Red River College students making snoows

This week, graduating students in the program in which I teach, Red River College's Creative Communications, are presenting their year-long independent projects to a packed house in south Winnipeg's Park Theatre.

These presentations are an annual tradition in Creative Communications; but this year, there's a new twist: they're being live-tweeted by a quintet of first-year students using the hashtag #ipp10.

I wrote a guest post for the snoo.ws blog about this, and many of the ways our program has evolved to reflect the changing communications industry, this week.

If today's excellent presentations were any indication, there's a lot more in store for us Thursday and Friday. If you're in Winnipeg and have some time to be impressed, come down to the Park Theatre -- and if not, follow the event live on Twitter!

John Daly: victim or volunteer?

The Florida Times-Union ran a story this week about golf reporters asking the PGA to suspend larger-than-life pro John Daly. Daly drew the reporters’ ire when he tweeted the cellphone number of a Times-Union journalist who had written an embarrassing story about him, suggesting his fans call the reporter with their feedback. (The tweet has since been deleted, but you can see it here, on sportingnews.com.) It's worth noting that a year ago, a libel case Daly had brought against the same newspaper was thrown out of court.

The story, titled “PGA Tour file of John Daly details his many breakdowns,” contains exactly what you’d expect it to, given the title. I won’t re-print the lead, partly because I don’t particularly want John Daly’s fans calling me.

Daly’s file is public record, so the information it contains is fair game. There isn’t a libel issue here; it’s just a case of a reporter making hay by exposing someone else’s weaknesses – certainly nothing new in the world of journalism.

So did John Daly just reach his breaking point, and lash out in retaliation against what he perceives as the unfairness of the system?

Or, was it just the kind of publicity John Daly wanted?

As it happens, this week also marks the launch of a new reality TV show on the Golf Channel, called… wait for it… Being John Daly.



The show positions the mercurial Daly as a man who has struggled with his own demons – using that struggle as the compelling human interest producers hope will attract viewers. Clearly, Daly isn’t averse to open discussion of his past; maybe he’s just averse to open discussion of his past in forums which don’t deliver ad revenues to him.

Bill Clinton is quoted as having said "never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel," meaning that journalists will always have the last word. And while social media has changed that dynamic somewhat (that is, the Internet gives us all endless opportunity to rant), it's still good advice: because you'll never do yourself any favours by picking a fight with a reporter (and worse, by making it personal).

But was Daly's tweet calculated to draw the ire of the reporter and with it, more coverage of Daly's own antics, to coincide with the launch of the show?

And if it was, was it worth it?

Time will tell.


(Photo credit: Florida Times-Union)

To The Winnipeg School Division: the correct answer is "thank you."

Last week, when news broke about two judgmentally-impaired Winnipeg high school teachers apparently simulating a lap dance and fellatio at a pep rally, the story roared through both the social and mainstream media. It began with a short video posted to YouTube by a student who recorded it on a cellphone, and quickly garnered international media attention including coverage on Fox News.

In case you missed it, here's the video:



In PR class, we talked about how the school might have been well-advised to reach out to parents the very day the dance happened, even before being “caught” by the YouTube video, to explain that two staff members had made a very poor decision, to underline its commitment to providing a safe, comfortable and appropriate learning environment for their children, and to promise to deal with the teachers involved.

The foundation of good PR is a healthy relationship based on openness and mutual respect. Given this case, we discussed how one of the school's most important audiences, the parents of its students, might have appreciated the administration's proactive admission of the incident. Between the lines, such an act would have said "keeping our relationship with you healthy means more to us than the possibility of avoiding public embarrassment."

That doesn't mean parents would be happy to hear the news, and it doesn't mean parents would be any less outraged. But they would at least know that if something bad happened in their child's school, the school would have the integrity to come forward and let them know about it.

Yesterday, the Winnipeg Free Press reports, "school board chairwoman Jackie Sneesby refused to rule out punishment for the students" who posted videos of the incident to YouTube, since the school board has rules against the use of cellphone video cameras in school.

Sometimes, the rules should take a back seat.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m big on rules. I like making them, I’m more comfortable following them. I think they create order out of chaos; and I think that environments in which (reasonable) rules are followed can be more productive than those in which they aren’t.

But.

This story hasn't shown The Winnipeg School Division in its best light.

