Porn, vomit, er, Microsoft... what's not to like?

Apparently the following advert, attributed to Microsoft, has been pulled after people started complaining...tsk, some people!



Putting aside the fact it features an obvious reference to a piece of pornography so vile it makes a grown woman vomit, what is there to get upset about? Sure, Superman then comes on the screen and tells consumers how they can browse such hardcore pornography without getting caught, while a man writhes around in sick... but... hang on, this defence is crumbling.

Could Microsoft really have thought this was a good idea? Surely it's an elaborate hoax? Though it does conform to a tried and tested PR ploy - get an ad either banned, or at least stir a shocked reaction from more sensitive souls. However, I think this ad skips freely past any reasonable line in the sand and bares both buttocks in the direction of common sense.

I can see the pub from here!

While waiting with a client for a journalist, who eventually failed to show, without calling or emailing to say he wouldn't make it, I filled my time taking photos looking out over London from Tower 42. We've not got bad views from the 22nd floor of the Millbank Tower but it's always good to see things from the other side of town (click to enlarge).

File this one under ‘I would say that, wouldn’t I’

What do you know, you wait ages for one article about professions trying to hermetically seal their gene pool, and then two come along, practically at once.

In the face of such self-preservation, anybody would think there was a recession going on.

According to an article in PR Week: “…journalists …planning an escape route into PR… are likely to find their options limited as agencies prioritise genuine industry experience.”

On a couple of levels that makes absolute sense. One argument within the article appears to suggest PR companies are wary of journalists who see PR as little more than a meal ticket in difficult times – or at least a life raft away from the sinking media industry.

And quite right too. I had a journalist email me a while ago who said: “I reckon it’s time I put my feet up and sort out a nice fat salary, have you got any jobs going?”

I think he was serious.

So, if the article was about recessions being no time to hire staff who think they can simply spin their wheels while drawing a fat salary then it’s spot on. But that isn’t limited just to former journalists of course. I suspect many PR professionals – even those with “genuine industry experience” – have also been found out by this recession, lest any of us imagine the economy can’t be both an excuse as well as a reason for losing staff.

I also agree PR certainly isn’t for all journalists. The work rate will leave many floundering from day one and the difference in culture and politics won’t always suit deserters from the other side of the fence. So yes, journalists also represent a gamble if the agency hasn't done its homework. (But that's true of all staff again, right?)

However, to address the basic premise, “genuine industry experience” is a slightly worrying term whose understanding owes more to an individual agency’s ambitions and its approach to PR - and the expectations of the clients they've surrounded themselves with as a result - than it does to the fittingness of journalists to work in PR. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the article is correct, I just question, to a degree, the logic upon which it is built.

Journalists – if you find one who can keep up with the pace and not lose heart or focus in the face of a political culture shock – can still add a great deal to any agency aspiring to a value proposition above and beyond press office and admin. Fresh perspective is no luxury, nor is the level of media consultancy or training - both internal and external - that an experienced journalist brings to the table. Likewise they should also bring creativity and pragmatism to the kinds of tactics the PR industry has been peddling in the same way, for too long as a result of the closed gene pool apparently still favoured in some quarters. And then of course there is a new biz 'wow' factor if you get the right journalist who can bring specific industry knowledge, media savvy and some presentation and communication flair.

Sure, if an agency wants somebody to top and tail US copy and hit send on emails to bought-in press lists then a journalist would be a luxury, but so would "genuine industry experience". It probably boils down to the ways in which people react to recession. There are those who say 'we must do what we currently do, but do it better' and those people will look to broaden their gene pool, expand their offering, roll out new services and aggressively target new business. Then there are those who will think 'we must hunker down and see this thing through' and naturally those people won't be hiring journalists any time soon for the above-mentioned reasons.

In that regard, I suspect this article is more about self-preservation, on many levels, and the fact many agencies lack the skills sets and the vision to work out how the right journalist can add real value to their business. Too many still think a former journalist will either be a copy jockey or a luxury to wheel out for meetings and pitches.

Michael Jackson STILL dead reports the BBC...and stands by its coverage

More than 700 people complained about the BBC's blanket coverage of Michael Jackson's death, according to The Guardian. I'm really not surprised. By Friday morning it was preposterous but by Sunday it was beyond a joke and was a real black mark against the editorial standards at the BBC, who clearly took the opportunity to lazily programme hours and hours of coverage with little thought to content, relevance or importance.

Despite this, Mary Hockaday, head of the BBC newsroom has understandably defended the excessive output. According to The Guardian:

Hockaday described Jackson as a "huge figure internationally" and said BBC News "went into gear to report a big breaking news story". "We've had a number of complaints about our coverage, the main charge being that we simply did too much: that his death didn't justify the prominence and scale of our reporting through Friday and into the weekend."

Breaking news? By lunchtime Friday the news was well and truly broken. By Saturday it was in a million pieces, scattered all over the media.

See, I can be positive... more advice for students

Having yesterday taken issue with one list aimed at journalism students, the Journalism.co.uk blog has come up trumps today with a list of things journalism students should do this summer to help them understand the way social media is defining the future of journalism. It's a great list, read it in full here.

Is this the problem with journalism…?

Very few things get my misanthropic back up more instinctively than the words “The 100 best…”

My natural and immediate reaction is to start picking holes in the list, whether it’s albums, films, pubs, restaurants or works of art. And that is why people compile such lists, because they want to spark debate and they know people like me can’t help but take the bait.

So it was with interest that I clicked on a link this morning which promised the 100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students.

