Media blind

Today, several journalists covering the Iraq War (including Seymour Hersh, the AP's Tony Castaneda, and Kevin Begos of the Winston-Salem Journal) told those attending an AP Managing Editors conference that the lack of security in Iraq has made it impossible for journalists to get -- and give us -- an accurate report of what is really happening anywhere in that country, especially among the Iraqis, outside the heavily fortified "Green Zone" of Baghdad.

If that's true, is there a way those journalists and the rest of us can use the Internet to find credible sources and accurate information that will give us what we need to assess this war and decide if we should continue to support it?

Pre-Packaged News Stories by Feds Are Now Identified

The U.S. Department of Education was in hot water earlier this year after it was determined they were secretly paying some editorial columnists to promote the Bush education agenda. In addition, the Bush administration came under fire for creating VNRs (video news releases) about public policy issues that were not being identified as coming from the Federal Government.
Fast forward to Oct. 20th, and we now have the "Prepackaged news Store Announcement Act of 2005" requiring any Federal agency to have a "clear notification" within the text or audio of a news story that the VNR was prepared or funded by the "United States Government."
Consumers read and watch prepackaged news stories all the time by way of news releases that are published in newspapers and VNRs which are broadcast on television. Confirming the source of a message should be a basic rule of any communicator, however some PR folks don't want the audience to know exactly who created the message. Regardless of which way you fall on whether the source should always be blatantly clear, the Federal Government should always identify itself on behalf of any message it creates with taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately because of the Department of Education's strategy to promote without full disclosure, we now have a FEDERAL LAW forcing government agencies to disclose.

Listenomics!

The October 10 issue of Advertising Age addresses a topic near and dear to the proverbial heart of 21st Century communicators--the Open Source Revolution. Sam Ebersole, our new media specialist and guest speaker at the Southern Colorado Press Club on October 12, used Bob Garfield's great front page piece as a starter for his timely and salient observations on the changes in new media and the communications revolution. Thank you, Sam!

Bob Garfield titled his piece "Listenomics" (www.adage.com) as he describes the critical changes in the Open Source Revolution--the Chaos Scenario--as marketers and advertisers strive to pull out of mainstream "old media" and move (incredibly slowly and painfully) toward the new reality for consumerism. Allowing that the "herd will be heard," Garfield examines the critical changes necessary for the advertising business to pull ahead, recognize (and corral) the collective wisdom of the masses and make the marketplace an interactive auction of exchanges that it once was.

Most marketers (and their scholarly counterparts) have long argued that marketing and the marketing communications that surround it are really a series of exchanges between buyer and seller, consumer and marketer. These exchanges begin and end with the customer, of course, but these exchanges keep the spiral of consumerism moving. If Garfield is right--and I encourage you to read his entire piece--he is really reverting to the very traditions of the marketplace where exchanges between consumers and sellers are truly one-to-one. This was the dream of one-to-one marketers a decade ago: Let's construct product (and product ideas) directly for each consumer and sell that consumer on a customized product that s/he will learn about, think about, feel good about, and eventually use, purchase or consume in some way. What a concept! That was Ben Franklin's premise in the 1770s and beyond.

Everything old is new again.....

The Times, They are A-Changin

This past week PBS aired a wonderful documentary by Martin Scorsese about Bob Dylan…but I just threw that in as a hip (in a 60s sort of way) cultural/historical touchstone. The title of this blog refers to the venerable New York Times, who announced that they are cutting some 500 positions (45 from the newsroom) in order to reduce costs. The decision comes on top of 200 jobs cut earlier this year. On the same day, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News announced plans to eliminate 100 newsroom positions citing challenges “with slow-growing advertising and a long-term decline in circulation amid changing media habits as more people go to the Internet for news.” But newspapers are not the only “old media” feeling the heat. Since moving from a scarcity (pages/spectrum) model to a surplus (bits) model, media are undergoing radical shifts in their ability to package, promote and charge for their content. The rise of consumer generated media and peer-to-peer sharing of everything from music to TV programs and movies has executives from Hollywood to Madison Avenue scratching their heads and reexamining their business models. Perhaps the most striking change is the advertising industry’s realization that they, like the Emperor of old, are parading down main street with little to cover their backsides.

Media content is just another form of information, and information is power. Perhaps you remember the early days of the Internet, and if so you might also remember a t-shirt slogan that said, “Information Wants to be Free!” Of course it does, but media executives are doing their best to ensure that it won’t get its wish. Time will tell who’s winning this war.