Alright, so admittedly I don’t really watch the E! Network and I caught this show mostly due to the fact that my girlfriend made us watch the season premiere of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). But due to the nature of the show, I couldn’t help but comment on “Pop Fiction,” Ashton Kutcher’s new show which could revolutionize the news media business. And yes, using the word revolutionize and Ashton Kutcher in the same sentence seems terribly wrong to me, but he is a fellow Iowan and hey, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn eventually.
The premise of the show is simple. Kutcher and business partner Jason Goldberg recruit high-profile celebrities and have them come up with false news stories that spread like wildfire due to the pressing news demands of celebrity media and the “overbearing” presence of the paparazzi. The first show was a success, getting multiple celebrity gossip blogs, news outlets and entertainment reporters for major networks such as CNN Headline News to cover a fake guru appearing with Paris Hilton, leading to lots of speculation over Hilton’s marital status and if she were switching religions.
Now clearly, celebrity news networks and blogs represent a unique sector of the media in that the paparazzi present a 24/7 news information source going to almost any length, and even crossing the line at some points to get the latest breaking story. But in the age of new media and Web 2.0, has the media lost some of its ability to fact-check the stories it reports. Is Ashton Kutcher’s “prank” show a harbinger of things to come, where the media is reporting stories crafted by the subject it is supposed to be covering. A number of controversies that have occurred over the past few years involve situations where a reporter was willing to use forego investigative journalism with news stations running stories based on videos produced by the U.S. government, reporters plagiarizing other publications and even some creating fabricated pieces. It will be interesting to see where “Pop Fiction” goes from here and the number of stories that might have been falsified by Kutcher and his celebrity friends.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Seattle and the NBA: How not to treat your customer
So yes, I clearly am a sports fan who probably spends a little too much time on ESPN.com (Spring Training has started for the Cubs, soon this blog will be breaking down the possible splits of Sam Fuld v. Felix Pie on a daily basis) but this is a case that had a very interesting PR angle to it. Too interesting to resist my comments on it in fact.
Few know or even care about the tragedy that is occurring in Seattle, WA. Now of course, that could be due to the fact that the NBA is still recovering from its post-Jordan/player lockout episode in the late 1990s. Suffice to say, the Seattle Supersonics, a professional sports team with 41 years of history, the town's only championship, and a loyal fan base will most likely move to Oklahoma City, OK due to a dispute between local politicians and the team's small group of Oklahoman owners led by Clay Bennett.
To give some background, Howard Schultz (yes, the founder of Starbucks and CEO behind the insane "Let's close down our stores for 3 hours to re-train employees" promotion) decided to sell the team to Mr. Bennett after being refused a government handout to rebuild a stadium that is only 13 years old. He asked for hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when most states are barely able to provide basic social services. Mr. Bennett again tried to get a corporate handout for his team, but when officials failed to katow to his ownership team's whims, he declared that the team would be headed to Oklahoma City. On November 1, 2007, Bennett informed commissioner David Stern that he plans to file papers asking league permission to relocate the Supersonics to Oklahoma City. He now has until tomorrow to file the necessary documents for relocation.
What I wanted to post about in fact was to encourage commentary on an article I read by Bill Simmons outlininig one of the more ingenuous PR stunts to force the issue to the forefront. His article, which can be read here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080229&sportCat=nba includes a novel idea. I will post my thoughts this weekend but first, I wanted to see readers' comments (if any) on the idea.
Few know or even care about the tragedy that is occurring in Seattle, WA. Now of course, that could be due to the fact that the NBA is still recovering from its post-Jordan/player lockout episode in the late 1990s. Suffice to say, the Seattle Supersonics, a professional sports team with 41 years of history, the town's only championship, and a loyal fan base will most likely move to Oklahoma City, OK due to a dispute between local politicians and the team's small group of Oklahoman owners led by Clay Bennett.
To give some background, Howard Schultz (yes, the founder of Starbucks and CEO behind the insane "Let's close down our stores for 3 hours to re-train employees" promotion) decided to sell the team to Mr. Bennett after being refused a government handout to rebuild a stadium that is only 13 years old. He asked for hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when most states are barely able to provide basic social services. Mr. Bennett again tried to get a corporate handout for his team, but when officials failed to katow to his ownership team's whims, he declared that the team would be headed to Oklahoma City. On November 1, 2007, Bennett informed commissioner David Stern that he plans to file papers asking league permission to relocate the Supersonics to Oklahoma City. He now has until tomorrow to file the necessary documents for relocation.
