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Mark Ragan
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18
Call it amoral or disgusting, perhaps even illegal, but thanks to a group of hackers the public can peak behind the curtain of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
On Wednesday, the group Anonymous, known best for their hatred of Scientology, hacked into Palin’s personal Yahoo e-mail accounts and then posted her password onto the Web. By day’s end, the email account was deleted; however, Gawker.com managed to salvage some screen shots and her contact list.
I’m not going to post any of the e-mails here; it feels a tad slimy.
Nevertheless, here are some observations and presumptions about the governor’s personal writing style, based on one email she wrote in July.
• Palin likes the ellipses—she used it twice in one email burst—but fails to use them according to AP style;
• Palin capitalizes words for emphasis. You KNOW what I mean?
• Palin correctly applies the apostrophe to plural nouns;
• Palin likes parenthetical statements;
• Palin seems to enjoy onomatopoeias (for example, “Arghhh”).
Read the email at Gawker here. The Palin campaign failed to respond to a Ragan email for comment.
Her Yahoo email account drew attention this week after The New York Times reported Governor Palin and her staff in Alaska began using private email accounts to conduct state business. The reason for these private accounts, the Times reported, was to avoid subpoenas. Public officials’ email accounts, the ones provided by their government agencies at least, are public record.
UPDATE: The Secret Service wants the Associated Press to turn over the leaked emails, which were already widely circulated on the Web; the AP refused. Editor & Publisher said that yesterday’s incident illuminates the much larger issue of the Palin administration using private email accounts for state business. That may be true. But what about the ramifications on not only Web security, but also the frighteningly fast pace that information travels on the Web?
-By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
17
Guess who claims he invented the BlackBerry? No, not all Al Gore; it’s John McCain.
Speaking to reporters about his candidate’s economic experience, GOP advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin stressed McCain, as chairman of the commerce committee, did not have jurisdiction over financial markets. And then The New York Times said this happened.
“But [McCain] did this,’’ Holtz-Eakin said, holding up what looked like a BlackBerry. “The telecommunications of the United States, the premier innovation of the past 15 years, comes right through the commerce committee. So you’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create. And that’s what he did.’’
So John McCain invented the BlackBerry! Take that Obama campaign and your “John McCain doesn’t get it” ads. Ha!
OK, OK, so that’s not at all what he meant, although it does sound similar to statements by Gore that continue to dog him. Here’s what Gore told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer back in 2000:
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”
McCain (via his advisor) and Gore meant their legislative actions helped pave the way for BlackBerry and Internet technologies. Placed in the hands of campaign spin doctors and an irresponsible press that became, “Gore claims he invented the Internet.”
Will McCain get slapped with a similar rap? That’s doubtful, although the story (a Times blog post) sat on the Times homepage all day Tuesday.
Looks like everyone’s a little more responsible this election—ahem.
The Los Angeles Times—whose employees, by the way, are suing their boss Sam Zell— said McCain laughed off the remark. Matt McDonald, a senior campaign aide, said, “This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer.”
Speaking of BlackBerrys, a recent study claims 35 percent of professionals would choose their BlackBerry or similar PDA device over their spouse. Sheraton Hotel and Resorts conducted this work-life study.
It also found 87 percent take their PDAs to bed. The study didn’t cover what happens after they take it to bed.
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
16
Reader Ruth Atherley offered a unique perspective on the crisis that gripped United Airlines shareholders.
She suggested the appearance of GlennTilton.com, a Web site begun by United pilots that pushes for the ouster of their CEO Glenn Tilton, somehow affected the sudden appearance of a six-year-old news article about United’s bankruptcy, which led to the plunge.
I am not sure what - if anything - that this site [GlennTilton.com] has to do with the old article coming to the surface. But if I took the time to check out some old stuff on United, I am sure there are many others in much more powerful positions than I that also searched around online.
It seems to be an interesting coincidence, if you believe in coincidence, that is.
Perhaps GlennTilton.com has been the culprit all along.
(Check out Ruth’s blog.)
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
15
I wrote a story about Disney Parks that ran on Ragan.com today, and I included in that story a sidebar about a provocative video that details the theoretical decline of 20th century media organizations.
