TRIBUNE -- The first column in the Sunday Tribune magazine opens with a salvo against PR professionals who are engaged by the health services sector in Ireland. "That our hospitals even see fit to employ public relations staff, from public money, is an absolute scandal."
OJR -- JD Lasica raises some interesting points about full disclosure in the context of blogging. If you are paid a company to write about a topic, should you disclose this fact to readers? What if you receive a product or a junket from the company--does that need to be disclosed to readers as well? Lasica explores these topics in a well-written essay for Online Journalism Review.
SMART MOBS -- We revisit Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs [ISBN 0738208612] during our Public Relations seminar session today. This year, we will unpack the book through first sentences in each chapter.
INDEPENDENT -- One of the effects of a well-oiled spin campaign is the effect it has on the accuracy of the message. This is happening to the British government's chief scientific adviser who claims American lobbyists are trying to discredit his view that man-made pollution is being global warming.
NATTERJACKPR -- As Tom Murphy points out, the basics of PR are "concerned with the most effective means of reaching and communicating with relevant audiences. Along with traditional avenues from townhall meetings to flyers, press releases, editorial and analyst meetings, new outlets such as search engines and blogs are providing additional channels for a growing number of companies." But what if those new channels are noisy, prompting readers to filter them?
CLONMEL -- We have an on-going discussion pertaining to the tendency of both the government and the press to spin things as they explain things. The discussion also relates to events in Iraq. In the case of Donald Rumsfeld meeting a question from a deployed soldier that asked why the armor plating was inadequate, many American press sources make up an event instead of exploring the issue.
CLONMEL -- In our lecture on public relations in education, part of our focus turns to the specific theme of ICT in education. It's important to note how effective public relations often softly sells a product or service. In the case of selling ICT in education, too much can hurt the message. This realisation is supported in current publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor.
REUTERS -- In what could be hailed as a PR move, U2 announced that it spotted tracks from its newest album on the internet nearly two weeks before the official release date. For what it's worth, that means the tracks went into the wild around one week after radio stations received the CD. Mainstream Irish presenters often play tracks a month before they're officially released (oops!) and they don't generate as much publicity as U2 has garnered since revealing the master CD from its French recording session went missing two months ago.
GLOBAL PR BLOG WEEK -- The first Global PR Blog Week recently concluded and produced a stack of notes that I have to integrate into lesson materials for PR331, the college PR course I teach. I'll be meeting with Tom Murphy to share some of these reflections but in the meantime, I have some important discourse to consider from our online session.
GLOBAL PR WEEK -- Even though the week-long Global PR Week finished last Friday, the remnants provide essential reading for anyone in the PR industry. Although blog posts have throttled back and the traffic count no longer registers in the thousands, the site deserves a careful reading by PR professionals. In the words of Hans Kullin, the current "quiet is the new loud." I've marked some threads I would consider to be "essential reading."
