Tag Archives: media

Compton Offers Presidential Perspective at Legislative Dinner

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Flanked by Gov. Eric Holcomb and Indiana Chamber President Kevin Brinegar, Ann Compton regaled Legislative Dinner attendees with her stories about past presidents, and her opinions of President Trump and the media today.

With more than 40 years of experience covering the administrations of seven presidents, former ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton had plenty to share Tuesday night at the Indiana Chamber’s 2017 Legislative Dinner.

A few of her reflections and projections:

On the media: “In this digital age, my business, the news industry, is almost unrecognizable to me. It wounds me to hear that the free, American press is the enemy. We in the mainstream press have to work responsibly and openly to earn back your trust.”

On prior presidents and the media: George H.W. Bush originated the hat with the saying, “Annoy the Media: Re-Elect Bush” (Compton still has hers); Barack Obama “lashed out at the press” in a private, off-the-record session when he was not happy with the tone of the reporting.

On fake news sites: “They are more like criminal enterprises.”

On the ultimate test for presidents: “They are measured by the crises they face.” Compton listed several, including the younger President Bush and 9/11, sharing personal anecdotes about that day as a result of her being the only broadcast journalist on Air Force One after the attacks.

On Donald Trump: “This man is remarkably consistent (in style), but not necessarily on policy.” Noting that 30 years ago he didn’t carry a briefcase or schedule too many meetings, saying, ‘You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure.’ We’re seeing that applied today.

On looking forward: Despite her concerns, she says, “I really do believe the republic is strong, our country is strong.”

View event photos.

The Legislative Dinner, with more than 700 attendees at the Indiana Roof Ballroom, was presented by Ice Miller, with Lifeline Data Centers sponsoring the opening reception. Gold sponsors: Eli Lilly and Company, NIPSCO and St. Vincent. Silver sponsors: Alcoa; American Chemistry Council; AT&T Indiana; Delta Dental of Indiana; French Lick Resort; Hoosiers Work for Health; Indiana Career Hub; IGT Indiana; Ivy Tech Community College; The Kroger Co.; Majestic Star Casino & Hotel; Old National Bank; Roche Diagnostics Corporation; Smithville; and Vectren.

The 2018 Legislative Dinner will take place February 13.

How to Respond if Media Asks You Something Outside Your Comfort Zone

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Good advice here from PR Daily about how to respond to a tough question about your business or organization:

Recently, I received an email from Nicole, a reader who works for a local Chamber of Commerce. Her boss was on the radio expecting to face questions about one topic—but the host had a different idea. She writes:

“We had a recent experience where our Chamber president was asked to participate in a live radio interview about our economic development program. Instead, he was asked numerous questions about a proposed rate hike by our city-owned utility—an issue which we are not the appropriate spokesperson for. Ultimately, our president did a good job not speaking on behalf of the utility and there was no fallout, but it was an uncomfortable situation that was particularly difficult since it was happening live. I was just curious as to how you would handle that type of situation?”

It sounds like Nicole’s president handled it perfectly. But to elaborate on her question a bit more, spokespersons generally have three options when a reporter asks a question that falls outside of their realm of expertise.

Option No. 1: Answer the question

The most straightforward option is to answer the question, even if it’s outside of the spokesperson’s expertise. This approach is fraught with danger, since the spokesperson is now on the record speaking on behalf of a different agency.

Even if the spokesperson handles the question well, what good will it do if the headline of the interview becomes about that other topic? It means that your main messages—the things you most wanted the public to know about you—got lost in the shuffle.

Option No. 2: Answer the question, but within your own context

Occasionally, you might choose to answer questions about unrelated topics, but only within the specific context of how that topic affects you or your work. This approach allows you to “stay in your lane” while offering the audience (and reporter) something of value.

For example, the Chamber president might have said:

“I can’t comment on the rate increase broadly, but let me tell you what our members have said. They’ve said that increases in energy costs will lead to either laying people off or freezing hiring. We all understand that energy prices have to go up on occasion, but local businesses have told me they believe this is a bad time to do it.”

This option isn’t fraught with as much danger as the first one, and it may occasionally be the right approach. But it also increases your odds that the quote the audience remembers from your interview will be about a utility increase—which may or may not be the headline you wanted.

