Moderating comments…
Here’s how the New York Times moderates comments… Marci Alboher, NYT blogger, explains her responsibility — here is the Times’ official policy.
the changing newsroom
Great piece on the changing newsroom.
The newsroom staff producing the paper is also smaller, younger, more tech-savvy, and more oriented to serving the demands of both print and the web. The staff also is under greater pressure, has less institutional memory, less knowledge of the community, of how to gather news and the history of individual beats. There are fewer editors to catch mistakes.
hacks’s flacks take a whack
- When Fox News Is the Story: “Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged, there will be the calls to my editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and my requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about my intent or who else I am talking to. And if all that stuff doesn’t slow me down and I actually end up writing something, there might be a large hangover: Phone calls full of rebuke for a dependent clause in the third to the last paragraph, a ritual spanking in the blogs with anonymous quotes that sound very familiar, and — if I really hit the jackpot — the specter of my ungainly headshot appearing on one of Fox News’s shows along with some stern copy about what an idiot I am.”
- PRWeek blogs…
- “Well done, Mr. Carr, well done. Expect a horse’s head in your bed,” says FishbowlNY co-editor Noah Davis.
- Broadcasting & Cable’s Mike Malone says Carr did “a helluva job” with the column.
- Huffington Post media editor Rachel Sklar says Fox’s PR strategy scares off positive mentions.
- Radar’s Choire Sicha comments that dealing with CNN can be “difficult and uptight,” but working with Fox “can actually be frightening.”
In other opinions about the Fox-New York Times controversy:
help a reporter….
Interesting idea for using Facebook to connect reporters and sources.
Several months ago, I wrote about the clever Facebook page, “Help a Reporter,” put up by the publicist, Peter Shankman, where he shared requests from reporters looking for sources with his large group of Facebook friends. He did it to be of service to journalists, presumably so that they would happily pick up the phone when he called to pitch his clients. His little experiment worked.
I often used his list, most recently to find sources for a magazine article I was writing about women and career changes. After submitting my query to Mr. Shankman’s page, I was flooded with e-mails from women who fit the criteria I wanted. I was grateful to Mr. Shankman for allowing me to access his network. Now it seems that he has outgrown Facebook, which limits the number of people who can be mass e-mailed, and he has set up a private Web site, Help a Reporter, to do the same thing.
On Rumors
Frank has an interesting post on Farhad Manjoo’s article which looks killing a rumor. Something I deal with everyday… He has these tips:
- Have effective monitoring in place, both for the mainstream media and the social media.
- Establish a way for communicating to the relevant audiences quickly. Starbucks has an interesting approach. Seriously, building a blog or website to respond to a rumor AFTER the damage is done is sort of dim. Do it now.
- Practice clarity in rebuttal. Weasel wording around a rumor only spreads it.
- Finally, keep the corporate brand/reputation clean and clear. A rumor is a lot less likely to stick if the messages coming from the company are clear and consistent over time.
The most important point here is clarity of response. Fiction masquerading as fact needs to be met with fact and force. You need to point the perpetrator out for what they and their data is – a sham. Don’t sink into apologetic corporate speak.
I also like Starbucks’ response. This should be a standard blog category and feed available to all.
The most difficult thing is determining who to just ignore… that is where “media” monitoring comes in. Good monitoring gives you a feel for whether a rumor has legs.
