms, I look to credible sources, such as Wired, InformationWeek, or the New York Times, and look for a precedent for usage.

And don’t rely too heavily on your electronic grammar checker. At one time, as an experiment, I decided to take a paper I was working on for my Master’s degree in literature and submit it in two forms; one that I manually reviewed and edited, and one that I ran through the computer grammar checker. She told me that the errors introduced by the grammar checker would have meant a failing grade. If you want to be a better writer, learn the rules, use common sense, and think before you type.

November 5, 2009

Understanding the Rules of Citizen Journalism

To be a credible reporter, you have to follow the rules of good journalism

I have made my living as a writer in one form or another for the past 35 years and I have watched the world of journalism change. My stepson is starting to think ahead to college and he is a terrific writer, and he is considering journalism as a profession, but with the demise of so many newspapers and print publications, I have to wonder what the future looks like for professional journalists. Surely trained media observers will still have a place in the Web-driven world, but how they will make a living at is becoming an open question.

However, there is still a real need for good journalistic practices, whether you are writing as a professional journalist or as a blogger who wants to build journalistic Web cred. If you are going to do the work of a journalist, you have to follow the rules of good journalism. I recently spotted a Huffington Post entry outlining Citizen Journalism Publishing Standards, which outlines the basics and are always good to keep in mind if you plan to offer objective reporting:

Present the facts: Offer what you have directly observed or verified, and don’t invent details or speculate. This means being stingy with the use of superlatives and adjectives. If you are writing fact and not fiction, you need to be meticulous about getting the facts right. This includes accurate quotes from interviews; don’t clean up the grammar or add words, and never paraphrase and call it a quote.
Avoid hearsay: Never trust a single source, no matter how trustworthy, but check your facts. Verify any claim before reporting it, and if you can’t verify the claim, attribute it – “According to ….” Also keep it relevant and don’t embellish with negative or irrelevant comments (“He was foolish to…”). And if someone reports something negative about another person, verify the facts, especially if it the statement implies illegality.
Omit your opinion: If you are reporting as a journalist, stick to the facts and leave your personal views out of the story. If you feel you need to expose an injustice, let the truth of the story do it for you.
Avoid plagiarism: Always attribute material you are citing (which is incredibly easy to do with Web links) and attribute your sources, whether print, broadcast, online, or from other outlets.
Always identify yourself: Make sure the other parties you interview know who you are and what you are writing about. Before quoting them, make sure they know where you plan to use the information. It’s important to respect your sources.
Identify your sources: Make it clear that your sources’ comments are “on the record” and the can expect to be quoted. If you are working on a sensitive story and the sources want to remain anonymous, you need to verify that arrangement in advance. There are some rules about the use of “off the record,” which basically means the comments are for information only and not to be attributed or quoted. Similarly, “on background” means you are looking for information to paraphrase but that won’t be attributed or quoted. Even professional journalists get tripped up by what’s on and off the record, so if you can, make sure everything is on the record from the outset. (I always advise my clients that there is no such thing as “off the record.”)
Fact checking: Never take anyone’s word for the truth. Verify information from other sources and use trusted news sources and documents as well as interviews. That way you can eliminate errors and exaggeration and write a truthful and balanced story.
Integrity of photographs: Just as news stories should be factual and demand integrity, so should photos. Never alter a photo so it could mislead or deceive a reader.
Spelling and grammar: Be sure to proofread your content and check for both spelling and grammatical errors. Be especially careful of proper names and look for missing words. I also suggest you invest in an Associated Press Stylebook and conform to their style for things such as datelines, quotes, capitalization, and punctuation.

If you are going to be taken seriously as a journalist, you have to follow the rules of the profession. That’s why the White House has been questioning Fox News’s rights as a news organization. They frequently fail to maintain the rules of fair reporting and objectivity, and continually blur the lines between reporting and editorializing. They broke the rules of good journalism, and it has undermined their credibility. If you want to practice journalism and be taken seriously, you have to follow the rules.

November 1, 2009

The Best Interview Tactics are Stop, Look, Listen

04_24_09_stop_light1 Listening is an underrated skill, and one I wish that my C-level clients would take more seriously. I recently completed a series of media interviews with a new client and, as with most clients I have worked with over the last 20 years, these executives are too busy trying to cram information down a reporter’s throat to stop, listen, engage, and learn more about what they are interested in.