Option No. 3: Deflect and refuse the question

This one is pretty straightforward. You can just tell the reporter:

“You know, that’s really a question that’s more appropriate for the utility company to answer. I haven’t had the opportunity to study their full proposal yet, and would be uncomfortable commenting on the rate increase. What I can discuss today is rising costs for local businesses in general, and how it’s affecting their hiring practices. Those rising costs may include energy prices, but they also include tax increases, increasing fuel costs, and many other items businesses need to purchase to succeed…”

This option is often the safest, but the audience may hold your president’s refusal to answer basic questions against him. Ultimately, options two or three are the best bets, depending on the question and its relevance to the Chamber’s work.

FCC Report: Media Needs to Serve Somebody

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There was big news in the world of journalism yesterday (for those who follow such things and/or care what the Federal Communications Commission has to say) when the FCC released a 470-page report on the state of the U.S. media. In summary, their conclusion wasn’t exactly a positive one, with the overall finding seeming to be that American media isn’t serving the public. What’s most interesting — or perhaps most telling — is that the Democratic and Republican commissioners seemed to have two entirely different takes on the report. Imagine that. National Journal reports: 

Federal regulations designed to ensure that broadcasters serve the public interest are broken, allowing stations to dump local-news reporting and lowering standards for news ranging from international developments to government scandals, the Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday.

"Over time, court rulings, constitutional concerns, and FCC decisions have left a system that is unclear and ineffective,” the agency said in a long-awaited report on the U.S. media. “The current system operates neither as a free market nor as an effectively regulated one; and it does not achieve the public-interest goals set out by Congress or the FCC.”

The 470-page study turns the tables, with the FCC reporting on media outlets that usually are the ones doing the reporting.

To promote public-interest programming on public airwaves, the report recommends more disclosure from broadcasters. It also calls for C-SPAN-like public-affairs networks in each state.

Too often, the report asserts, the FCC rubber-stamps broadcast licenses without ensuring that the outlets involved cover the local community.

Further, the proliferation of Internet-based news outlets has not improved the quality of journalism, the researchers found.

“It turns out you can have an abundance of media outlets and a shortage of real news,” said the report’s lead author, former journalist Steven Waldman. At the root of the growing dearth of quality reporting, he concluded, is the fact that advertising is increasingly disconnected from content.

“If ad rates were the same online as they are in print, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Waldman said. In a first for the agency, the report urges lawmakers to consider the “positive benefits” of online tracking when drafting privacy legislation. Such tracking, the report states, offers a possible way for news websites to attract more ad revenue.

To help strengthen the public service potential of media, the report makes six broad recommendations: emphasize online disclosure as a pillar of FCC media policy; make it easier for citizens to monitor government by putting more information online; consider directing more existing government spending to local media; foster an environment for nonprofit media outlets to succeed; promote broadband access; and ensure that media policy helps historically underserved communities.

The highly anticipated report didn’t go far enough for Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who has long called for tighter public-interest regulations.

“Enlightened policy that promotes the public interest is basically glossed over by the staff report as having been tried and failed,” Copps said at Thursday’s commission meeting, where the findings were presented.

He took the report’s authors to task for “tinkering around the edges” by not calling for major overhauls. “In the recommendations, there is some hedging about whether all that consolidation we are living with today—all these local, independent stations bought up by mega-media interests—has been good or bad,” Copps said.

But Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell said that the report highlights the competitive and innovative nature of the media market. Regulations and policies will only hurt, he argued. “The government should keep its heavy hands off of journalism,” McDowell said.

McDowell stressed that the report is only the beginning of a debate over potential solutions.

The findings contained few surprises in their evaluation of the media market, noting that many traditional news outlets have been decimated by economic challenges and shifting technology.

So what’s your take?

Businesses & Politicos, Keep Those Statements Grounded

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Anyone following politics knows former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had a bumpy go of it last week. In response, his press secretary gave a rather "epic" statement to the Huffington Post. To be frank, it was a tad dramatic and a little… I don’t know… Spartanesque? While the commentary is remarkable in itself, it became downright poetic when read by actor John Lithgow on Comedy Central’s "The Colbert Report." (Hat tip to Ragan’s PR Daily.)

