Felt Tips

That was 2012, now for 2013

Michael — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:27:19 +0000

The London Press Club Awards yesterday afternoon marked the end of the 2012 narrative in the journalist awards cycle. Reuters’ Tom Bergin again won the business journalist award over Steve Hawkes and Laura Kuenssberg for his tax investigation (to add to his British Press Awards, Orwell Prize and probably some others); James Harding was posthumously recognised for his editorship of The Times as the paper won the daily newspaper of the year (as it did too at the British Press Awards); and John Humphrys won broadcaster of the year for getting the BBC’s DG sacked (again he won a Sony earlier this month). The slate will now be wiped clean for the media themes of 2013.

The medium may have changed, but the message hasn’t

Michael — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:06:29 +0000

PR man hooks up with an ad man and kicks off a new agency isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Only in this case the event took place sixty years ago and the PR man in question still saunters into the office everyday because “nobody has told me to stay at home”. When Harold Burson got a spread in LIFE Magazine for a power tool made by one of Bill Marsteller’s advertising clients, the resulting spike in demand was to spawn the agency template that has underpinned the growth of PR industry for the past half century.

My colleague Celina Maguire has written up her meeting with the 92 year old Harold Burson from earlier this week here and found the founder of the world’s largest PR agency very positive about the sector’s prospects: “The thing that makes me most optimistic is that digital is ravenous for content and I think PR people are a major source of that content.” Burson has a simple definition of Burson Marsteller’s role as helping companies who talk the talk walk the walk – “It’s a line from a rap song but is one of the best definitions of PR”. There are two components to this: behaviour and communication – and it’s behaviour which he views as the most important aspect over the long term.

Leveson: the exhibition

Michael — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:15:12 +0000

Long after the detail of the Leveson Inquiry’s evidence is forgotten, it is likely that the imagery will linger in the imagination. The procession of celebs, politicos and media types through the witness box in the corner of a room purged of any charm created a sharp post-media image that was given contrast when juxtaposed with the reverse angle of the phalanx of lawyers squeezed in behind the rhetorical popinjay Robert Jay QC.

It is now the focus of the latest exhibition at the Ellwood Atfield Gallery that is hosting After Leveson: two views of the press until the end of June. The gallery has been split to host “two compelling and competing visions of the press” so as “to encourage those involved in communications to consider the matters relating to Leveson seriously.” In one gallery room Mick Hume, the freedom of expression campaigner and opponent of Leveson’s conclusions, is staging an exhibit entitled: “There is no such thing as a free press; but we need one more than ever.” The second gallery room is curated by Hacked Off with an exhibition that will “show how far today’s press has hurt and damaged us.” More information available here, but, as Roy Greenslade ponders, when will we get Leveson the musical? ‘Leveson on Ice’ is already in production.

BBC brings in more Fleet St talent

Michael — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:04:46 +0000

The appointment of the guardian’s deputy editor Ian Katz as the new editor of Newsnight marks the second time in a month that the BBC has recruited a senior newspaper hand after James Harding was announced as the next head of news. (One from The Times and one from the guardian does have a semblence of balance to it, although politicians or The Mail are unlikely to see it like that.) Katz doesn’t just have Newsnight’s editorial reputation to re-establish after being chastised in investigations over its handling of Savile, McAlpine and now Help for Heroes. Newsnight, as has been noted before, has an existential crisis over its place in the schedules. The late night slot is being marginalised by the competition with newspaper websites that now post much of their content for the following day before Newsnight hits the airwaves. Unlike The Today Programme, the news cycle has moved against Newsnight and it will find it hard to continue to set the agenda from its current berth in the schedules. Might moving slightly earlier – potentially on another BBC channel – work better ? Katz’s guardian background may lead to a greater focus on its web content, but as Peter Preston pointed out yesterday in the Observer, it also raises succession issues at the guardian where many consider him the natural heir to Alan Rusbridger.

Who’s got it, not who’s going to get it

Michael — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:38:47 +0000

When FTMoney was relaunched at the end of last year, the biggest change was that that the entrepreneur section got guillotined off the back. The problem was that those reading the front end money stories tended to be towards the end of their careers and they were elementally mismatched with the audience at the back end, who were planning their careers. The result was that the entrepreneur section was an advertising desert, so it is now covered by the FT’s Business Life page on Wednesdays. The “My Portfolio” column also went because of the inherent conflict of trying to write 600 words on strategy when sitting tight for the long term was the best option. However, in came a 2,000 word double page feature that looks to unwrap the details behind an important issue. As Jonathan Eley, editor of FTMoney, told a Gorkana breakfast this morning, having the space to mix the practical with the theoretical fulfils the demand the section’s affluent audience places on it. This affluence also explains why the section also doesn’t cover small ticket personal finance issues and instead focuses on issues such as tax and income generation. How to keep it rather than how to spend it.

