Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

This week, enigmatic former Donald Trump campaign advisor Carter Page appeared on a PBS News Hour interview to defend himself from the revelation that he was caught on a phone wiretap colluding with Russian intel agents during the election. This came as a surprise because Page’s last publicly known location was Moscow, suggesting he had already fled the country.

He told PBS this week he’s Arizona – but he was standing in front of what appears to be a fake background that has been used before by other political figures.Here’s a screen grab of Carter Page’s interview on PBS News Hour this week.

If your first thought was “Why is he standing outdoors in front of a mountain during a remote television interview,” we asked the same question. And if your second thought was “Does he look like he’s poorly superimposed on that fake looking background,” we asked that question as well. So we went digging, using a Google image reverse-search, and we uncovered this strangely familiar image of Arizona Congressman Trent Franks giving an MSNBC interview in 2016 in front of the exact same scene:...

Yesterday, Tribune Publishing, purveyor of news since 1847, changed its name to “tronc” (short for “Tribune Online Content.”) It’s now a “content curation and monetization company” — a company that makes money from content, what we used to call a media company. Today, I deconstruct the rest of its attempt to use techno-drivel to misdirect our attention from its problems.

Crisis-tossed Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and dozens of other papers, has suffered through a sale to a billionaire, a bankruptcy, a corporate split, newsroom turmoil, massive layoffs, and an unsolicited takeover offer. Now, as “tronc,” the company wants to be considered alongside Silicon Valley startups. (If this trend catches on, will the Boston Globe company become “hubstuff” and the New York Times “gray_lady”?)

The tronc press release is a classic, because it reveals that when a media company wants to reinvent itself as a technology company, it drapes its press release in the same techno-drivel that tech companies use. Instead of meaningless media and corporate bullshit, we get meaningless, shiny Silicon Valley bullshit.

It’s a transformation (you can tell because the release mentions “transform” or “transformation” six times).In the commentary below, I’ve added bold to indicate passives, meaningless superlatives, and especially, new-age jargon. I add commentary in brackets and commonsense translations below each section....

The Republican frontrunner met with the editorial board on Monday morning. The full transcript follows at the link above:

FREDERICK RYAN JR., WASHINGTON POST PUBLISHER: Mr. Trump, welcome to the Washington Post. Thank you for making time to meet with our editorial board.

DONALD TRUMP: New building. Yes this is very nice. Good luck with it.

RYAN: Thank you… We’ve heard you’re going to be announcing your foreign policy team shortly… Any you can share with us?

TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page, PhD; George Papadopoulos, he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group....

Since its launch in 2011, the Taste blog has become a crucial piece of the marketing efforts at General Mills—from helping the company break big news to highlighting its emphasis on corporate sustainability.

“We wanted to use the blog to tell the stories we wanted to tell—the ones the media wasn’t picking up on or that we wanted to give some attention to,” said Kevin Hunt, who founded the blog and acts as GM’s corporate social media manager.

“Our team looked at it as a way to keep consumers and journalists up to speed on what’s going on across General Mills. In many instances, Taste gives journalists a reason to pick up the phone and call us.”

In the case of the new HefeWheaties beer, Hunt published an articleon the blog about the product on August 12. Within a day, it had already led to placements in national media outlets like NPR,Fortune, and NBC News....

Though there are many things to consider when designing an image for a campaign, one crucial thing often falls by the wayside: optimizing the image for the width of the site you're pitching. Editors don't want to make their readers have to struggle to understand your image, so if your design is too wide or narrow for the site you're pitching, you could easily be rejected.

With that in mind, Fractl and BuzzStream looked at the main or featured body tag images for 35 of the top publishers to determine the most popular widths. We also looked at any larger layouts and pop-ups to determine a maximum width for each publisher when available.

We’ll walk you through four insights below that will help eliminate some of the guesswork during your next design phase....

Journalists often speak of their interest in covering trends, and tying your clients to larger issues in the news can be a fruitful tactic. This was probably the thinking when I received a press release about a Pennsylvania hospital’s efforts to “go green.”

Normally, it would have gone straight to the delete bin, but since I’m originally from the Keystone State and have some interest in green business practices, I gave the email an extra look. It turned out to be from a company that had just signed a contract to supply the facility with biodegradable trash bags.

Now, I’m all for using eco-friendly materials, but the press release made it sound as if the place had just built a new emergency room from recycled bean sprouts: “We’re delighted that such a prominent institution recognizes the contribution [our product] can make to reduce the environmental impact of its daily operations. Our commercial product can be tailored for all kinds of applications and offers an important way for health care facilities, which by necessity generate large amounts of waste, to do the right thing for our environment.”

Fast forward. An email arrived from a PR firm in Arizona promising an expert who could discuss hospitals’ efforts to improve “the patient experience.” The expert, I learned, is the CEO of a company that makes patient gowns.

Let’s set aside the fact that both emails were woefully off-target (I’m actually sort of grateful, because they provided nice material for a column). What they have in common is that many folks would charitably call them a “stretch.” Both cited legitimate trends, but each was missing a key ingredient: A newsworthy (or quote-worthy) client....

Even the most experienced of us, can still learn a thing or two about pitching the press more effectively. I myself find that in the art of pitching, there’s definitely a continuous process of learning to refine the pitch and deliver the message in the best way possible.

With that thought in mind, as a side project, my colleagues and I have created a site entitled, “How To Pitch Me” that aims to help those who strive to pitch reporters in today’s tech landscape. Every week, we upload a Q&A submission by a different writer that will help folks understand how to become more skilful in pitching.

While reading these various submissions, I have noticed that there are certain tips that repeatedly come up. These pointers have also been shared with me by many writers in the past nine years that I have been doing public relations work. I decided to compile all these insights into one post that will be truly valuable for The Next Web’s community looking to gain insight on how to pitch right. Here are the top ten pointers:...