Ranking Jobs … By Their Stress Level

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According to a CareerCast.com report, choose a career related to health care rather than the media if you want to reduce stress on the job. Remember, that’s their findings, not mine. Not sure how much to put into the analysis, but here are the rankings:

The criteria used by CareerCast.com researchers include 11 different factors that invoke stress. Each factor was assigned a range of points, and a high score was given if it was a major part of the job, while fewer points were given if it wasn’t normally required.

The most stressful job was found to be commerical airline pilot, but four of the top 10 were media related.

CareerCast.com’s Highest Stress Professions:

Commercial Airline Pilot
Public Relations Executive
Corporate Executive, Senior
Photojournalist
Newscaster
Advertising Account Executive
Architect
Stockbroker
Emergency Medical Technician
Real Estate Agent
 

Audiologist, a practitioner who assesses and treats hearing disorders, is ranked as the nation’s least stressful profession, according to the new report. More than half of the 10 least stressful professions are in the health care field.

CareerCast.com’s Lowest Stress Professions:

Audiologist
Dietitian
Software Engineer
Computer Programmer
Dental Hygienist
Speech Pathologist
Philosopher
Mathematician
Occupational Therapist
Chiropractor
 

Are Computers the New Newsies?

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It seems that while the newspaper industry continues to struggle to adapt to changing revenue models, news consumption in the U.S. remains fairly strong. This likely confirms what most thought, but it’s nice to put some numbers to the discussion, and hopefully serves as encouraging news for the industry itself:

Mediapost reports:

According to a new comScore release, more than 123 million Americans visited newspaper sites in May, representing 57% of the total U.S. Internet audience, as the New York Times Brand led the category with more than 32 million visitors and 719 million pages viewed during the month. The average visitor viewed 22 pages of content on the New York Times. Tribune Newspapers ranked second in terms of audience with 24.8 million visitors, followed by Advance Internet and USA Today Sites.

Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president, said "… even as print circulation declines, Americans are actually consuming as much news as ever… it’s just being consumed across more media," said. "The Internet has become an essential channel in the way the majority of Americans consume news content today… 3 out of 5 Internet users read newspapers online each month… as advertising rates for digital move closer… (to) traditional media, the economics of the news business… look(s) a lot more promising."

The study shows that among the top site categories where display ads appeared in April 2010, online newspapers accounted for 2.4% of impressions but a higher 6.7% of display advertising dollars. The average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) on online newspaper sites was $7, higher than each of the other top site categories and nearly three times the average CPM for the total U.S. Internet at $2.52.

People Read Newspapers Online, But Won’t Pay for Privilege

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Challenges abound in the newspaper industry as it struggles to reconstruct a profitable model. While many anticipated just having subscribers pay for access to online content, it seems the potential subscribers have other ideas.

As someone who’s worked in community journalism, I understand both sides. I’d say people need a viable, authentic source for unbiased news, although there’s nothing to say a thorough, non-ideological blog couldn’t provide the same service with a staff. But, how would he/she get paid? The answers are out there, we just need to keep searching. In the meantime, here are some interesting poll results from CNET:

Would you pay to read your favorite newspaper online? Most say no, at least according to a new Harris poll.

With traditional print newspapers struggling to turn a profit, many have turned to the Web as a means to stay afloat. While some offer their online content free of charge, other papers have played around with subscriptions by charging readers a monthly fee. But that strategy may backfire, says a Harris poll released Wednesday.

Among more than 2,000 online adults surveyed, 77 percent said they wouldn’t pay anything to read a newspaper’s stories on the Web. And among those willing to pay, 19 percent would cough up between $1 and $10 a month; only 5 percent would shell out more than $10 each month.

The poll also revealed what many newspapers have already experienced–that readership of traditional news is steadily dropping. Just 43 percent of the people surveyed said they read a newspaper each day, either in print or online. Around 72 percent read a paper once a week, while 81 percent read only once a month. And 10 percent said they never read a newspaper.