The video is significant to this audience for several reasons, perhaps most notably that Disney Park’s vice president of global PR, Duncan Wardle, agrees with the video’s assertion. The video claims 20th century media, namely The New York Times, will either fold or, in the Times’ case, become a print newsletter for “elitists and senior citizens” by 2014.
Wardle, the keynote speaker at Ragan’s August social media conference at eBay’s corporate headquarters, said he believes the ultimate demise will happen sooner than 2014. Many social media experts and bloggers agree that traditional media organizations, like newspapers and network news, have reached their terminal stage. That is, it’s only a matter of time before they’re dead.
Wardle and others insist communicators must adjust their practices to fit this quickly evolving media landscape, an apocalyptic landscape for traditional media companies.
But if we “follow the money,” instead of just looking at reader habits, there’s a different, more optimistic story unfolding and the media landscape doesn’t appear as bleak for newspapers.
Here’s what I mean.
Newspaper revenues have declined over the last several years. The cause of this decline is primarily increased Web readership, although the rise of cable news plays a part, because online ad revenue can’t support newspaper budgets the way print revenue did.
To sustain themselves without massive layoffs and thinner and more vapid articles, newspapers must build a new revenue model. After all the audience is there; visits to newspaper Web sites continue to increase. But as the sustainable revenue model eludes newspapers, it seems the good bet is against these so-called 20th century media organizations.
However, recent moves on and away from Wall Street paint a different picture. If communicators are told to pay attention to the theoretical future of media, then it is also advisable they pay close attention to what’s happening in the real world.
Last week, the world’s second richest man, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, bought a 6.4 percent stake in The New York Times Company. On that news, the company’s share price jumped nearly 9 percent.
Slim, a telecommunications tycoon, told media outlets he purchased the shares for financial reasons, not as a strategic move into U.S. media. Although Wall Street investing, especially at Slim’s level, is complex, this move implies a very rich and successful man is betting on the company’s rebound.
New York-based investment firm Harbinger Capital Partners is the largest investor in the Times. In January, the investment firm vied for greater control over the company’s Board of Directors. While this attempt mostly failed (depends on whether you’re a glass half-empty or half-full person), it ultimately hurt the paper’s reputation on Wall Street and over the course of the year its stock price has plummeted. Slim cited this low price as one reason why he bought so many shares in the Times.
However, Harbinger changed its outlook on the Times last month when it upped its investment in the company by $1.7 million; seems Harbinger, which has made some very lucrative bets on Wall Street this year, believes Times stock will bounce back.
Perhaps Slim and Harbinger’s recent optimism for Times’ stock is sinister and there’s a plot hatching in the high rises of Mexico City and Manhattan. Taken at face value, however, these are good tidings for the embattled Times and even the newspaper industry at large.
Meanwhile, away from Wall Street Sam Zell, the foul-mouthed owner of the Tribune Company, continues the uphill battle to turn a profit on his newly-acquired media holdings, which include The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Zell bought the company last year, steering it away from public ownership.
Right now it appears Zell and his cronies are floundering: axing employees, chopping pages in their newspapers and leaving a lingering resentment among current employees. But Zell has a record of business success, albeit it real estate; he isn’t the world’s 52nd richest man due to sheer luck.
Zell apparently thinks he can make a buck in newspapers. He’s said he bought the Tribune Company to make money, not as a pet project. While many people will disagree—myself included sometimes—I think Zell may have a few tricks up his sleeve with the Tribune papers. For instance, redesigns for all Tribune-owned papers will reportedly premiere this fall; that will be interesting.
So it seems some very rich and successful people are betting on the renewed vitality of the 20th century media organizations; that news is as compelling as any YouTube video.
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
11
It took five minutes for United Airlines to lose most its value on the Nasdaq Stock Market after a six-year-old article, lifted from Google News, ran across the financial wire with a current date.
It’s taken one day to assign blame for the incident.
The Tribune Company, owner of Florida’s Sun-Sentinel newspaper where the article first appeared, promised an investigation. On Tuesday, the company released its initial findings.
Tribune insists that the article, which originally ran December 10, 2002, in The Chicago Tribune, was part of the Sun-Sentinel’s searchable and accessible database for years. However, a specific set of incidents occurred September 7 that catapulted this old story into the spotlight.
