I don’t know Sarah Soczka, but if I ever meet her, I’m going to buy her a beer. Sarah is the unwitting victim of the “watch what you say online” crowd, specifically one Jeff Bentoff, APR, of Bentoff, LLC from Wisconsin. Bentoff writes in the June issue of the Public Relations Society of America’s TACTICS newsletter about “A cautionary Twitter tale: Young professional learns a tweet lesson.”

Bentoff details the story of how Soczka wrote a brief and, in my opinion, relatively milquetoast blog post on her own blog, and presumably on her own time, about why Newshub (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) is better than BizJournalMke (Milwaukee Business Journal). She was clear to say the post and her blog and Twitter account represent her own views.

Nevertheless, Bentoff writes:

“Her blog posting might have gone unnoticed, but bringing attention to it via Twitter was like throwing birdseed into a bird’s nest.

“Only 10 minutes after Soczka posted to her Twitter account, the Journal Sentinel’s main Twitter writer retweeted the item and headline to its many followers.”

Bentoff admits that Soczka was correct in her post, and he makes efforts to praise her as “a social media natural” … “who is fluent and comfortable with the tools.” His tone ends up as chastising, however, and what he does to Soczka next is a classic case of shooting the messenger.

He recounts:

“The twittering crescendo quickly reached the ears of Mark Kass, the Milwaukee Business Journal’s editor. Kass said that his first reaction was, ‘Who is she, and why did she do this?’ He added that he agreed with the points that she made on her blog, but was disappointed that she hadn’t contacted him before posting. Kass said that had she done so, he would have explained that his paper had started tweeting two weeks before and had already made plans for reporter tweets in the style Soczka advocated for.”

Kass’ initial, ad hominem reaction of “Who is she?” is alarming coming from someone in the news business. The news media regularly defends itself as reporters of information against those who blame journalists for the impact of putting out the news and commentary. That’s what basically what Soczka was doing: commenting on the use of social media by newbs, ineffective use of social media being so omnipresent that it’s a wonder Soczka wasn’t harsher. For Kass’ first response to be of the shoot-the-messenger variety puts his own credibility in question.

Next, there is no reason whatsoever that Soczka should have contacted the Milwaukee Business Journal prior to posting. Commentary legitimately does not require letting parties have a “fair” say prior to publication. The news media certainly wouldn’t do this; why should a blogger? Kass’ response is more about his own ego than about anything Soczka wrote.

What happens next is even more telling. Back to Bentoff:

“Kass said that he didn’t think Soczka was fair with her comments in comparing a new Twitter feed with a mature one. After hearing about the tweets, Kass also contacted Soczka’s supervisor and the three of them met so that he could explain the Business Journal’s plans to her.”

Let’s get this straight. Kass expects to be notified before anyone writes something potentially negative about his use of Twitter but then goes to the messenger’s supervisor, who has nothing to do with this issue, so he can “explain” his social media plan?

There is only one reason that Kass approached Soczka’s supervisor and that was to put her on notice. It was a veiled threat and a way for him to put the practitioner in her proper place with a subtext that says, “How dare you criticize me.”

Put another way: Reporters frequently don’t extend polite courtesies to PR people (I have vivid memories of being verbally bullied by a belligerent, screaming reporter leveling all sorts of his personal allegations at me on one occasion, along with a number of other examples), and its erroneous to assume that kissing reporters’ asses will get you very far. Prompt, polite responses, useful information, access to the right sources, yes. Gratuitous niceties, no.

Lest we forget: Journalists in general consider PR people a necessary evil. Anyone who has been in the business awhile, especially in public sector communications, knows it’s not uncommon for an “official” perspective to be looked upon with far more scrutiny than, say, that of an accuser, protester or any other kind of agitator. This all in fairness, of course.

This situation raises another critical point that gets little attention; the change in culture as a consequence of social media. Social media reduces the need for a middleman and conversations are open to the world. While this means caution should be exercised, it also means there is an emerging acceptance and acknowledgement of online behavior previously viewed as taboo, behaviors that arise because of the nature of who we are as humans and because this is how we now communicate.

