Successful Blog

  • Home
  • Community
  • About
  • Author Guidelines
  • Liz’s Book
  • Stay Tuned

Net Neutrality 5-29-2006

May 29, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

A Long Way From Done

Coming Soon: The Web Toll from Popular Science;

“Welcome to the brave new Web, brought to you by Verizon, Bell South, AT&T and the other telecommunications giants (including PopSci’s parent company, Time Warner) that are now lobbying Congress to block laws that would prevent a two-tiered Internet, with a fast lane for Web sites able to afford it and a slow lane for everyone else.‿

In a thought process straight from “the tunnel‿ Christopher Yoo, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, argues that “consumers should be willing to pay for faster delivery of content on the Internet, just as many FedEx customers willingly shell out extra for overnight delivery. ‘A regulatory approach that allows companies to pursue a strategy like FedEx’s makes sense,’ he says.‿ Of course he, along with so many others, have yet to answer the “charges‿ that the consumer HAS ALREADY PAID!!!

Adam Cohen drinks the Kool Aid

The New York Times isn’t what it used to be. Rocked by scandal over the made-up reporting of Jayson Blair, torn apart by the dramatic ouster of Howell Raines, and shaken-up by Judith Miller’s megaphoning the Bush Administration’s fantasies about Iraq’s nuclear program, it increasingly relies on sensationalized, drama-queen reporting and opinion to hold on to a piece of market share. The most recent example of the Times’ descent into rank hysteria is a column today by Adam Cohen on the pending destruction of the World Wide Web:

Save Free Speech on the Web from Corporate Greed

And here in America, the greed of the big corporations is just as likely to stifle true democracy and freedom as it is to encourage it. As has been pointed out, for example, a free press is only free to those who can afford to own the press. We’ve all witnessed the growing lack of diversity of opinion in the broadcast media, where one or two large corporations, like Channel One, have bought up most of the smaller, once independent radio stations across the nation. Local programming has fallen and so has the rich mix of different voices and divergent opinions that was once the hallmark of local radio.

Now, the Internet also is being threatened, as this article in today’s New York Times shows. The telecommunications conglomerates want to start charging fees for use of the Web. By charging fees, they would be creating a tiered system that would favor large commercial sites that could afford steep fees while marginalizing smaller, independent sites. Those who couldn’t afford the pricey fees would have access only to lower speeds or perhaps no access at all.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Filed Under: Community, SOB Business, Successful Blog, Trends Tagged With: adam_cohen, AT+T, bc, Bell_South, Channel_One, Christopher_Yoo, FedEx, Howell_Raines, Judith_Miller, Net_Neutrality, New_York_Times, Popular_Science, Time_Warner, Vanderbilt_University, Verizon

Edelman Aces PR, NY Times Fails Research

March 12, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Howie Kurtz writes about the nonflap the NY Times tried to stir up over Walmart and its PR company, Edelman, pitching their spin to bloggers

What’s not in dispute is that what was once dismissed as a pajama-clad brigade is becoming increasingly influential, to the point that giant companies have to worry about what they say.

Howie gives the bloggers the Times poked and prodded equal time to tell their stories (which includes the fact that the Times reporter doesn’t understand that a blockquote is our indication of taking an excerpt… except it’s not something we invented, it comes from academic practices).

—Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine, The flack flack

Wal-Mart Logo

Public Relations. It’s called public relations because that’s what it’s meant to do–establish relationships between companies and the public. Walmart needed some. They hired Edelman to help them tell their story by providing press releases. Edelman, as part of their effort, enlisted the help of bloggers to get the Walmart message out. Edelman belives in bloggers as a way of reaching people. In editorial, we call this creative thinking. Good firm, good strategy, good execution. Walmart and Edelman get an A in PR.

New York Times on the Web

At the New York Times, however, they didn’t think of it as PR or as creativity. They were looking for a story–with bloggers involved, maybe a scandal. Would it have been a scandal if the writers were small-town newpaper journalists? I don’t think so. You’ll notice The Times tells the story of one blogger weaving in bits about a second making a pile of details sound representative of a large group–but the size of the group isn’t defined. Then sweeping generalizations come. To quote from the article, Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in PR Campaign, written by Michael Barbaro,

But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.