Here’s a timeline, according to the Tribune. All times are in Eastern Standard Time.
1:00 a.m. – 1:36 a.m., Sunday, Sept. 7 – A link to the 2002 article appears in the paper’s online business section under the tab, “Popular Stories Business: Most Viewed.” Tribune offered no explanation why it appeared in this section. Some investors suspected sabotage, telling The Wall Street Journal that Web traffic was manipulated to push that article onto the popular stories list. WSJ also noted a less provocative explanation: travelers looking for hurricane news somehow clicked the story.
1:36 a.m., Sunday, Sept. 7 – A Googlebot crawled the article. Googlebots are what the search engine uses to catalogue information on the Web. (Just think of all those Googlebots crawling around your computer while you sleep—hello Hollywood screenwriters!) Tribune said Googlebots have crawled this story numerous times recently; it offered no explanation why. This crawl vaulted the story onto Google News with a date of September 6, 2008.
1:39 a.m., Sunday, Sept. 7 – Story receives its first referral on Google News.
That’s where the Tribune’s timeline stopped. Here’s what happened next: On Monday, September 8, a reporter for research firm Income Security Advisors found the article, dated September 6, after either a Google search or Google Alert.
“The reporter included a link to the article in a summary of bankruptcy items posted to the Income Securities’ page on Bloomberg, which sent out a news headline referring to the article,” explained The New York Times.
9:30 a.m., Monday, Sept. 8 – Opening bell of Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Shares of UAL Corp. begin trading at $12.17. They will climb to a high of $12.45.
10:55 (ish) a.m., Monday, Sept. 8 – Shares of UAL Corp. off slightly at $11.75. Bogus headline about bankruptcy goes across Bloomberg wire. Sell-off of UAL shares begins.
11:08 a.m., Monday, Sept. 8 – UAL stock falls to $3 a share. Trading is halted so United can respond. It denies bankruptcy rap.
12:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 8 - Trading begins. UAL’s stock ultimately finishes at $10.92.
As the dust settled, fingers started pointing, accusations and denials let fly. United talked tough; Tribune denied everything; Bloomberg said (basically), “Not our fault”; Google said, “So sue us” (just kidding); and Income Security Advisors president Richard Lehmann offered this response, which appeared in The Chicago Sun-Times.
“It says something about our capital markets that people make a buy-sell decision based on a headline that flashes across Bloomberg.”
Interesting approach: attack the integrity of your industry.
The Tribune’s initial investigation concluded with this statement:
“The December 10, 2002, story contains information that would clearly lead a reader to the conclusion that it was related to events in 2002,” Tribune said. “In addition, the comments posted along with the story are dated 2002. It appears that no one who passed this story along actually bothered to read the story itself.”
“Actually bothered” is a nice touch.
As the Tribune suggests, the real culprit is the reporter who failed to read the story he or she rewrote for a widely read financial wire.
Sure, we’ve all made mistakes (oh man have I); this reporter probably feels blue about the thousands of people who lost their retirement funds because of the gaffe.
Meanwhile, the media insists that this is a deeper problem with technology and the way we read stories on the Web. Maybe, or it could simply be the fault of one lazy or careless or hung over or tired or just plain unlucky reporter. It would be a different conversation if the whole thing stemmed from incorrect source material, but that’s not the case—this time.
So look out! Googlebots are coming to get your information. It better be correct.
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
10
Anyone see today’s Wall Street Journal? Looks like someone at Coca-Cola scored a huge PR victory.
In a page one story about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeovers, two Coke products get ringing endorsements from the story’s authors.
“The decision [to takeover Fannie and Freddie] was hashed out over weeks of meetings. They included … a marathon session over Labor Day weekend, fueled in part by Diet Coke and Coke Zero,” WSJ reported.
Did I mention this story was above the fold?
So even the most casual reader, interested in what America’s financial paper of record says about this historic takeover, will peruse the article and read that Coke products fueled important meetings that might save the mortgage industry.
I’m left to believe there wasn’t Pepsi or Dr. Pepper at these meetings; no tea touched the lips of these bankers; there wasn’t even coffee.