Of course, you are trying to get the point across for a new services or product and make sure the reporter knows why it’s valuable. You want to deliver your three key message points. But the objective is not to deliver death by PowerPoint. It’s to create a connection with the reporter so you make an ally, not just deliver message points. Which is why I want to share a recent blog post from my client, NETSHARE, on listening strategies. The NETSHARE blog is talking about harnessing listening skills for a job interview, but the same skills apply for press interviews as well. If you listen closely, you are in control of the interview. Here are the highlights:

Commit to improving your listening skills. You need to learn to listen, so it takes practice.
Stop pitching and start listening. Every executive in an interview is selling a story about his company and its products. Try listening instead of pitching. Let reporters ask questions and dig for insights and address the questions, not your key messages.
Give the reporter your undivided attention. Whether you are in an interview or talking to a friend, they deserve your undivided attention. So take them off the speaker phone, put away the computer, and shut off outside distractions.
Be objective. Don’t be quick to challenge or share your own ideas. Listen to the reporter and offer a well-reasoned response.
Apply empathy. Try to see the other party’s point of view. Put yourself in their shoes and try to find common ground.
Be respectful. Wait for the other party to stop talking before offering a counterpoint. Also remember that if you are formulating your response while the other party is speaking, you are not listening.
Paraphrase what has just been said to make sure you have heard correctly.
Notes are valuable. They can help you reinforce and remember salient points.
When you are being interviewed, look at how the other party poses the questions. Are they loud? Do they talk fast? What words do they use? If you can tun3e in to tone and body language you can determine mood and feeling, which can help you take control of the interview.
Look at body language. Are there non-verbal signs that tell you what the interviewer is thinking? See if they make eye contact. Do they turn away from you? Are they avoiding direct interaction? If so, then you have a hostile interviewer. But if they are direct and look you in the eye, they are ready to engage and more amenable.

To take charge of an interview you need to take the time to listen and engage with the reporter. Don’t be so quick to promote your own story. Listen to what the reporter needs and help him build his story. You will get more from the interview that way, and so will the reporter.

October 30, 2009

Social Media Is About “Do Unto Others,” It’s Not About “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”

Social media is like a cocktail party - you never know who you will meet

I wanted to share part of an e-mail exchange with a client earlier today. I have been evangelizing to this client for some time about how social media can help his business. His company serves the financial services market with some rather specialized research, and the logic of social media is often more elusive for B2B companies with a highly focused product. However, we had a major success this week with a news announcement profiling a new market research report that tied dropping deposit rates to rising unemployment rates. The release generated a lot of interest, including social media interest, and an e-mail from one follower to an influential executive at a credit union sealed a deal one quarter earlier than expected.

Wow! You mean this social media stuff actually can help you make money? Of course it can!

So we expanded our strategic discussion. Yes, press releases and news should be discussed in social media outlets. Of course you should be talking to your peers on specialty forums. And then the question came in, “So I see you are connected to Jane Doe on BankInnovation.net. What is that contact going to do for me?”

My response was, “Who knows?”

The thing about social networking that marketeers consistently fail to grasp is that social media is not about outbound messages, it’s about engaging in conversation. I explained to my client, “Think of social networking like a good cocktail party. You meet a number of interesting people along the way, and there are lots of interesting topics to discuss, but that doesn’t mean that every person you speak to is a prospect for your business or can help you close a sale.”

You have to apply the concept of six degrees of separation where the human web and the world wide web converge. You are talking to people who know other people you don’t know. If you can convince your contacts to say something interesting about you to one of their contacts, then you may acquire a new contact that has real value to you. It’s like having someone you know casually forward an influential press release to a senior executive who decides to buy your service. You never know where your next evangelist may come from.

So when you are building your network of contacts, do you need to dissect ever connection for his or her potential value? Of course not. Consider my approach to Twitter followers. I get an e-mail notification that Marty Marketer is following me on Twitter. Cool! I bask in the love for a moment, then link to the profile to check him out. If he has posted a bio that is even marginally relevant to what I am interested in, I will follow him back out of Twitter courtesy. If there is no bio, the bio is completely offbase, or absolutely no one is following them, then I usually don’t bother to connect – we all have to have some standards. The point is that you are trying to build a sphere of influence relevant to your market, so you should weed out the MLM schemes and the porn vendors (unless that’s your bag). So I have some oddballs among my Twitter followers, like the custom T-shirt shop and the motor head who’s into muscle cars, but you never know who they know, or who they influence.

