Author: Angelo Fernando

Making the front page in a digital world

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I have a fascination with Front Pages of newspapers. I have saved some of the front pages of The Arizona Republic on 9/12 –the day after. Dipping into the large format book “Page One” with hundreds of front pages of the New York Times from 1900 onwards is like a sweeping history lesson.

The Newseum which recently opened in Washington, DC has an exhibit capturing the same sweep of history for us, but in a digital realm. From the Gulf News featuring Obama, to the tabloid-like The Sun from Kuala Lumpur and 500 other newspapers, they have the front pages of world newspapers digitally transmitted to the Newseum.

But even as many are anxious to write an obituary for the newspaper (since newspaper reading habits are on the decline) there is a positive trend: “the total audience for what newspapers produce is rising, not falling,” says the State of the News Media, 2008 report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

“What newspapers produce” may not be elegant snapshots of each day that we can archive or thumb through in a book, but the news about where news production, consumption and distribution are headed is not so bad, after all.

Scott McLellan’s story has lessons for us

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A book about lies and deception to sell the media and the people on an unnecessary war isn’t shocking news. There are more books on the subject than anyone would care to read, from the angry to the academic.

But Scott McLellan’s version — the inside story — poses more questions than provides answers. It makes me wonder why the White House press corps put up with this faux briefing charade, playing along with a wink-wink, nod-nod, just like the way we play along with our children, pretending not to know they are hiding behind the curtain when their feet sticking under give them away.

They grill, they whine but that give people like McClellan a pass, ultimately. See how former press secretary Tony Snow stonewalls a seemingly unrelenting press who seem to know they will get non-answers. Dana Perino the present voice at the podium (once referred to as “the Doogie Howser of press secretaries”) does a terrible job of explaining what the president knew or did not know, but she carries on, and she gets a pass too.

The ‘revelation’ that the White House has a PR, marketing and messaging problem, is part of a larger problem. We let things slide, too. The lessons for us?

1. This malady of saying something without really saying something has infected corporate and political life far greater than we admit. What Jay Rosen accurately “strategic non-communication” which lives on. It is the PR creep that invades the stories and should not be tolerated.

2. PR should aspire to being more than a “propaganda machine.” People can spot the man behind the curtain, even if his feet are not sticking out!

3. “Selling of the positive and pushing back of the negative,” as Jon Stewart observed (about another book of White House’s decision to go to war by Douglas Feith) should not be on our job description, and is not an euphemism for marketing and advertising. (Isn’t that what Toxic sludge is good for you was all about?)

4. If you don’t agree to be the official spokesperson (the jerk at the podium, as someone uncharitably called McClellan) you could, you know, resign.

Wikipedians debate Hillary as clock ticks

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“Presidential candidates are big boys (and a big girl), and they get tough treatment in the media because they are trying to get a very powerful, very important job. We don’t overprotect them on Wikipedia just as the U.S. media and international media don’t protect them.”

There’s an interesting discussion going on (at late as 2.40 pm today) on the edit pages of Wikipedia. As the clock ticks for the presumptive candidate who has all but conceded, it’s interesting to see how those who manage and defend brand Clinton duke it out. Whether you disagree with the biases and inaccuracies or not, you just cannot ignore the Wiki effect.

Gaming and the job maket

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Gaming is not what it used to be. Video games, once considered a way to rob your time are getting a lot more respect. It’s less about hacking and programming, and more about collaborating and communicating.

Says an article at the BBC:

“It’s becoming increasingly common for gamers to list things like running World Of Warcraft guilds in their applications, and increasingly common for employers to recognise the organisational, managerial and inter-personal skills such experience brings.”

At the Decision Theater, we are working with UAT (University of Advanced Technology) in Phoenix to build tools in advanced decision making. Yes we need the type of person who has the organizational / inter-personal makeup. UAT offers a Master’s degree in game production, and they note that the job market includes corporate publishing, advertising and education, and that ‘being a lone wolf’ and having a big ego is not not a qualification. They also suggest:

“Do not come to this school expecting to play video games the whole time. Just like reading a novel doesn’t teach you to write, playing games doesn’t qualify you to make them. What it takes is a mixture of knowledge, dedication, and the ability to work as part of a team.”

Quotes for the week ending 31 May, 2008

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“It sounded like a Vegas slot machine. My computer was just going ding ding ding.”

Veronica McGregor, a former NASA correspondent for CNN, on the number of ‘followers’ of her tweets. McGregor micro-blogged on Twitter on behalf of $420 million Phoenix Mars Lander, and had nearly 10,000 followers as the Lander touched down on Mars.

“I have had enough of political correctness.”

Richard Barnbrook, of the British National party, on a blog in the Telegraph, blaming immigrants and the Labour Party.

“I’m viewing FriendFeed as a “best of” collection of my friends’ online content.”

Bryan Person, on the ‘social aggregator’ FriendFeed that pulls in feeds from blogs, Flickr, delicious, and Google.

“It’s absolutely true that the Web site and the newspaper are not synchronized. I say that’s a good thing.”

Jonathan Landman, Deputy Managing Editor or New York Times, responsible for the paper’s digital journalism talking of the difference between a great web experience and a great newspaper experience.

“The individual, the company, the nation that is best at avoiding distractions in the future will have an enormous advantage in the competitive marketplace.”

MIke Elgan, on “Is there a cure for the distraction virus” about how these internet-based ‘agents of distraction’ (Facebook, YouTube, Slashdot, Drudge etc) are causing huge productivity losses and what it means.

“Now inside a web page, you’ll be able to fly through San Francisco or see a 3D model of a cabin with exactly the view out the window of the mountains.”

Google’s Paul Rademacher on its 3D visualization capability of Google Earth.

