press

The Media, Now The Ministry Of Propaganda, Circa 1930

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If it bleeds, it reads. That used to be the excuse for lying. Now, it’s just the ministry of propaganda, if anyone remembers the 30’s in Germany, or 1984 also.

The media has abandoned even the cover of pretending to be fair and unbiased. They just parrot the (deep) state talking points. They are in lockstep. Even Fox has gone state sponsored. Lachlan Murdoch and his liberal wife just pulled Foxweiser with the firing of Tucker Carlson. I lost trust in them around the 2016 election anyway, not that I trusted them to begin with.

Meathead, a relative of my asked why I didn’t watch the news to find out what happened. I said it’s because you’ll never find out by listening to the news.

Judge for yourself, but don’t be a sheep. They told people that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor. If you liked your (insurance) plan, you could keep your plan. The Covid jab was safe and effective. January 6th was an insurrection.

Even an idiot could find a pattern here, excepting meathead.

Lightfoot Told, “Pack Your Bags And Get The Hell Out of Chicago”

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It’s very rare that a democrat doesn’t get re-elected in Chicago. She’s one of the few in the last 4 decades. She didn’t get re-elected because she did a bad job as mayor, not because it is racist or sexist as she claims. Chicago is the last place that would happen,

Embarrassing The Press Relations Profession, On The Public Stage

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I spent most of my career in either Press or Analyst Relations. I have seen my share of successes and failures. I’ve been in both. We know each other well. My work includes dealing with behemoths (IBM), so I understand what it’s like dealing with a Kraken.

When I see others making mistakes, it’s cringe worthy. Tactical mistakes happen. Strategic planning mistakes are usually worth termination, like Gillette trashing men on Super Bowl Sunday. Putting incompetent people in front of a crowd is inexcusable.

I’ve seen unqualified, and that is what we have at the White House Press Podium right now. If anyone cries racism or sexism at this, you are wrong. So wrong that 180 degrees from now you’d still be wrong. There are professionals and there are amateurs. We have someone who is not seasoned enough to be where she is. It reared it’s ugly head yesterday more than the usual incompetence that is rookie material.

I’ve overlooked a lot of what has been said. Jen Psaki lied every day, but was skilled at how she said it and commanded the room. She was a professional and acted for the most part like one. So did almost every other White House Spokesperson prior to her. They handled some tough ad hominem attacks.

From Brian Lonergan:

In the arena of politics, incompetents and charlatans can have long careers in ways that others in fields like medicine and architecture cannot. If someone botches a heart bypass operation or designs a wobbly skyscraper, the consequences of those mistakes arrive quickly and cannot be explained away. Even when their policies fail spectacularly, politicians can obscure, deflect, and mislead for years and not be held accountable.

This is essentially what we are seeing now from the Biden Administration, practiced to a more shameless and insulting degree than any of its predecessors have ever attempted. The latest nadir of this strategy happened recently when Fox News reporter Peter Doocy confronted White House flack Karine Jean-Pierre about the glaring hypocrisy of not allowing unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic to fly to the United States to compete, while untold numbers of unvaccinated illegal aliens enter the country on foot daily and are allowed to stay.

“But that’s not how it works,” Jean-Pierre said over Doocy’s indignation. “It’s not like somebody walks over.”

Millions walk over the border in full view of cameras (and hidden by coyotes) bringing fentanyl, diseases (Covid) crime and a drain on the taxpayers. They are given phones, EBT and rooms in luxury hotels. The new American dream.

THE TRUTH SLIPS OUT

When you can’t keep track of your lies, the PR mistakes happen. You step in it like KJP did. It is a rookie mistake by an unqualified person. You have to have ice water in your veins when you stand up and mis-direct questions or deflect issues. You don’t give the press the gun to shoot you with.

When Doocy pressed further, Jean-Pierre could only respond by reading talking points about how the administration is adding technology at the border and securing more funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Those bullet points do nothing to explain why thousands of unvaccinated aliens are being allowed into the country.