In addition, the public relations profession mandates the free flow of information. Nowhere to date but in social media can this happen so effectively. The free flow of information also means not all information is first created equal and, second, will be interpreted the same way among publics. Because of this, along with the reality that PR people are blogging all over the place, we finally get to voice our concerns, perspectives and opinions. This is something to be celebrated, especially in an industry that prior to new media had far less of a voice. Bloggers are supposed to be provocative; PR people should weigh in on the effective use of media, even if they are critical. We’ve tolerated enough of the cheeky, third-grade level pedantic commentary from our local media sources. It’s time we had our say.

On the flipside, there’s plenty of room for outlining consequences and, most importantly, developing skills for handling inevitable crises and controversies. The problem isn’t that controversies arise; the problem is how they are frequently mishandled. Sure, PR people should be vigilant about what they say online and elsewhere, but it’s a basic error to attempt to enforce a bogus professional morality in professions – news reporting, PR – that inherently don’t play by the same rules and do not extend mutually equitable courtesies.

Sarah Soczka: You deserve a raise. The main thing you need to be vigilant about is which of the anachronistic views that come your way are actually worth a listen. Keep blazing trails, my friend.

POSTSCRIPT

Just before hitting publish, I went to the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Twitter account. True to Soczka’s original criticism posted in February, the Business Journal’s Twitter follows nobody and merely posts news back to its own site. It has 671 followers. If Kass agreed with Soczka’s point, as he claimed, it might behoove him to do something about it, like he said he was going to. I’m now even more baffled as to why Bentoff wrote this “cautionary tale” in the first place when Kass and the Business Journal, especially in contrast with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Twitter, are enacting what we involved with social media refer to as an “epic fail.”

[EDIT 1:41 p.m.: I was just informed that the Business Journal has a number of reporters who Twitter, including the editor, Mark Kass. Please consider this in the context of the above statement. I apologize for jumping the gun about the Journal's social media use without checking it out first. -Bob.]

As the New York Times navigates rough terrain with its employees – which include reporters for both the Times and the Boston Globe – a nice nugget appeared today on NPR’s Marketplace. Reporters, it seems, have become the story as they vote on negotiated pay cuts.

The story itself is worth a listen.

The reporter, Tess Vigeland, however, did a smart thing: She asked the story’s subject, Boston Globe reporter Scott Allen, what it’s like to become the story rather than reporting on it.

His response should be mandatory reading for all journalists who interact with PR personnel:

“I have a great deal more respect for public relation officials, than I did two or three months ago. It’s not a position that I want to be in. I’d like to get back to the business of writing down notes, and running the tape recorder myself instead of answering these questions. But it’s a really important story; it’s about not just the Boston Globe, but it’s about how are we in American are going to get our news and information, and it’s changing very rapidly. And right now a major American paper is on the brink, and it’s an important story. And I’m happy to play the role of source instead of reporter, even if it makes me uncomfortable (source).

Image: Scott Allen of the Boston Globe, retrieved from Marketplace.org.

A Summary of the Undercover Food Lion Story

The University of Nevada’s “J-week,” a series of cutting-edge journalism events running this week, is just about over. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend two lectures yesterday.

Lynne Dale, former reporter and producer from ABC’s Primetime Live, gave a tell-all account of going undercover at Food Lion grocery stores in the early 1990s. In her presentation, she outlined how ABC began receiving complaints about employee mistreatment and poor handling of meat products at various grocery stores in the chain.

Dale ultimately went undercover for two weeks with a hidden video camera and documented employees engaged in unsanitary meat handling and repackaging of out-of-date meat. The crux of the investigation, she said, was that Food Lion employees were systematically pressured to maintain a certain level of profit and performance. If unattainable, the employees were fired.

So, despite printed company policies and what appeared to be a lack of appropriate training in safe food handling procedures, employees maximized profits with purposeful repackaging and recycling old meat into new products, such as sausage.

From a journalistic point of few, the story was a slam-dunk.

“I was very single-minded,” Dale said. “Document it, prove it.”

Legally, however, the story became a battleground as Food Lion took ABC to court, not for libel but for Dale’s hidden documentation (fraud), trespass and breach of duty of loyalty.

Tellingly, Dale admitted, Food Lion fought its battle against ABC in the press. ABC took the legal high road and ignored its own public relations by staying mute about the accusations and case, which dragged on for years.