“When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you…”

Sharon Stone, whose controversial comments at the Cannes Film Festival about China’s earthquake, became her own bad karma.

“He’s gone; the policy—strategic non-communication—may still be in place.”

Jay Rosen, analyzing the tell-all book by the ‘jerk at the podium,’ president Bush’s former press secretary Scott McClellan.

Death of a journalist, a painful obit

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Journalists are a tough breed. They put up with a lot, and the worst part of it right now is that (unless they are media critics) that they have to write about every other industry but their own that’s going through a huge upheaval. “Newspapers are still far from dead, but the language of the obituary is creeping in,” said the 2008 ‘State of the News Media Report‘ at Journalism.org.

The story of Chris Page, a Mesa journalist and theater critic is a sad obituary on the profession. He was found dead. He had recently moved from the beat of art critic to online journalism, but was recently laid off, said his former employer, the East Valley Tribune.

Online journalism, apart from media itself, is in the thoes of change and reinvention. Newsrooms are being rejiggered overnight with the impact of ‘networked journalism,’ interactive media, and the inroads into news distribution from new technologies.

But the fact remains: we still need boots on the ground, and smart people who cover the story be it about culture, economics, sports, or politics with more depth, not less. Society infatuated by Google search results and “measurement” doesn’t place enough value on these boots and these beats that feed our newsreaders and our online ‘papers.’ Dedicated, award winning professionals like Chris will be surely missed.

Honda’s live TV ad demonstrates what?

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I often state that I am turned off when a company tries to make an ad out of a logo, because it demonstrates (a) that the strategy is based on an inflated sense of the mark, and (b) an assumption that we consumers have this great love affair with a company’s name and logo.

This execution from Honda Accord in the UK is admirable, because it tries to demonstrate the tagline (“The power of dreams”) and the slogan “Difficult is worth doing” using not the logo but the brand name.

What was unusual was that this TV ad was broadcast live yesterday at 8.10 PM on Channel 4, using 16 skydivers who form the five letters H-O-N-D-A during a free fall. Before the ad ran, an announcer prefaced it by calling it a ‘live break.’

But while this is entertaining, un-commercial like, and creates some buzz, what exactly does it demonstrate about the car? That difficult challenges are something you could overcome while driving an Accord? It doesn’t compare it to other stunts such as Adidas’ Imposible is nothing work on the vertical face of buildings (during the Olympics). To me it seemed more like “Honda is so cool, we thought you’d skip the bathroom break and see our name in the clouds.”

Speed versus accuracy in “continuous” journalism*

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We have broached this topic here before, talking of grammar and accuracy. In the world of journalism this comes up a lot, and the deputy manager of New York Times’ digital journalism addresses this well.

The need to scoop, to deliver news as it breaks and the expectation of accuracy butts heads in a medium that has two formats, or two delivery systems. Very interesting insight by Jonathan Landman into how the Times juggle datelines, feedback and the challenge of ‘synchronizing’ both products.

In a previous piece Landman talked about a “continuous news” reporter, which is no different from the experience of communicators in other fields. No story is static, so whether it’s a press release or a microsite, I find myself in the continuous news mode.

*Cross posting from ValleyPRBlog.com

Foreign policy flourishes in social media

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I am a frequent reader of the State department’s blog, Dipnote, that attempts to give a human angle to foreign policy -beyond the press releases, official statements and ‘code words’ we have come to know so well.

Dipnote links to an @Google interview with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and her British counterpart David Miliband (a MIT graduate who happens to have his own YouTube channel, and blog.) This interview is hosted on …YouTube. Suddenly foreign policy via social media doesn’t look so dry.

Rice makes an excellent, passionate albeit slightly flawed analysis of Iraq; between her and Miliband, you get a sense that this is the kind of discourse we (and the world) missed in the last eight years. I’m not saying that social media made this happen, but without doubt these discussions were stifled by the old media that only permitted slogans and sound bites. Only at a venue like this could she say that “we are not, as a government, ever going to ‘improve’ the image of America.” That’s what the people of America do best, she concedes. Which is another way of saying that the government should not be in the business of image building.

The new managing editor of Dipnote, Luke Forgeson, calls the blog the online version of a town hall meeting. As Miliband observes elsewhere, “diplomats need to reach out beyond governments to talk to people – at home and around the world.”

Analog social networks still relevant, robust

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Alex, Jose, AaronLong live analog networks!

That’s the feeling I got after attending two graduation ceremonies this month at Brophy and NAU. It confirmed my belief that networks belonging to the much derided ‘analog’ era are not about to lose their mojo. The more I write about and inhabit social networks, the more I am convinced of this. Just because we can and do upload our photos to Flickr and Picasa, and just because we can program our phones to ping us when someone writes on our Facebook Wall doesn’t mean our digital lives are superior.

Here’s the set up: At Northern Arizona University, the commencement ceremony was streamed live off the school web site, but the bleachers were jam packed. At Brophy, at my son’s high school graduation on Saturday, the group of giddy high-schoolers seated in front of us continued to take photos of themselves on camera phones, announcing “Myspace picture!” “Smile, you’re on Facebook!” etc. Damn digital natives, huh? Not quite. The reality of it was, this ‘band of sisters’ invested three hours in an overcrowded gymnasium to witness an analog event and cheer on their friends. Uploading those analog moments onto their social networks was only ancillary to being there.

Analog is the glue. The ‘band of brothers’ theme was a strong theme at the Brophy event with many speakers –faculty, the valedictorian etc– giving credit to that human dimension of the four years gone by. This, in a school that has all but replaced text books with tablet PCs! Yesterday at home, these digital natives were not geeking out over an Xbox game, or bluetoothing each other pictures from their camera phones. Instead they indulged in something involving old fashioned analog tools of pencils and paper: A game of Pictionary!