Video in the Newsroom & The Importance of Thinking Cross-Platform

Interesting article about video in the newsroom from TheDeal: The Times, Fortune, WSJ and others are allowing (or urging) reporters to file video reports on the same content as their columns.

David Pogue at the New York Times has been producing some amusing video that are worth watching because they often provide additional or different details and insight that take advantage of video as a different means of telling the story. (There are a lot of reporters who post headshot-type interviews that are not much different from the traditional text/print articles they file.)

Some organizations now even film a part of their editorial decision process -- which is an interesting look at what's being raised and how the issues are being addressed. Some of the analysis, as TheDeal article points out -- like "why does (NY Times Executive Editor) Bill Keller wear that jacket?" -- may be a bit too much.

But these videos -- both the reporters retelling of their text articles and the view inside the editorial room -- are interesting for another reason for PR functions.

Namely, while not all reporters have the ability to be creative the way Pogue does, they are exploring new ways to gather and tell stories across different media.

Right now, a lot of companies are not doing that, but stand to learn a lesson. It adds a layer of cost and stress, but I think more companies should be telling their stories not just with text-based press releases and should be embracing multimedia. I know some companies are doing so, including some of our clients, but not enough are thinking cross-platform.

It's not enough to think about integrated communications. It's critical to think cross-platform communications, too. And organizations have to realize that it may take a while before they understand how to best embrace a cross-platform approach. But if they don't start now, they'll be late to the party, and less effective for not embracing a cross-platform approach.

News Media Budget Cuts & Democracy

I've written about the loss of news media as potentially harmful to our democracy not because we'll have fewer voices -- clearly there's no dearth of voices and opinions on the blogosphere. But because we'll have fewer sources of fact rather than opinion.

Blog favorite Brian Stelter at the New York Times makes a similar point in today's paper (it's still available in paper format), When the President Travels, It’s Cheaper for Reporters to Stay Home.

As news organizations continue to seek cost savings as much as they seek the latest headline, fewer organizations are paying to have their reporters and producers fly on the charter plane that accompanies the President because the costs can be very high. The current process is that each news organization sending someone on the charter plane shares the cost of the total airfare.

The problem: As fewer organizations send reporters on the charter, the airfare per organization increases. That becomes a downward spiral, says the president of the White House Correspondents' Association: with fewer organizations able to foot the bill, the price increases, causing more organizations to drop out.

Now how does this impact democracy?

The fewer people who have access to the President to be able to report about what he does, what he says, with whom he meets, etc., the less real information we have about him, his thoughts, etc. And I think that's right -- we need access and coverage of the current president just as we need it for any past president.

Now we can't force news organizations to spend the money to cover the White House. But a while back, organizations like CBS News felt they had to serve the public interest and treat the news as if it is not a profit center. No one thinks like that anymore, though some think of news as a cost center.

That's a step back for democracy.

The Reason Social Media Can be Difficult to Sell? It's the Indirect Nature of It

I had two separate interactions about social media today. The first was with a client who has been unwilling to commit to social media because he's seen no significant traffic to their blog. The second came from a former client asking about Twitter in particular.

Look, every client has different needs and capabilities when it comes to social media. There are some where it's a natural fit, and others where a social media campaign doesn't make sense.

What makes it a challenge is helping organizations understand why they need to explore social media.

There's not always a direct link from social media engagement to sales.

If nothing else, participating and engaging on social media can help from a search engine optimization (SEO) angle.

Blogging and tweeting can help boost your SEO rankings.

Here's something that I think people miss, according to David Meerman Scott:

That is, when you create something of value, say a YouTube video or a really interesting e-book or a piece of content on the web or post something on an important industry forum -- those are indexed by the search engines. And when the proverbial 62-year-old man who's a purchasing agent at a bricks-and-mortar company would, no, he probably does not read blogs or be on Twitter. But he needs his Google. And he'll go to Google when he needs to buy something, and he'll type in a phrase that he knows is the most important for the thing he wants to buy, and damn if your company doesn't come up No. 1 if you're creating content.That's why (social media) can be important." That is, when you create something of value, say a YouTube video or a really interesting e-book or a piece of content on the web or post something on an important industry forum -- those are indexed by the search engines. And when the proverbial 62-year-old man who's a purchasing agent at a bricks-and-mortar company would, no, he probably does not read blogs or be on Twitter. But he needs his Google. And he'll go to Google when he needs to buy something, and he'll type in a phrase that he knows is the most important for the thing he wants to buy, and damn if your company doesn't come up No. 1 if you're creating content.That's why (social media) can be important." David Meerman Scott

Is the Reply-All Button Making Us Stupid?

I've taken on technology -- PowerPoint, email, Google, among others -- as making us stupid.

I think the Reply-All button, a subset of email, deserves its own shout out.

Last night, a glitch in an email distribution list from Jason Calacanis, made a lot of people stupid.

Calacanis has had a high profile career, including stints as founding editor of Silicon Alley Reporter, a founder of Weblogs, and a former Entrepreneur in Action, at Sequoia Capital. Currently he serves as the founder of Mahalo.com Inc., and his email distribution list is his contrarian way to communicate his thoughts and influence the conversation instead of blogs. Which he says are dead.

So the glitch: somehow, people were able to respond to Calacanis' latest email -- about why we shouldn't trust Facebook (he says they're out to exploit our privacy). Perhaps the initial group of responses thought their emails would go only to Jason.

But there was that glitch.

So that everyone on Calacanis' distribution list received every single reply.

I don't blame the original responders, who might not have known their emails were hitting everyone's in box.

But some people quickly realized, and used the glitch to promote their own companies and agenda.

I think that shows initiative but also bad form; and a bunch of people responded telling the offenders -- and everyone -- that they thought it bad form. (I did not respond via the email, only on this blog.)

Then a bunch of others got upset.

And this is where the real stupidity came in.

A new wave of emails went out asking people not to spam everyone else on the list. For example, the guy who wrote, "Stop f--ing replying all you f--ng idiots." (I know it's the Internet, but my kids might read my blog.)

The folks complaining to the entire distribution list about not wanting to get spammed could have taken a better route. They had the offending spammers' email addresses; they could have just responded to the spammers directly. Instead, they hit Reply-All, and spammed the rest of us.

By definition, those people complaining by email about getting spam were also sending spam.

Making it more annoying for the rest of us who patiently waited for Calacanis to resolve the issue. (Which he has, a dozen hours later.)

I think that's incontrovertible evidence that the Reply-All makes us stupid.

What's Wrong with Newspapers?

In the June issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows writes an interesting essay, 'How to Save the News," which starts at an unexpected place: Google.

Noting that people assume that Google is one of the reasons newspapers are suffering, Fallows makes the point that Google is actually trying to help save newspapers, based on the premise that people are searching for compelling content, and that if they don't have interesting content -- like that from newspapers -- they won't need search engines.

What I think is interesting is a point I've made before but one that's validated by Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO (and a former client, when he was CEO of Novell):

"I observe that as print circulation falls, the growth of the online audience is dramatic. Newspapers don't have a demand problem; they have a business model problem."

Google's perspective, Fallows reports, is that people will of course pay for online content, even if they haven't done so up until now. The key is to find the right subscription solution for each publication -- it may not be the same answer for every paper.