The result: “ABC lost in the court of public opinion,” Dale said.

Legally, ABC ultimately “won.” While Food Lion won the case on some technicalities and was awarded nominal damages, the victory was questionable. Perhaps most notably, the case had legal implications for undercover stories of this sort for years to come. Food Lion now has the authority to prevent undercover videotaping at its stores.

So too does ABC. During the Q-and-A portion of the presentation, one question I posed was: “If someone were to go undercover with a hidden video camera into the Primetime Live newsroom, what might we see?”

Dale’s response was adequate – that the newsroom has built-in accountability for fairness with attorneys and others to evaluate story balance. Her reply also fell flat because she failed to admit that ABC, like any other business, will inherently have internal problems.

There’s no organization on the planet that doesn’t have some element of dysfunction, disgruntled employees, people jockeying for higher positions, backstabbing and so on.

In the audience was Gene Grabowski of Levick Strategic Communications, who is a crisis communications consultant (and who gave a stellar presentation after Dale’s). He pointed out that ABC has a “no videotaping” policy at its gate.

“You mean ABC’s newsroom isn’t transparent?” I asked him.

“Of course not,” he replied with a smile.

Most importantly, though, I asked Dale, if, at any point, Food Lion apologized and vowed to tighten up procedures.

The answer, sadly, was no.

RENO BLOGGERS L-R: Ryan “Mr. Jerz” Jerz, (not visible) Ron “Local So & So,” Mike “Mike My Words” McDowell, Mike “I Am Indisposed” Henderson, Jim Scripps, Danielle Marie Henderson, me and Andrew (?). Photo by Mike “Reno Third Eye” Jamieson.     

[NOTE: This week’s soundtrack is CIVIL WAR by Dillinger 4.]

Man am I feeling like I have been punched repeatedly. This week has been an amazing ride. Here are a few highlights for no other reason than to get some stuff off of my chest and hopefully entertain the three of you who may read this.

1. The week began with notification of two of four proposals getting accepted for the Nevada Interactive Media summit to be held at the University of Nevada on March 7. I’ll be discussing – and hopefully gaining feedback on – DCNR’s social media efforts. My friend and colleague, Ronele Klingensmith, and I will also be talking about how social media presents unconventional opportunities for public relations strategies – with, I hope, some cautions explored since social media appears to abused to death by marketers, “experts” and “consultants.” I was happy to hear any of my proposals got accepted considering that I have been a vocal critic of the event, primarily because of its perceived lack of transparency, organization and the event’s decision makers appearing unfamiliar with and disengaged from Nevada’s new media efforts. Needless to say, some of my criticisms have been off the mark; some though, I think were spot-on. In any case, it is going to be a good event, likely with some informative and lively discussions. The event dovetails nicely on a week of intelligent journalistic discussion.

By way of disclosure, here are the two proposals that did not get accepted: here and here. Anyone attending who would like the five minutes versions of these, feel free to hit me up at the event or head out to beers afterwards; although, I will likely not run the data on the Twitter Vote Report since the need is questionable, and I think the point has already been adequately made about the TVR.

2. On Tuesday I unwittingly discovered my local daily’s site had been hacked. In perusing my news feeds, I came across a curious headline, which appeared to have been up for days, from one of the paper’s online sister publications: “Reformed nerd, broom-stick squatter registers as sex offender.” The story was equally amusing. Enter Twitter. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up, and I first posted a short-link of story asking the paper if the story was a joke. Using tr.im, I was able to track in real time how many people continued to click on the story via Twitter, as sundry characters, me included, helped to keep the story alive via replies and re-tweets. It was a good (and amusing) opportunity to put to test a local, viral phenomenon. At the end of day, before the story was pulled, at least 160 clicks to the article were made after only being posted on Twitter. Perhaps most importantly, though, I had a very nice conversation with the paper’s online news editor (Kelly, if you’re reading this, beers are on me since I undoubtedly helped to make your life hell for an afternoon) and hope to meet with her soon about the future of online news and other topics.

3. I was barraged with media calls at work this week that actually began the week prior. Everything from rural newspapers and major metropolitan television news to the L.A. Times … we’re getting a lot of interest at the moment. I’m trying to keep up.