What I wanted to post about in fact was to encourage commentary on an article I read by Bill Simmons outlininig one of the more ingenuous PR stunts to force the issue to the forefront. His article, which can be read here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080229&sportCat=nba includes a novel idea. I will post my thoughts this weekend but first, I wanted to see readers' comments (if any) on the idea.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
When Desparate Times Call For Desparate Measures, Create a Website
After last night's double-digit loss to Senator Barack Obama in the blue-collar swing state of Wisconsin, the Hillary Clinton campaign has reached a crossroads and is clearly in crisis. Now, I do not believe it is impossible for the former Senator to capture the Democratic nomination, there are still several major state contests and a lot of time before the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Its just indicative to me that the Clinton machine came up with a website, http://www.delegatehub.com, to try to undercut Obama's claims on delegates. Now, PR practitioners usually counsel their clients to have a "dark" website, which in a crisis can be used to effectively direct the press and customers to the relevant information regarding the crisis. On the other hand, this website, with little affiliation to the Clinton campaign besides a small print comment at the bottom, looks rather vague in terms of who sponsors it. It is another veiled political attack, and though it attempts to directly undercut Obama's message, it fails to address the major Clinton campaign problems: lack of a "sticky" message (to borrow Frank Luntz's terminology) and a grassroots campaign organizational structure.
The Clinton campaign has looked fairly poor in adjusting to their new underdog status. A coherent, effective and compelling message seems to be something that her campaign team is still struggling to come up with against Obama's "Yes We Can" message of hope. At this point, reframing the debate to make it less about the actual words and more about accomplishments would be a great success for Hillary, except that this is not a new tactic. She just has been unable to stop the momentum of the Obama machine and convince primary voters that change can only be achieved by someone with experience such as herself.
Delegate Hub fails to adequately address the strategic dilemma for the Hillary team: Its not about superdelegates at this point, it is all about getting a plurality of voters to deliver wins. Until then, Delegate Hub is a nice site with some video but very little substance.
The Clinton campaign has looked fairly poor in adjusting to their new underdog status. A coherent, effective and compelling message seems to be something that her campaign team is still struggling to come up with against Obama's "Yes We Can" message of hope. At this point, reframing the debate to make it less about the actual words and more about accomplishments would be a great success for Hillary, except that this is not a new tactic. She just has been unable to stop the momentum of the Obama machine and convince primary voters that change can only be achieved by someone with experience such as herself.
Delegate Hub fails to adequately address the strategic dilemma for the Hillary team: Its not about superdelegates at this point, it is all about getting a plurality of voters to deliver wins. Until then, Delegate Hub is a nice site with some video but very little substance.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Giants won the Super Bowl...why the Patriots should have gone into the game distraction free
As great as the Giants played throughout the Super Bowl (and their relentless pressure from DEs Michael Strahan & Osi Umenyiora and all-purpose DL Justin Tuck accomplished what few thought possible, knock Tom Brady in the mouth for 60 minutes), the lack of killer instinct and tentative play-calling by one of the greatest offenses in NFL history still boggles me. Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy characterized it in his reporting from the Super Bowl thusly,
"For the rest of eternity, I will never understand why the Patriots -- a team that broke all kinds of offensive records by attacking teams with an aggressive, run-and-shoot offense that thrived on audibles, checks and the intelligence of the quarterback and his receivers -- became passive in the single biggest game of the season. It's one thing to change styles because it's 20 degrees and windy outside and you're worried about throwing the ball. But indoors? Only on the last drive did the Patriots look like the Patriots. I will never understand what took so long. Ever. I will never understand it. I wasn't even that depressed after the game, just confused. What happened to the remarkable offensive juggernaut from the first three months of the season? Where did their arrogance go? What happened to their swagger? Did the never-ending attention and nonstop pressure eventually get to them? For most of Sunday's game, it seemed the Patriots were playing not to lose. And maybe they were (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080204)."
Why I bring up this tightness is that the late-breaking headlines throughout the final days leading up to the Super Bowl presents an interesting point in crisis communications and reveals how the Patriots & the NFL were to blame for a major distraction. A report came out Saturday before the game in the Boston Herald (can anyone say that paper is partisan after this) citing an unamed source who revealed a deliberate attempt by the Patriots to record the St. Louis Rams walkthrough practice before Super Bowl XXXVI.
DISCLAIMER: I was a HUGE fan of the Rams in '02 due to the fact that Kurt Warner (native Iowan) led the team and this was probably one of the most crushing losses for me personally during high school that I can remember. Adam "f***ing" Vinatieri was something I muttered when anything went wrong for me over the next 6 months. But I digress....
Now, the entire reason this came up was due to a lack of transparency about Spygate all the way back in September. The NFL, under Commissioner Roger Goodell refused to discuss the case any further after he destroyed the spying tapes given to him by the Patriots. Similarly, New England coach Bill Belichick issued a terse apology with no press conference and typically avoided answering questions during the regular season. The real problem with this entire strategy by both the league and the team was that it essentially screamed to the media, "WE'RE HIDING SOMETHING." As Gregg Easterbrook noted in his piece on what has been dubbed "Spygate II": After the league made its strange decision to destroy the materials, then refused to say what they contained, several media figures, including me, did this Journalism 101 exercise: Current scandal involves current taping by the Patriots. Are there any former Patriots video officials from New England's Super Bowl runs (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/080202&sportCat=nfl)?"