PR – a leveraged bet on the value of the press?

Michael — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:30:02 +0000

It may have only appeared as a short column as part of Harriet Harman’s comments on press regulation in today’s Times, but the full story of the PRCA’s warning on the perils of press regulation is spared the sub’s pen online(£). Here Grayling’s Alison Clarke, hanover’s Charles Lewington and Lord Bell join with the PRCA in warning that a less vibrant press would damage the integrity of its output. Times media editor Philip Webster reports “PR companies fear the laws would have such a chilling effect on newsgathering that the credibility of their own claims on behalf of clients would suffer from lack of scrutiny. They argue that the “boisterous independence” of newspapers is essential for effective PR because it helps persuade readers that what they are reading has been tested by journalists.” The proposals on exemplary damages and costs on newspapers not part of the new regulator are included in amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill next due to be debated on 23 April.

Crossing the great divide

Michael — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:17:37 +0000

Time for a reverse ferret. The departure of James Harding from the Times did not mark the retreating of the tide for business journalists in positions of power, rather it was a necessary piece of restructuring to allow business journalists to reach positions of even greater influence. James Harding’s appointment as Head of BBC News makes him arguably the most influential journalist in the country. After the BBC’s recent travails over its editorial decision making, it is likely that Tony Hall would have been attracted by the prospect of an external candidate and one who has shown some independence in standing up to his proprietor Rupert Murdoch when at The Times. His credentials would have been further enhanced by his impeccable international credentials as Washington bureau chief and Shanghai correspondent when at the FT and lingual skills that would makes most ambassadors blush. When Rupert Murdoch as good as gave Harding the Bernhard Inghamesque imprimatur of ‘semi-detatched’ in his Leveson evidence last summer, it would be interesting to know whether he thought he might have been pushing him into the clutches of his great rival the BBC.

The rainbow media

Michael — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:07:14 +0000

There was general backslapping amongst the newspapers last week at a job well done over the speed with which they reacted to the announcement of Baroness Thatcher’s death and the comprehensive nature of their ensuing coverage. However, as Matthew Lynn’s feature in Management Today highlights, there is far less consensus within the industry on the best business plan. Amongst the kaleidoscope of operating models explored by Lynn are: the FT, whose mission to be a “trusted guide”, its managing editor argues, hasn’t changed over its 125 year history and has allowed it to build a sustainable subscription business online and in print; the ‘paywalled’ News International titles that are looking to pay-TV for their inspiration as their new CEO Mike Darcey from Sky explains “What pay-TV has shown us is that against a backdrop of a free proposition it is possible to build a paid-for operation.”; through to the Mail, which instead of duplicating the printed Daily Mail on the web, has with mailonline created a specific product to fit the medium. With so many models on offer (there are plenty of others Lynn didn’t put under the microscope) not all of them can fail. It is unlikely that all will succeed either.

PR joins the flock

Michael — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:30:21 +0000

The IPA’s Bellwether Report can now be taken seriously by the PR industry. The quarterly report tracks both the size of the marcomms cake and how that cake is cut up between the different disciplines. Until last autumn, PR was bundled up in the sweep up ‘other’ category, which included items like corporate hospitality, whilst advertising and direct marketing had their own definitions. It is now treated separately in the survey of marketing executives and in the first quarter of 2013 registered a 1.8% uptick in budget provisioning, which compares well to many of the other marcomms disciplines, including advertising, which saw reduced planned spend. Only the internet category was ahead with an 8.9% increase. Overall, after 5 years of diminishing ad spend, the IPA is forecasting a flat 2013 with growth accelerating from 2014 onwards.

Desert island dailies

Michael — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:01:22 +0000

Like many of his colleague’s, Sky News’ Ed Conway has his background in newspapers and certainly appears to retain enough of an attachment to them to be concerned about their survival. Hence a post this week on his personal blog The Real Economy on ‘How to save the newspaper industry’. The big impact of the internet, he argues, is not that consumers have become accustomed to free content, but that it has destroyed the vertical model of newspapers whereby readers have to take all their content from one provider. In a world where people want to dip in and out of different titles for different sections he proposes a Spotify equivalent, which will allow for micropayments for the content that is consumed from a range of titles. As one of the blog’s comments observes, a similar service, pressdisplay.com, already exists. How long until Apple, Google or Amazon move in to this market?