4. On Thursday evening, during a very long hearing at the legislature, I got word that my V.A. (virtual assistant), who unexpectedly disappeared without a trace in early January — something that caused me considerable headaches for about two weeks until I could find a suitable replacement (thank you, Shelli!) — was in fact in jail for credit card fraud. Double wow! And it’s not the first time. An anonymous email sent to me had links to arrest records from January and from 1999, also for credit card fraud. I responded back that for what it was worth, my VA had been quite good to me – professional, timely and generally effective. She was always pleasant on the phone and I even recommended her to a colleague in Las Vegas. I’m fortunate that I set up alternate email and phone accounts for my VA – which I still have control over – so that my own are separate and intact. My finances appear secure; however, my wife’s credit card received an unauthorized charge in early January. We were able to quickly handle it and were not liable for the money. I’m not saying there’s a connection, but it is the first time we’ve been hacked as it were, and it would be a fascinating, and disappointing, coincidence if the two were related. Needless to say, in hindsight I’m glad I’ve kept my VA accounts separate. Another lesson learned: I need a back up VA service just in case something else comes up in the future.

5. I gave an over-the-phone presentation to Nevada’s Rangeland Resources Commission to obtain funding for a project about one of Nevada’s most visible rural issues. I received excellent questions from the commission and am keeping my fingers crossed that the project is approved. My intention: to give a voice to rural interests about a problem that is driven in the media too much by activists and others with questionable expertise. I am having to keep this project separate from work since it is too unrelated to what we do, which that means I’ve taken leave and so on. If approved, the rest of 2009 will likely be very busy for me as this project evolves.

6. I attended the second monthly Reno blogger dinner on Wednesday. Since this blog rarely deals with local or even statewide issues I’m not sure my participation is really necessary; at the same time, my friends are involved and my interest in blogging is what keeps me engaged. It was nice to put faces to screen names, meet new folks and hear in person what others are doing. Ironically, there’s some tension and unease among blogging personalities which is apparently keeping some folks at bay. My perhaps idealistic view on this is that despite differences, however vast they may be at times, it is nice to sit down at the end of the day over beers. It’s easy to take potshots online – of which the most noted are delivered equally back and forth – but adherence to so-called new media is silly if it is allowed to get in the way of looking one another in the eye.

7. I’m now looking forward to a restful weekend.

I used to have a negative reaction when I heard or read about news journalists harping on why journalism schools should get rid of public relations emphases.

I couldn’t quite figure out why until recently. At first, I vehemently disagreed with the notion, usually adopting the knee-jerk attitude of painting these journalists as arrogant and holier-than-thou, which, frankly, is what this view is borne from – the oft exhibited air of superiority of their profession, an attitude news journalists have in common with PR folk.

But I’ve come to agree with the prospect of public relations becoming less journalism oriented and more business focused.

Here’s why:

1. Public relations is inherently a business function in most organizations, usually broadly defined as a communications role of some sort, often comingled with, under or above marketing functions. Moreover, if the PR person is “at the table,” it can effectively be argued that PR is indeed a management function. This alone has little or nothing to do with news journalism.

2. Journalism skills needed by public relations students can be obtained usually with about a year and half’s worth of journalism courses – with one major exception, the constant need to improve writing skills, something business students sorely lack – news writing, editing, reporting and so on. In other words, these courses can be taken regardless of whether the PR sequence resides within a journalism or business college.

3. PR skills combine good writing with good business practices, such as setting goals, writing plans and engaging with audiences. News reporters are often antagonistic toward what are really the newsroom profit margins – the sales, marketing, advertising and other business functions.

4. Public relations as a symmetrical communications function is hand-in-glove suited for the evolution of online, social media. News reporting, on the other hand, is too often asymmetrical in nature, with reporters not being trained, nor encouraged, to engage in two-way dialogue.

5. Public relations professionals are (slowly, at times) embracing and celebrating new media. The latest issues of the PRSA newsletter were ripe with social media articles and Twitter was a front page feature.