1. It hired teachers who exhibit this kind of judgment in the first place, and put them in a position to set an example for Winnipeg teenagers.
2. It hosts the kind of high school environment in which at least some people feel this kind of dance might be acceptable.
3. It hosts the kind of high school environment in which this kind of dance can play out without any other responsible adult intervening.
4. It remains unclear what repercussions the teachers involved will face, beyond "suspension with pay."

Given all that, I’d advise The Winnipeg School Division to let this cellphone infraction go – and to clearly say so if anyone should ask. Yes, rules are important – but one of their key audiences, the public whose children they’re employed to educate, may legitimately feel that had these students not broken the cellphone rule, the teachers involved (and school administration) mightn’t have had to answer for the behaviour. And accordingly, that this sort of thing might have been allowed to happen again.

So, just ignore a blatantly broken rule?

Of course not. But there are many ways the school's administration could address the issue with students that wouldn't involve punishment for the "offenders," while making it clear that the rules exist for a good reason and will be enforced in all but extraordinary circumstances.

Today's Free Press story drew a number of comments from readers who felt the students should be punished because they posted the video to YouTube rather than taking it to the principal or the school board. Personally, I wouldn't expect high school students to understand the bureaucracy of the educational system; I think it entirely possible that from their perspective, the show was sanctioned by the administration since some of its "officials" (i.e. their teachers) attended, witnessed the incident, and didn't stop it. If that's the case, I couldn't blame them for thinking it was fair game for public consumption.

Opening the lines of communication with students could help with that, too. If school administration told them unequivocally that its door is always open in case of student concerns, it might find itself better-equipped to address future issues before they become PR nightmares.

Whistleblower or attention-seeker?

Today's story in the Free Press also bears a number of reader comments taking issue with the characterization of the students who posted videos to YouTube as whistleblowers, painting them instead as attention-seekers whose objective wasn't to expose wrongdoing at all.

Maybe they're right, maybe not... but it doesn't matter. The effect of the students' action was to bring attention to bad behaviour that hadn't otherwise gotten out. To punish them now could seem like retaliation for the public embarrassment, the blame for which rests squarely on the shoulders of the school no matter how you slice it.

If a whistleblower breaks the rules in exposing wrongdoing, an organization committed to the best interests of its audiences shouldn't concern itself with ensuring a price is paid for the broken rule.

Even if the whistleblower's motivation wasn't to blow the whistle, the correct answer is "thank you."

Sarah Palin: going rogue again?

On his CNN Politics blog this week, Peter Hamby reported that Sarah Palin has decided not to immediately replace her media spokesperson, Meg Stapleton, who has resigned effective the end of this month to spend more time with her family.

As a professional communicator who left a challenging (OK, not quite that challenging!) corporate position so as to be able to spend more time with my own young daughter, I completely understand – and admire – Stapleton’s move.

What I don’t understand is the second part of this story: that Palin has decided not to immediately replace her media spokesperson, since, in the words of a reported “source close to the Palin family” mentioned in Hamby’s post, “the family, which takes pride in their Alaskan identity, are comfortable speaking in their own voice.”

Bad move.

The, let’s call it, “difficult” relationship between Sarah Palin and the mainstream media is no secret. She clearly feels the media are biased against her, and the media clearly enjoy exploiting every contradiction and foible she exposes.

But can she just decide to “go rogue” and refuse to play ball?

Glynnis MacNicol weighs in on mediaite.com:

"Crafty or crazy? Palin is, obviously, one of the most talked-about women/politicians on the planet, and a lot of that talk is not nice. I suspect “responding in her own voice” actually means one of two things. Palin has decided that answering questions from actual reporters is very last decade and is either going to let a combination of her Fox analyst appearances and the take-no-prisoners Fox News PR team speak for her (one can dream). Or! She has concluded, and not without good reason, that her one-way Facebook mouthpiece is all the public access she requires. It’s worked so far. Why bother with the fourth estate at all when all you need is a catchy Facebook note to derail an entire health care bill."

Well, I think that might be an option if you only ever need to reach people who are already listening to you. Palin’s following on Fox News and Facebook is inarguably considerable – but if her agenda includes any kind of debate at the national level, she’ll soon find that you can’t make much progress increasing the size of your following when you only ever talk to the people already listening to you.