But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.

Some bloggers? How many is some? I wonder.

Some bloggers posted them without telling their audience was that a scandal, a mistake,or an innocent lack of knowledge on the part of someone who’s being called an amateur when it’s convenient, but not today?

As a number of people have pointed out, however, bloggers are far from the first people in media to do this. (Dan Gilmor has a good overview of the controversy.) People say all the time that Mainstream Media cover various corporations or government initiatives as if they were just reproducing press releases. What about the Video News Releases, stories planted in the Iraqi press, or a quarter million dollars for favorable coverage of No Child Left Behind?
says Marshall Kirkpatrick in his piece When pitched bloggers go bad: Walmart and the blogosphere

The question is one of knowing intent isn’t it? Knowing intent, in this case, should be considered both on the part of the blogger and on the part of the New York Times reporter–who failed to contact the numerous bloggers who had things to say such as this:

Yours truly is one of the people to which Mr. Barbaro is referring in this last paragraph. I have been “fed” some of these “exclusive nuggets” and have had topics suggested for posting. And though my blog was not mentioned in the Times article, I’d like make to make one thing clear: excluding this one, I have written 12 other posts on Wal-Mart in the last five months. I started writing them long before I knew about or heard from Wal-Mart’s PR firms.

Every one of those posts is original. That is to say, I picked the article, the theme, and everything that was written- every sentence and every word and every typo. I challenge Mr. Barbaro to find even one sentence in those 12 posts that was written first by someone else.

I also have a question or two. How is it that my blog escaped your notice? It is the number one blog in Technorati about Wal-Mart. It has a dozen highly original, detailed, and analytical posts on that firm, each of which averages over 700 words. It’s written by a former MIT professor whose dissertation and first published papers were about information technology in the retailing industry. I ask not out of concern for not having my blog included in the article but because of this: if you missed that, what else did you miss?
— David Starling, The Business of America Is Business

I have to say that the research on The New York Times article leaves a lot out there waiting to be brought forward. The story is much more fascinating than what actually made it into print–just as bloggers are.

Finally this from Rich Edelman’s own blog:

We are proud of our groundbreaking work in reaching out to blogs on behalf of our clients and proud of this work for Wal-Mart. I suspect our clients have benefited hugely from insights gleaned from dialogue with bloggers.
Here are three blog postings from people I know and respect discussing the issues raised in the NY Times article:
The first is from Paul Holmes, editor of the Holmes Report, a PR trade publication. The second is from Jeff Jarvis, a widely respected blogger considered a leader in blog standards. The third is from Dan Gillmor, author of “We The Media.” As always, I appreciate your views.

Update: Robert Scoble suggests blogging — not emailing — is the best way to reach bloggers.

THAT’S an example of someone who “GET’S IT.”

Blogger is starting to feel like it rhymes with “second-class” citizen.

Let’s hire Steve Rubel, a VP at Edelman, and ask him to do PR for bloggers as a group. Then the NY Times can write a piece called Bloggers Enlist Bloggers in PR Campaign.

I like the sound of that one much better.

But then I would.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
Gate Keepers v Amateurs by Jeff Jarvis
Mr. Glocer Don’t Spin Stories to My Fiends

Filed Under: Personal Branding, Strategy/Analysis, Successful Blog, Trends Tagged With: bc, bloggers, David_Starling, Jeff_Jarvis, Marshall_Kirkpatrick, New_York_Times, Rich_Edelman, Stevel_Rubel, Walmart

Recently Updated Posts

6 Keys to Managing Your Remote Workforce

9 Reasons To Use WordPress

Useful Marketing Tools That Wont Bust Your Budget

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Successful Blogger?

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Successful Blogger?

6 Tips for the Serial Side Hustler

How to Make Your Blog Popular



From Liz Strauss & GeniusShared Press

  • What IS an SOB?!
  • SOB A-Z Directory
  • Letting Liz Be

© 2023 ME Strauss & GeniusShared