6. The news journalism paradigm, meanwhile, is suffering under the onslaught of the increased democratization of communication by the masses – Craigslist, which has single-handedly decimated newspaper classified advertising, is a favorite example – as we witness news institutions going bankrupt, suffering mass layoffs and being forced to be online-only. Some other examples of this: A reporter once complained to me about being trained in the newsroom on how to podcast. “I don’t want to podcast,” he said in disgust. And: Amazingly, my alma mater still has a “print journalism” sequence, from which I graduated in 1995 when online conservations were already a norm. The school was still doing wax paste-ups when I was there too. I had to ask special permission to do my page layouts in Pagemaker and on computer. And one professor was still referring to computer monitors as cathode ray tubes.

7. Public relations hiccups at considering bloggers and self-anointed journalists as valid outlets, but PR pros are getting it and rather quickly – or they are facing public ridicule when they do not.

8. Journalists, on the other hand, are still figuring out where they fit into the scenario [Edit 12/30/08: here's a good example] and some continue to be hostile to bloggers, seeing them as competition and refusing to link to their content when it is the bloggers, unencumbered by news-room structures and pressures, who are breaking stories left and right and thereby driving the temper of news today.

9. Good public relations does not value media placement as much as it used to. We are instead relying more on our own blogs and a mix of other outlets to target our core audiences.

10. Finally, and most importantly, the reason for moving PR out of journalism and into business schools is that it serves as an important career lesson for news reporting students. Consider it: If, say, advertising and PR sequences constitute 50 percent of all journalism students, and these students were to be moved into a business school, the associated resources would fairly go with them. These would include the full time faculty, the part time faculty, the endowments designated for PR and advertising and an equitable share of non-designated endowments and other resources, such as computers, professional journals and so on.

Journalism schools would become shells of their former selves, just as newsrooms are today. The real-world lesson would therefore be priceless for those seeking news reporting degrees and careers.

A new era is waiting. Let’s begin.

My list of pet peeves about journalists:

1. Lack of homework, or any attempt at doing homework, about the topic at hand. This is more true for television journalists. I quite often take calls at the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources where questions asked are easily answered with readily available information on our Web site. It’s usually clear the reporter hasn’t even bothered to begin to explore the information out there and instead want it to be spoon fed to them.
2. Creating illusory correlations (as in connect-the-dots journalism) and not understanding the difference between correlation and causation. Along with this, a lack of understanding about statistics in general. Too often, reporters turn one or two anecdotal sources of information into headline stories when, in reality, the “story” is one person’s often misguided opinion.
3. Drawing inappropriate conclusions based on given information. These conclusions tend to favor the “little guy”– and/or seek to heighten controversy — and tend to smear the larger entity, usually a corporation or government agency. This happens far too frequently (witness AP’s story about “drugs in the water,” which was fear-mongering journalism at its worst).

My list of great things journalists do that make life easier:

1. Calling well ahead of deadlines for information.
2. Being human. Seriously: A dose of humor or the sharing of information about one’s self goes a long way. I spoke with a reporter recently who overheard my background music and said, “I love that band!”
3. Approaching stories fairly and without an ax to grind. When a reporter is fair in his or her approach, and it shows in the end story, I consider this to be an honorable person to work with — whether or not my organization takes a hit in the piece.

Lest we forget, the ‘public’ in public relations refers to the constituents to which we are accountable.

So it irks me to hear about my colleagues who use their public relations positions to attempt to mold and control news stories to bizarre degrees. (When I was in a past position being encouraged to do the same, I couldn’t have felt more unclean.) Such attempts in fact translate as the authoritarian, “we know best” stance, which on the face of it, is just as arrogant as journalists who believe they also know what’s best for the public at large.

Consider: Both news journalists and public relations personnel constitute fairly measurable demographics. In PR, pros tend to be college-educated, (white) women of middle socioeconomic classes. News reporters tend to be college-educated white men from middle socioeconomic classes. Neither group reliably represents society as a whole yet both see fit to speak for us all. Remarkably.

For public relations, this phenomenon is in part manifested by the apparent and fundamental philosophical stance taken when one is representing one’s organization.

At a recent gathering of communications professionals, we each gave an update on our respective organizations. Half of the room was happy-go-lucky, talking only of the wonderful things their organizations are doing despite the fact that Nevada’s economy, like the rest of the nation’s, is in the shitter, which has resounding consequences on all fronts, including drastic impacts on our personnel and constituents. We all knew where the shit was sticking (we do read the paper, after all), but you wouldn’t know it by the spin being spun among the spinsters.