Now, if you subscribe to the views of Nick Davies et al – and I tend to – then you’ll know something is certainly rotten in the state of journalism. So any knowledge sharing is a good thing, especially if it can instil resistance to churnalism - assuming their paymasters would ever allow room for such principles or luxuries.

So on one level I see such a list as edifying and if it had been ‘100 blogs it wouldn’t hurt you to read…especially if you fancy a job in journalism’ I’d probably leave it there.

But the list is far too introspective and narrow to be in any way a comprehensive list of the influences and influencers journalists should open themselves up to. It encourages the kind of gene pool that would keep Darwin awake nights.

Where are the PR blogs? Where are the lobbyist blogs? Where are the political blogs, pressure groups and civil or human rights activists? Where are the analyst house blogs? And where are the advertising industry blogs whose words of wisdom will tell journalists whether they will have a job next year? All of these things are important for journalism students to understand and all will shape the way they do their jobs.

Yes. Even PR.

I was told some months ago that every single PR course being run by a UK university offers at least one module on journalism, while not a single journalism course offers a specific module on PR and its role and influence on the media. Now I don’t know if that’s true – so don’t repeat it without a heavy caveat – but I’d struggle more with the notion it isn’t true than that it could be.

I know the tendency among journalists is to pretend us PR people don’t exist and don’t influence the media. But the reality is quite the opposite.

Journalists don’t have to like PR people but when did ‘know your enemy’ stop being a good piece of advice?

"Honestly, I've wheelie bin nowhere..."

Interesting column in today’s Media Guardian by Peter Wilby, pointing to the Daily Mail’s loosening grasp on 1) reality 2) its readers.

So frenzied has the need become to be both vitriolic and parochial in equal measure The Mail has been picking increasingly surreal fights in recent times. First it was ‘The Internet’ giving everybody cancer and now it is the ‘Not In My Front Yard’ campaign against “plastic monstrosities blighting our streets and gardens" …or wheelie bins to you and me.

And of course, all of this is played alongside the incessant diatribe against swan-eating, benefit cheating, queue jumping immigrants.

The Telegraph served up a poignant reminder recently – in the shape of its investigation into MPs expenses – that newspapers can still stand tall in the face of potentially terminal encroachment from the online and social media worlds. It did so by gauging the likely mood of the nation to a piece of content perfectly. Of course we’d pay to find out how these MPs have been fleecing us all.

But if the papers misjudge what their readers want – as Wilby suggests The Mail has done over wheelie bins – then the inevitable but in no way immediate prognosis can only be expedited.

Hyde Park yesterday... Springsteen in sunny London

Oh Michael Owen, what are they doing to you...?

You've probably seen this already because it's taken me a little while to get around to commenting on it. Partly because I couldn't quite believe it was for real.

Football transfers are often effective case studies for both good and bad PR, but the public and investor relations around Michael Owen's desperate search for a new club are definitely an example of the latter. Check out the 'Brand Values'* section in a 30 page sales brochure sent to English, Italian and Spanish clubs over the past week. (Please do click to enlarge)

I'm sure potential employers will be relieved to see he is Technical... should the PC in their office need looking at.

Then there are the all important third party testimonies, such as the medical report which pours scorn on the notion that Owen is injury prone (where would anybody get that idea from?).

Of course it might help further if the piece didn't include a typo in the final sentence and other footballing 'proofpoints' that read like a Who's Who of injury-prone footballers (Bellamy, for example, made just five appearance for Manchester City last season, while Dyer and Ashton pulled on their West Ham shirts eight and five times respectively).

And then of course there is the crunch-washing angle.

(*Yes I did add a couple of those 'Brand Values' myself...)

Day 2: Michael Jackson "still dead" the BBC can reveal

I heard last night that Michael Jackson had died.

And by this morning it was old news - certainly in the absence of any further meaningful developments.

But that hasn’t stopped BBC and Sky News showing blanket coverage of the event all day so far.

Now, I’m not sure if it was the constant on-screen reference to Michael Jackson’s death as ‘Breaking News’ a whole day after it happened. Or if it was the fact they interviewed a pair of dancers who were runners up in Britain’s Got Talent 2008, or the cast of 'Thriller' the musical, or the Commodores (currently touring the UK). Or perhaps it was the rolling tributes from the likes of Gordon Brown and Corey Feldman along the bottom of the screen. Or the fact you’d be forgiven for not knowing more important things were happening all around the world.

Or perhaps it was a combination of all of the above - and more - that meant the rolling news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death will serve as a permanent reminder in years to come that this era laid the foundations for an end to quality journalism and news reporting in the UK.

Such is the need to fill space on rolling news channels such as BBC News 24, and so debilitating the disinclination, or inability to find worthwhile content, that Jackson’s death enabled editors to switch off their brains for 24 hours and let anybody onto the television providing they met the strict criteria of having heard at least one Michael Jackson song.

Editorial integrity? What’s that you say? Quality programming? Not on our watch.

I assume while I was out getting a sandwich Friday lunchtime I missed my Mum and Dad talking about the time they bought me Bad for my birthday. But I'll catch up on iPlayer.

Other media outlets have also been guilty of letting the lazy inclination to fill space with any old Jackson-related toot undermine their reputations.

That need to fill space with the minimum of effort or qualification has also given rise to some wonderfully trite and entirely meaningless comment, from: “Michael Jackson’s death has been described by many as life-changing” to “Michael Jackson's greatest fear was that one day he would wake up and he'd be dead...”

Move along now people, there's nothing to see here.