So when you get that Twitter follow request or that LinkedIn request, should you connect? Use your own judgment but unless there are obvious reasons not to, remember you never know who your contacts might know. Naturally, you can’t develop a personal relationship with hundreds of people, but if they are interested in what you have to say, you never know whom they might tell.

So what value do those contacts have to you? Who knows? Connect and find out.

October 26, 2009

Analyst Relations: Dating the 800-pound Gorilla

800 pound gorilla Industry analysts play a unique role in media relations, especially in high-tech PR. You always want to brief analysts before you make a major product launch to get their take on your new technology, and ideally their buy-in so you can ask them to serve as an independent, unbiased reference for editors and sometimes prospects. Of course, not all industry research is created equal, and some has more value than others. My clients tend to watch their rankings in Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave reports quite closely, because those rankings do translate into sales.

However, analysts are fallible. Even with the best market data and research their reports are still subjective, which is why I found the recent news that ZL Technologies is suing Gartner Group for $132 million in lost sales astounding:

“ZL alleges at great length in its Complaint (and recapitulates in its Opposition) that it has a strong product and satisfied customers. The Magic Quadrant reports do not say otherwise; the real point of contention here is not the quality of ZL’s product, but instead the subjective analytical model Gartner used to assess ZL’s market position and prospects. ZL does not contest Gartner’s basic assessments of ZL—that it has a good product but needs to expand its sales and marketing—but ZL challenges its placement on the Magic Quadrant Report because Gartner uses a “misguided analytical model” that gives “undue weight to sales and marketing.””

Does Gartner really have that much market power? Over the last decade, I have watched Gartner gobble up Meta Group, Dataquest, and a host of other analyst firms like Pacman, so at the end of the day they are the biggest market force in the room, but does that really mean their analyses are more accurate? According to the filing by ZL Technologies, the Gartner Magic Quadrant holds the power of life and death for their sales. Although I see analysts having an influence on the market, I can’t see their reports having a stranglehold. Surely, having a better solution, better support, and a strong sales team make up the difference for an inaccurate research ranking.

David Ferris of Ferris Research has a good take on the issue. As he states,

Any analyst firm is simply expressing an educated opinion.
No one firm knows the future, but can only predict based on past data.
The connection between analyst dollars spent and report results should be minimal, or non-existent. Paying for research should not give you special privileges.
Customers should consider the value of the product, not analyst rankings, hen making a buying decision.
Bigger is not necessarily better in the analyst world. Any research report is only as good as the analysts who are gathering and reporting the data.

With great power comes great responsibility. Gartner has achieved great power, largely through acquisition, but that doesn’t mean they hold all the wisdom. In many ways, this lawsuit gives Gartner too much credit, too much power by claiming the Gartner Magic Quadrant has the ability to make or break a sale or a market. Analyst research can be valuable, but when you make it your sole raison d’être for closing or losing new business, you’ve missed the point.

Who knows how the ZL Technologies lawsuit will turn out. But in my experience, when tech companies call out the lawyers to solve their marketing problems, there are bigger internal problems that are affecting their chances for success.

October 23, 2009

The Obama/Fox Faceoff – Round Two

bigstory-20070117-obama

In my last blog post, I offered some thoughts on whether President Obama is right in singling out Fox News for bias, or whether all news organizations deserve equal time and consideration despite their political stance. I posted the same question on LinkedIn and generated a lively debate amongst my PR peers.

There was a lot of back and forth about this topic, with people landing on different sides of the political issue, but there were a lot of interesting comments on the role of bias in journalism and when bias goes too far because it is no longer subtext but the main part of the media agenda. To quote from Roger Griendling of Griendling Communications, who also blogs on this subject:

“Obama’s goal is not to change Fox’s line-up or to get them to be more fair and balanced. Rather, he’s sending a message to the mainstream media (MSM) that they can’t let Fox News be their assignment editor. Many MSM echo stories started on Fox even if they have no shred of truth or relevance to the important issues of the day. But MSM feels compelled to follow them.”

I particularly want to thank Roger Johnson of Newswise and moderator of the LinkedIn PRwise group for some cogent thoughts on this issue. From the threaded discussion, Roger offers this comment:

“Fox News does not “slant right.” It represents and trumpets the right without regard for truth. Its news is propaganda. While it is transparent with its “rightness” it is egregiously false to claim to be a news organization.”