Fortunately, the other half of the room was more honest and discussed some of their challenges (I opened my three minutes by mentioning that we recently, and tragically, fished a body from the waters of one of our state parks.)

The latter half of the group was refreshingly more genuine primarily because of their honesty. By visibly acknowledging the elephants in the room, these folks end up being more credible sources for their publics and the news media. Social psychology research in fact validates the openness of shortcomings as a credibility builder.

So when spending time with, for example, a television news crew, guess which members of the above groups are mentioned as “good PIOs” when I have the fortune of hanging all day with such a news crew? The opportunity is a tremendous public relations learning experience. In spending that much time with in-the-trench reporters, which I occasionally get to do, I am quickly reminded of which practices go over well with the news media and which do not.

I’ve said it before: Good media relations is accommodating perhaps to a fault; poor media relations is fairly transparent and will become public very quickly. Amazingly, the poor practices are beyond basic in my book — and fairly commonplace.

I’m ashamed, though it wasn’t at all a surprise to me, to hear of my colleagues’ far-too frequent infractions, such as micro-managing what the news cameraman is allowed to shoot — well beyond reasonable expectations. Or forgetting to call back a news station after major news develops, only moments after talking to said news station. Or trying to insist nothing of importance is going on when SWAT-team members are on the roof of your organization’s building.

And so on.

I’ll be tweeting live tomorrow from the Tahoe backcountry on a media relations excursion (cell phone coverage depending, of course). A local TV news crew is doing a Lake Tahoe backcountry feature on horseback.

I’ll be tagging along and documenting it as we head from Spooner Lake to the grand vistas of the Sierras, which overlook both Lake Tahoe and the Reno/Carson areas.

Pics will be posted on the DCNR Flickr page hopefully by the end of the day. Please visit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevadadcnr/

Are you on Twitter? If not, you should be. Follow me here: www.twitter.com/nvbob.

So it’s not without some sense of irony when much of the background work done by both reporters and PR people never sees the light of day. One noted occurrence from my past: A reporter, hounding our organization for months on end, was convinced of inappropriate hiring practices based on the allegations of one individual. The story had promised to be published at any day until, one day, a barrage of questions in one email was passed on to me.

Answering each one of the reporter’s questions would have certainly been an exercise in writing one’s own headline in the next day’s newspaper. Instead, the response was short, direct and truthful, something along the lines of: “The individual was hired by a committee of his peers. You will have to ask the committee members why they chose this candidate.”

The story, which was said to be months of ‘fact-checking, evidence gathering’ and so on, never saw the light of day. While I can’t speculate on what happened in the newsroom, I can say that more than once–in fact, with some amount of regularity–much of what I get paid to do will never see the light of day because, confronted with irrefutable evidence, many stories only rest on speculation, allegation and faulty eye-witness accounts. They are, in other words, flimsy, unreliable and they contribute to why people in general do not trust the news media.

Killing story lines, then, is a recurring strategy invoked by PR people in order to salvage, ultimately, the truth as they see it from their organization’s perspective. It is also why we get paid what we get paid (not bad, not great). It is also why our results are often intangible.

And it contributes to why we are so often misunderstood–some of our biggest successes are as much about what gets in the news as what doesn’t.

In case the point has not been drilled home

“As a VP in the PR industry, I’d like to suggest a few things to these journalists who like to throw a hissy fit….”

The point missing in this statement is the precedent behavior: PR folks spending a good amount of time and effort spamming journalists. The antecedent behavior is the journalists striking back. Rightfully so.

PR people have long been objects of derision, and now they are being publicly outed. This past week, Lifehacker went a step further by not only naming names in a new PR Spammers Wiki, but showing us how to block a very specific list of PR agencies–a lot of the big dogs are on the list–using my favorite email tool, Gmail. The irony is that Lifehacker is a site devoted to efficiently getting things done.

Here are a few responses. Overall some came out as being defensive, some apologetic and one hedged on being threatening.

• PR Squared
• socialTNT
• Stowe Boyd.