The article could have easily said “a marathon session … fueled by caffeine.” Nope. Coke gets the mention. Someone give that PR person a raise and then mobilize the ad firm.
Imagine the follow up TV ad: A group of bankers sitting around a conference table, tired, a little strung out, ties loosened, sweating. The colors are all muted gray tones.
Outside the building a Coke truck arrives. A driver leaps from the truck’s cab, lands firmly and wipes sweat from his brow. The camera follows him as he wheels cases of ice cold Diet Coke and Coke Zero to the conference room.
The driver busts into the conference room; the bankers perk up. By some moviemaking magic the bottles—glass bottles, that’s important—appear on the conference table and suddenly the colors brighten. The bankers are refreshed and ready to plow through.
Then, from a seat at the corner of the conference table, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson turns to the camera holding a Diet Coke near his face.
“When I’m reorganizing America’s entire mortgage industry I drink Diet Coke,” he says before taking a refreshing gulp and sighing with satisfaction. “And so should you.”
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
9
United Airlines suffered a blue Monday—if only the company had a blog. Let me explain.
By now you know United parent company UAL Corp.’s stock collapsed Monday, September 8, after a six-year-old article about its prior bankruptcy status somehow popped up on the Internet apparently with that day’s date.
The story quickly hit the wire and sparked a bogus rumor that United had again filed for bankruptcy. United Airlines operated under bankruptcy protection from 2002 to 2006.
In five minutes United’s stock had lost 76 percent—one billion dollars—of its value. Trading at the Nasdaq Stock Market was then suspended so United could comment. The company denied the rumor and after trading began again the stock regained most of its original price.
I say the article “somehow” appeared online, because no one wants to take responsibility. The stock’s nosedive occurred when the story hit Bloomberg news service, which reportedly got it from Income Securities Advisors, a firm that tracks struggling companies, which pulled the news from Tribune-owned The Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Everyone is pointing fingers at one another, assigning and denying blame.
If United had a blog, there is a good chance the company’s communicators could have thwarted the problem. As soon as United heard about the rumor communicators could have not only issued a statement, but blogged about it quickly.
Reporters from Income Securities Advisors or Bloomberg could have visited the blog before it sent an erroneous report across the wire. If reporters failed to do that, then United could at least post its response on a blog.
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time social media has burned United in recent months. Last month, a Web site and blog named after United’s CEO Glenn Tilton (GlennTilton.com) launched; it wasn’t a fan site, however. Instead, the site is authored by United pilots calling for the chief executive’s resignation.
Ouch.
At the very least you’d think United would have learned to get in the social media game, and do it quickly. Reminds me of that old President Bush saying, “Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.”
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
5
Over the last two years, blog comments have emerged as an important topic among corporate communicators. The thought of them often deters executives from signing off on an employee blog, internal or external, for fear someone will trash the company or insult fellow employees (ahem, lawsuit).
One failsafe is the elimination of anonymous comments; forcing readers to sign-in and attach their names to comments. The reasoning is that under the “anonymous” guise someone will leave nasty, unconstructive comments. Identifying yourself, the argument goes, will prevent such comments—and perhaps prevent real juicy comments.
Right now on Ragan.com there anonymous comment debate is playing out, although no one is actually talking about it directly. Several articles Ragan has published on the communications aspect of both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions have drawn hundreds of comments.
Most comments are constructive, others not to so much. The majority of the commentators, constructive or not, identify themselves as “anonymous” or else with a first name, nickname or initials. And most of these comments are well-written, thoughtful, mini-articles—if sometimes off topic.
So do anonymous comments advance the conversation, or dampen it?
I think they do; in general people are more candid and therefore more willing to share a workplace story without fear of ramification. The level of discourse is heightened.
That said, there’s some pretty nasty commentary in between, but hey, that’s reality. Would Ragan prevent the angry and deconstructive comments if it made readers identify themselves? It might lessen them, but take a look at the comments to the previous PR Junkie post; among the harshest came from a reader who gave his first and last name.
Of course, the very thought of this kind of free-flowing conversation might scare the pants, or skirts, off your bosses. If that’s the case, check out a free giveaway on this topic—grant it you have to take a five question poll in order to download it—that Ragan and the Toronto-based company PollStream created.