Reality check interlude: we have to remember that Palin’s camp hasn’t said she doesn’t intend to talk to the media at all – just that she’s not “immediately” replacing the spokesperson who would facilitate making that happen.

If Palin does indeed want to persuade Americans to see the world as she sees it, and to support her as she works to make changes at the highest levels of the government, she will need to gain some support from people who don’t support her now. Those people may not follow Fox News, and are unlikely following her on Facebook, unless they do for entertainment value.

Social media has indeed been the catalyst for an evolution in public relations, as it allows organizations (and political figures) to talk directly to their audiences better than ever before. But the beauty and the challenge of social media is that it requires you to have access to your audiences before you can talk to them. They have to self-identify as being interested in hearing from you, to a degree at least, or their friends have to.

If you want to reach people who don’t already agree with you, or who aren’t aware of you, you need to go where they are to reach them.

And, like it or not, Ms. Palin, many of them are consuming mainstream media.

[yellow tail]: No good deed goes unpunished

PR Daily this morning alerted me to an issue brewing for Australia’s [yellow tail] wine company, which reportedly accounts for "almost half the Australian wine purchased in the U.S."

Last week, the company announced a $100,000 donation to The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), in a campaign called “[tails] for tails”. According to [yellow tail]’s news release, “[yellow tail] will make use of social media and in-store advertising to spread the message that consumers can "pick up a bottle of [yellow tail] and help a tail-wagging friend."”

Sounds nice, right? Kudos to [yellow tail] for sharing its success and putting some of its profits back into the community, right?

Not so fast, say American meat producers and members of associated industries, who are all too familiar with HSUS’s history of undertaking campaigns to interfere with their business.

In an article called “Yellow Tail stubs its toe” this week, beef industry magazine Drovers outlines the backlash [yellow tail] has drawn in the U.S. The opposition has grown quickly online, with a Facebook group called Yellowfail already counting almost 2400 fans. A YouTube video featuring a South Dakota cattle rancher (below) has more than 5800 views, and the #yellowfail hashtag on Twitter has been buzzing.



What’s a company to do?

Frankly, it’s impossible to keep everyone happy. Every corporate donation has the potential to irritate someone – whether it’s because they disagree with the cause you’ve supported, or because they feel your support would have benefited more people elsewhere.

But a full situation analysis can help a company make the best choices:

• it will help you understand what’s important to your customers (like, for instance, support for American farmers and all the associated industries)
• it will help ensure you have a full appreciation for the activities of the group you’re supporting (and who their opponents are likely to be), and their impacts on your customers

Industry journal Pork re-printed [yellow tail]’s response to a request for comment from sister publication Bovine Veterinarian magazine; it includes the following:

"We’ve listened to your recent feedback and it was very helpful to us – in fact it prompted us to specifically choose the areas where we’d most like to celebrate animals. Here’s what we’ve decided: We’ll still honor our monetary commitment to the HSUS, but now we are specifically directing our $100,000 donation to HSUS’ Animal Rescue Team, which launch on-the-ground missions to rescue animals in peril. The HSUS Animal Rescue Team is a leading disaster response agency for animals, contributing millions of dollars to rebuild animal shelters destroyed in natural disasters, responding to floods, fires, and other disasters.

We may not always agree with 100 percent of what an organization represents, but rescuing animals displaced from natural disasters is a cause we support."

I’m certain [yellow tail]’s support for the HSUS was pledged with the best of intentions; as they learned, though, sometimes the best of intentions aren’t quite enough.

Beaker takes on social media

When we first met the Muppets, Statler and Waldorf were their only critics.

Now, thanks to social media, everyone's a critic!

Facebook is making us the gatekeepers

In PR, we have traditionally referred to the mainstream media as "gatekeepers;" since they controlled the most credible mass media, they decided which information was communicated to mass audiences, and in what way.

Now, Brand Republic is reporting this week, Facebook may be turning the tables.

Research by Hitwise suggests that Facebook has become the fourth-largest distributor of online news content, behind Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

That means that, increasingly, we are deciding what news to read online based on what our friends recommend. Our friends -- and we, to our own followers -- are becoming the gatekeepers who determine which news outlets get the audience.

Given the competition mainstream media are facing from online sources, they need readers/listeners/viewers now more than ever; and, if Hitwise's findings suggest a trend that will keep growing, social media users will play a major role in determining which ones survive.

Feeling empowered?