One factor in the decline of the daily newspaper is age. The younger you are, the less interested you seem to be in reading the daily news. Among folks 55 and older, 64 percent still read a daily paper. Among those 45 to 54, 44 percent catch a daily paper, while 36 percent of adults 35 to 44 do. But of those 18 to 24, only 23 percent said they read a paper each day, while 17 percent said they never do.

NOTE: It was also recently discovered that Newsday’s foray into charging for online subscriptions fell flat, garnering just 35 customers in three months.

People are Actually Reading Newspapers (Online)

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Ragan’s PR Junkie explains readership of online newspapers are actually up, although the number of hard copy readers continues to plummet.

Guess where 40 percent of Web traffic went each month in the third quarter of 2009?

I’ll give a second to consider it …

Give up?

The answer is newspaper Web sites.

“An average 74 million people visited a newspaper Web site each month in the third quarter of 2009, equaling just under 40 percent of all active U.S. Internet users,” MediaPost’s Erik Sass reported. The data, Sass said, comes from the Newspaper Association of America, which cited researched by Nielsen Online.

This marks the highest number of visitors in a quarter, since Nielsen began tracking this information in 2004. MediaPost noted that this milestone is especially encouraging for newspapers, because this was an off-year, meaning there were no big news events like the Olympics or a presidential election.

UPDATE: Online readership may have flourished in the third quarter, but overall sales of hard copy newspapers dropped sharply. Newspaper circulation fell 10 percent, between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, compared to the same time last year, according to The New York Times.

C-SPAN Founder: “I Love What’s Going On”

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Our friend Gerry Dick at Inside INdiana Business recently interviewed Brian Lamb, Hoosier native and founder of C-SPAN, about the state of media today. He offers:

It’s painful for me personally to watch the newspapers in such trouble and some of the broadcasters and the radio people, but I love what’s going on. I love the fact that any person in this country that wants to create something in this medium can do it. They can start a web site for almost nothing; their voices can be heard. I think it’s unbelievably important and I’m for it.

To hear more of the interview, click here.

Reporters for Hire Could Find Refuge with Sports Teams

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The New York Times recently documented how the L.A. Kings and other franchises have taken to hiring their own reporters with coverage in the local dailies waning. This will obviously raise questions of objectivity, but may be a viable solution for teams, organizations, readers/fans and even journalists looking for stable work:

If your business depends on free publicity from newspapers, what do you do when the papers can no longer afford to send reporters to cover you? In professional sports, the answer, increasingly, is hire your own.

The Los Angeles Kings hockey team last week hired Rich Hammond, who had covered the Kings for The Los Angeles Daily News, to write about the team for its Web site, kings.nhl.com. Michael Altieri, a Kings spokesman, said the team had given Mr. Hammond a multiyear commitment and complete autonomy to post reporting or commentary.

“We have a passionate fan base who want instant information about our team, but there’s been declining news coverage of us,” Mr. Altieri said.

After years of trimming jobs, pages and travel budgets, many big-city papers no longer provide regular coverage of every local sports team, and sending reporters on road trips has become rare. Mr. Hammond, 32, will travel with the Kings and cover all of their games. He said the job switch means a modest pay increase, and considering the state of newspapers, it may also improve his job security.

Last year, Chris Botta, a longtime New York Islanders executive, began writing about the team on its Web site. He developed an avid following, and when the team dropped the experiment this year, he continued with his own site, islanderspointblank.com.

“The Islanders used to get covered by four major newspapers, and now it’s one,” he said. “Teams have to do this kind of thing, and I believe more of them will.”

Major League Baseball has a beat reporter assigned to each team for MLB.com. But the Cincinnati Bengals football team was the pioneer in this field: a decade ago, the Bengals hired Geoff Hobson, a sports reporter at The Cincinnati Enquirer, to write for its site.

But how sure can readers be of tough, impartial coverage when image-conscious businesses are paying for it? Mr. Hammond said it would be no use debating the ethics; teams will do what they must to generate fan interest, and fans can distinguish between reporting and public relations.

“I understand that people are going to have doubts,” he said. “The proof is going to be in the product.

UPDATE: Amy Mengel, a communications manager and freelance consultant, doesn’t seem to be buying this as a viable paradigm. Thoughts?

Hat tip to the Ragan PR Daily Newsfeed.