The download is an overview of both the pros and cons of allowing anonymous comments; good stuff to include in a pitch for an employee blog.
The poll is about anonymous comments. So far, it’s drawn over 500 respondents—the most ever for a Ragan/PollStream poll. Find the poll on Ragan.com (it’s called POLL-arized), or on the homepage of MyRagan.
–By Michael Sebastian, Ragan staff writer
Sep
4
In what will be considered either an impressive PR coupe or else embarrassing political blunder, Barack Obama will appear on The O’Reilly Factor to give a “pre-rebuttal” of John McCain’s speech to the Republican National Convention. It will air after the speech is given.
For those unfamiliar with the show, it is hosted by Bill O’Reilly, a conservative blow hard, who blows harder than nearly any other pundit on TV (although Keith Olbermann is getting close). The show is really one giant circus of idiocy brought to you by the good people at FOX.
Obama had previously taped the interview (his first) with host Bill O’Reilly.
Interestingly enough, reports surfaced this week that Obama had met with FOX’s owner Rupert Murdoch to discuss the network’s unbalanced coverage of the candidate. Perhaps the result of that meeting is this interview.
On paper this interview looks like a terrific PR move: respond to what will no doubt be strong attacks by your opponent on the very show that’s home to many of those attacks. Obama avoids “preaching to the choir” by skipping his home court, which is certainly the left-leaning MSNBC, for the much more conservative O’Reilly Factor. Not to mention The O’Reilly Factor is among the most popular cable news programs.
Again, good move on paper, but what, exactly, is the Obama campaign smoking? (Because, in this case, I don’t want any.) Unless his communicators have final cut privileges, which I’m certain they do not, how can they be assured the interview won’t negatively portray the candidate at such a crucial moment?
There’s much talk of the “bounce” in polls that convention speeches create. It looks like Obama’s speech last week has given him a slightly larger edge over McCain (although vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech might have something to say about that). Obama might smother McCain’s bounce by appearing on O’Reilly—or intensify it.
Either way, O’Reilly will draw viewers he’s certainly never had in the past—even me, if the Obama people share whatever they’re on.
Sep
3
President Bush delivered an effective, yet ultimately unremarkable speech at Tuesday’s Republican National Convention—and that was probably how McCain wanted it.
The Obama campaign is firing on all pistons, insisting that a John McCain presidency will be nothing more than a third Bush term. To the Obama people this seems a safe bet since the president has hovered at near-record low approval ratings.
So the question Tuesday night was how the Republicans would present Bush to the convention and, indeed, to the people watching from home. The answer was a speech that praises McCain and recognizes his reluctance to badger the White House on certain issues.
President Bush, speaking via satellite from the White House (he was there handling the Hurricane Gustav response), gave a roughly eight minute speech where he insisted McCain was ready to lead the country.
However, he only once used the word “experience,” which was a steady drumbeat of the McCain campaign until the relatively inexperienced Sarah Palin joined the ticket.
“When the debates have ended, and all the ads have run, and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates—and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket,” Bush said late in the speech.
The president also highlighted McCain’s maverick streak, a point with tinges of irony considering Bush hammered McCain for that very trait back in 2000.
“John is an independent man, who thinks for himself. He’s not afraid to tell you when he disagrees—believe me, I know,” the president said with a grin.
Bush also illustrated that McCain, aside from other senators (even some in the convention hall that night) supported “the surge” in Iraq, a move that’s reduced violence in Baghdad. In doing so, Bush highlighted the differences between McCain and Obama on the war in Iraq.
It’s no surprise that Bush was at his best when talking tough, explaining McCain’s tough stance on terrorism and his willingness to continue an offensive foreign policy. In the same vein, the president’s best turn of phrase came when talking up McCain’s POW experiences in Vietnam.
“If the Hanoi Hilton could not break McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will,” he said.
The speech also had a moment of humor when Bush said, referencing his wife who preceded and followed him, that convention delegates had “traded up” with Laura Bush at the podium and not him.
Seems the McCain campaign traded up as well; the president’s relatively short speech helped shore up party loyalists without giving the Obama campaign fodder for attack ads.
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