Posts Tagged ‘alastair campbell’
Bad news sells. Is social media changing this?
February 12th, 2010
This week I caught an interview with Alastair Campbell on ITV’s Loose Women, promoting his new book Maya. Within the interview Campbell (who formerly wrote for the Daily Mirror) suggested that social networking is inverting the core principle of newspaper journalism, i.e. bad news sells, and replacing it with a more balanced view of the world.
In my view he’s right. Traditionally we might have bought our favourite tabloid or broadsheet on the way to work, or selected the paper with the most grabbing front page headline. Pre-social media, we’d have been blissfully unaware of how our intake of news was being controlled by an editorial agenda that dictates bad news sells. Journalists are trained in how to tease out of any story an angle that conveys fear, sex, drama etc. A story that simply reports ‘good news’ would never get past any half-decent news editor.
Today however, ’social’ media means that we have access to news that has not been written by journalists or broadcasters. Many high profile bloggers have no journalist training, and so take a much fresher, unbiased approach to news reporting.
Websites such as Delicious and Digg enable people to bookmark and share content from the highest profile blog through to the most obscure and niche. It’s human nature to want to share good news, and so with no motivation to ’sell’, those consuming news through social sites are likely to be faced with more ‘good’ news that then would have been traditionally.
This is good news for brands and the PR industry as a whole. It makes it more possible for a brand to communicate its good news, and if it is liked by its community, the news will be shared. This doesn’t remove the need for a strong news hook, but that hook can now be a positive one.
PR Observations on a Week in Politics
January 15th, 2010
It’s been a heavy week in politics, particularly from a PR standpoint. I thought it might be interesting to summarise my observations…
1. The Government’s apology to thalidomide survivors was delivered yesterday by Health Minister Mike O’Brien. It marked a big moment for victims of the 1950’s drug disaster in which pregnant women were severely affected as a result of having taken the drug for medical conditions such as morning sickness. It caused severe abnormalities in their babies, many of whom died within months of being born.
It’s taken 50 years for the Government to publicly take the blame, taking crisis management to a whole new level. Some however have questioned why the statement was delivered by a junior government minister - surely a British regulatory failure should be handled by no other than the most senior of spokespeople?
2. DUP leader Peter Robinson stepped down as Northern Ireland’s First Minister for six weeks to allow for an official investigation into his conduct surrounding his wife’s private life and finances. Robinson has completely rejected allegations that he knew about the £50,000 that his wife obtained from two developers for her teenage lover but did not tell the proper authorities.
Stepping aside can be a useful, temporary PR tactic, but opinion remains divided over whether an ‘innocent’ verdict will restore public confidence. Six weeks is a long time in politics, particularly amid a political crisis over devolution of policing and justice powers.
The DUP’s decision to publicly support Robinson is a brave one, and one they may live to regret. Jim Allister, the leader of Traditional Unionist Voice, commented: “The damage done to the Robinson brand is transferred to the DUP brand by such unequivocal support.”
3. Alastair Campbell’s appearance at the Iraq Inquiry once again begged the quesion why a communications man became so heavily involved in British Intelligence, including being involved in the writing of the WMD dossier. Don’t ever underestimate the power of a PR man (or woman!).
It’s been Campbell’s word against the former head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, demonstrating the power a few words can hold. James Kirkup’s posts on the subject over at the Telegraph blog are well worth a read.