Such comments are indicative of either next-level gaslighting or ignorance of the issues on a breathtaking scale. Any sentient being who has followed the news the last two years has surely seen the ubiquitous videos showing thousands of foreign nationals crossing the Rio Grande into Texas, then processed by the Border Patrol.

Biden’s own Customs and Border Protection has reported 1,822,160 encounters with illegal aliens so far in fiscal year 2022, a 586 percent increase since 2017. It is reasonable to assume that most, if not all, of those people are still in the United States. Maybe Jean-Pierre was being too literal and splitting hairs, since technically the border-crossers are swimming and wading across the border, not walking. Regardless, noncitizens are clearly traversing our border in record numbers and are being allowed to stay.

How did the situation get this bad? While the border security problem has been festering for decades, it is only in the last two years that the situation has spun out of control at its current record-breaking pace. The White House, again in gaslighting mode, has blamed the spike on everything from COVID to climate change. It couldn’t possibly be anything they did, right?

Even in a sea of political spin, the truth occasionally slips out. During a recorded deposition as part of discovery in a lawsuit filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody against DHS and other border agencies, Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz made a succinct and honest statement. Under questioning about the number of people crossing the border, Ortiz, a 31-year law enforcement veteran, said, “In my experience, we have seen increases when there are no consequences,” said Ortiz during the deposition.

Sayings – Do Humans Learn From Their Mistakes?

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Douglas Adams – “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”

 

I guess not.  I wonder what lessons we will have from the Corona/Covid/China/Wuhan/Whatever virus?  Probably not to trust the media and to carefully evaluate if Congress is working for us or themselves.

Doing a Joint Announcement With The Competition, How to Cooperate

/ John / 1 Comment

Recently, I’ve done joint announcements with Oracle, SAP, HP, Tibco, Software AG and HP. As you can imagine, I’ve had varying relationships with each and I’m happy to report that the state of the A/R industry is good and that we can work together.

When I was in PR, here is the link to the cat fight supreme with territorialism and turf wars. Most of the announcements I did with these companies when in Analyst Relations didn’t have that element. For the most part, the announcements were about standards, not products. So that went a long way towards working together. Still, if you include IBM, the companies I’ve named here aren’t known for being best buddies.

As an aside, I can say that the executives (who can be the source of most problems) all worked towards the cause of the best briefing possible.  They were helpful in this instance.  Many times, they are the fly in the ointment.

Some things are given, like in a certain area (we just did SOA) the analysts know the exec’s by company and the exec’s know each other so I’m happy to report they acted like grown ups.

TURF WARS

With the typical name calling (from the CEO’s) and because of the belief in your own products, the first issue to overcome is that the announcement is usually about a jointly created product or standard, not us vs. them.  That rule has to be set down first and if you don’t overcome that, you have no chance at building trust, the basis for working together.

DIVIDE THE DUTIES

One company can’t dominate the duties or it is not a joint announcement.   This also forces the companies to work together to approve what the others have created as their part of the announcement.   There are analyst lists, invitations, charts, follow-up issues and any number of duties that need to be attended to and dived up.  Once that is done, you must rely on each other and the level of trust inherently rises.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

It’s important that the analyst see this as equal among the companies.  One company presenting more than another is a dead give away.  You can’t help Q and A as the analysts will direct the question directly to a company.

LESSONS LEARNED

You either put your differences aside and work together, or you’ll never get anything done.  It’s tough to do when your day job is to hammer the company that you are working with other than on the joint effort.  These are the days of co-opetition though.  You learn to get along or you’ll never make it to announcement day.

Working With the Legal Department

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I just had to get a press release approved for PartnerWorld.  9 lawyers later, I got a version back that resembled what I submitted.

It was now devoid of content and any facts relating to any announcement, said or implied, pertaining to or related to any issue with or without any implications to the company or any of it’s divisions or partners both expressed or implied whether discussing any actual issue, but not limited to any actual information that might be relevant to those to whom the information might be directed to forth with.

I sent the reporters what I wanted to anyway and blew off the lawyers as usual.