What that led to was former Patriots scout and video department official Matt Walsh, who has been the subject of an interview with The New York Times and as the story has gained steam, will most likely be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, how could an issue like Spygate all of a sudden end up attracting the attention of the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)? Well, besides Congressional members thinking that investigating sports is the best way to solve the country's problems (Iraq, health care, economic recession or steroids in baseball, hmm....) the NFL decided to create a story when they had the chance to make it a non-starter. Contrasting their lack of information with the NBA's handling of the Tim Donagehy situation is an example of why transparency should be at the heart of any disclosure.
So fast forward to Commissioner Goodell's State of the NFL Union press conference and the immediate media frenzy to find out what he knew, what the league knew, why the tapes were destroyed, responses to the latest media investigation and if the Patriots cheated during Super Bowl XXXVI with a respected Senator making comments that likened the NFL investigation to a Watergate-like cover-up. Could that have been a distraction for the Patriots and a possible explanation for why they scored 14 points after putting up 38 against the same team only 4 games earlier? Who knows, but it does remind me of another Super Bowl: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901EFD61238F931A35751C0A96F958260.
"For the rest of eternity, I will never understand why the Patriots -- a team that broke all kinds of offensive records by attacking teams with an aggressive, run-and-shoot offense that thrived on audibles, checks and the intelligence of the quarterback and his receivers -- became passive in the single biggest game of the season. It's one thing to change styles because it's 20 degrees and windy outside and you're worried about throwing the ball. But indoors? Only on the last drive did the Patriots look like the Patriots. I will never understand what took so long. Ever. I will never understand it. I wasn't even that depressed after the game, just confused. What happened to the remarkable offensive juggernaut from the first three months of the season? Where did their arrogance go? What happened to their swagger? Did the never-ending attention and nonstop pressure eventually get to them? For most of Sunday's game, it seemed the Patriots were playing not to lose. And maybe they were (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080204)."
Why I bring up this tightness is that the late-breaking headlines throughout the final days leading up to the Super Bowl presents an interesting point in crisis communications and reveals how the Patriots & the NFL were to blame for a major distraction. A report came out Saturday before the game in the Boston Herald (can anyone say that paper is partisan after this) citing an unamed source who revealed a deliberate attempt by the Patriots to record the St. Louis Rams walkthrough practice before Super Bowl XXXVI.
DISCLAIMER: I was a HUGE fan of the Rams in '02 due to the fact that Kurt Warner (native Iowan) led the team and this was probably one of the most crushing losses for me personally during high school that I can remember. Adam "f***ing" Vinatieri was something I muttered when anything went wrong for me over the next 6 months. But I digress....
Now, the entire reason this came up was due to a lack of transparency about Spygate all the way back in September. The NFL, under Commissioner Roger Goodell refused to discuss the case any further after he destroyed the spying tapes given to him by the Patriots. Similarly, New England coach Bill Belichick issued a terse apology with no press conference and typically avoided answering questions during the regular season. The real problem with this entire strategy by both the league and the team was that it essentially screamed to the media, "WE'RE HIDING SOMETHING." As Gregg Easterbrook noted in his piece on what has been dubbed "Spygate II": After the league made its strange decision to destroy the materials, then refused to say what they contained, several media figures, including me, did this Journalism 101 exercise: Current scandal involves current taping by the Patriots. Are there any former Patriots video officials from New England's Super Bowl runs (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/080202&sportCat=nfl)?"
What that led to was former Patriots scout and video department official Matt Walsh, who has been the subject of an interview with The New York Times and as the story has gained steam, will most likely be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, how could an issue like Spygate all of a sudden end up attracting the attention of the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)? Well, besides Congressional members thinking that investigating sports is the best way to solve the country's problems (Iraq, health care, economic recession or steroids in baseball, hmm....) the NFL decided to create a story when they had the chance to make it a non-starter. Contrasting their lack of information with the NBA's handling of the Tim Donagehy situation is an example of why transparency should be at the heart of any disclosure.
So fast forward to Commissioner Goodell's State of the NFL Union press conference and the immediate media frenzy to find out what he knew, what the league knew, why the tapes were destroyed, responses to the latest media investigation and if the Patriots cheated during Super Bowl XXXVI with a respected Senator making comments that likened the NFL investigation to a Watergate-like cover-up. Could that have been a distraction for the Patriots and a possible explanation for why they scored 14 points after putting up 38 against the same team only 4 games earlier? Who knows, but it does remind me of another Super Bowl: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901EFD61238F931A35751C0A96F958260.
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