Roger also pointed out a very interesting editorial on this issue from Newsweek that clarifies this issue with a different perspective I had not considered. What Rupert Murdoch is doing is using the same playbook that has succeeded for him in the UK, Australia, and Europe, and his rules have absolutely nothing to do with the American concept of freedom of the press. From the editorial:

“What’s most distinctive about the American press is not its freedom but its century-old tradition of independence—that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups. Media independence is a 20th-century innovation that has never fully taken root in many other countries that do have a free press. The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American, so much so that he has little choice but go on denying what he’s doing as he does it. For Murdoch, Ailes, and company, “fair and balanced” is a necessary lie. To admit that their coverage is slanted by design would violate the American understanding of the media’s role in democracy and our idea of what constitutes fair play. But it’s a demonstrable deceit that no longer deserves equal time.”

So what litmus test should we use to sort the true journalists from the propagandists? To qualify as a journalist, you have to be able to distinguish fact from opinion and report the news, without commentary. That’s the difference between news and propaganda. You also have to be factual, something which the Fox News organization seems to overlook on a regular basis with factual errors meant to mislead, such as reporting that Obama was actually born in Kenya, not Hawaii. Since Fox is using Murdoch’s playbook and not the best traditions of American journalism, there doesn’t seem to be any distinction between fact and opinion or truth and fiction.

And, as Tony Loftis of The Loftis Group pointed out, by calling out the Fox News organization for a shootout, the Obama administration has at least raised doubts about Fox’s legitimacy as a news organization:

“By declaring war on the outlet, Obama served noticed that he thought Fox was biased, forcing everyone think about the bias in Fox’s coverage of his administration. It worked. At this point, everyone thinks Fox pushes the GOP’s agenda. From now on, whenever Fox reports on a story, independents will think of Fox as a right wing news organization. The Obama administration has successfully stolen a page from the GOP’s play book – taint the messenger.”

So what do you think? Should you engage with news organizations who disagree with you, even if you know they have an agenda? Can we trust the average reader to see through the bias and make up their own minds? It will be interesting to see how this battle between the White House and Murdoch’s media empire will play out, and what long-lasting effect it might have on American journalism. I would welcome your comments here. Let me know what you think the future holds.

October 21, 2009

Why the Fourth Estate Needs to Come First

If you have been following the news, you have probably heard that the Obama administration has once again attacked Fox News for bias, claiming it is not a news organization. Please don’t think that I will use this blog as a political soapbox; in the interest of full disclosure I will say that I supported the president through his campaign and I support him now, except on this issue. This is an issue of freedom of the press, which is a critical part of the American democratic process.

Just because you don’t agree with the politics of a news organization doesn’t mean you have to censure them. Bias in the news is fairly commonplace, and always has been. In socialist countries the media are state controlled, so they issue propaganda and the populace knows that the media is biased. In democratic countries, the press promotes dialogue, offering views and opinions that ultimately create balance. The bias is there, of course, but the populace knows how to filter it.

As far as I know, the United States is the only country in the world to guarantee freedom of the press as part of its constitution. Freedom of speech is guaranteed, no matter what you have to say,

This is why I find it curious that the office of the President of the United States would take such an adversarial stance against a recognized news organization. Bias notwithstanding, Fox News still reports the news and they should get the same consideration as any news organization.

In looking for news coverage of this particular issue, I did a quick comparison from three randomly selected news sources dealing with the most recent statements about Fox News from the White House: Fox News, the New York Daily News, and the Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom. The three reports have very similar information and tone, and even the Fox News report seemed to have its facts straight. There is bias that shows in each report, whether through the Daily News’ snarky style or Fox News statements such as “Though Fox News has won the cable news ratings race consistently for years and is closing in on network news numbers…” All news reports have bias, and it’s up to the reader to filter that bias and make up his or her own mind.

And as the definition of “journalist” continues to expand to encompass bloggers and smaller news organizations, it shouldn’t matter if journalists “buy ink by the barrel” (to paraphrase President Bill Clinton). Every voice should be heard, and the people can filter out what is noise and what is relevant. As a PR professional I have come to acknowledge the efforts of bloggers and the more obscure news organizations, not because all coverage is good coverage, but because every media outlet is due respect for the sake of their respective audience, whether their readers number in the tens or the millions.

The floor is open for comments…