THINKing

How To Be A Great Radio Guest

Radio – despite changes in media habits – still is a great way to get in front of a lot of people. As a radio talk show guest on a national program, millions could hear your message. Talk radio listeners tune in about 20 percent more than the average radio listener.

Being a great guest takes some work on your part. Let’s review what you must do in order to attain great guest status.

Be Available. Journalists of all stripes complain about not being able to reach sources when they need them. With radio, it is not just a 9 – 5 job. The great radio guest will show up whenever he or she is needed.

Be Conversational. This goes beyond your ability to carry on a good conversation. You must speak clearly, concisely and in terms the average listener understands. Start throwing around business-speak like “that’s not in my wheelhouse” and get booted off the show before it starts. In fact, don’t talk like that when you are not on radio!

Be Ubiquitous. It was true when I was in radio and it is still true today, radio people follow their print brethren. If you have been quoted by a news magazine or newspaper, radio producers are more likely to have you on. And, help producers locate you. Make sure you have an online presence and that you have your media clips accessible so producers can determine if you are the right source for them.

Be In The Moment. If you are out pitching yourself, take advantage of the news cycle. If there is nothing happening currently that ties your expertise into the topic of the day, then wait. Your day will come.

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News Media: Your Slip Is Showing

You’ve probably read about it by now – the hoax pulled on the media by a group posing to be from the US Chamber. The CopyWrite, Ink blog has a good overview.

And it was a hoax on the media, not on the US Chamber of Commerce, as Bloomberg characterized it. Says Bloomberg,

The Yes Men, a New York group that pulls pranks on corporations, issued a fake press release and the text of a purported speech by Chamber President Thomas Donohue under the chamber’s letterhead yesterday, said Jacques Servin, a Yes Men member. The imposters also held a news conference at the National Press Club with ersatz chamber officials.

No, this was a hoax on the media. Plain and simple. Today’s media follow their template and biases, try to get the “news” out too fast, with little to no fact-checking.

Reuters called it more correctly after the fact. Initially, they too ran with the false story that the US Chamber of Commerce was changing its position on cap and trade. That’s what the liberal media wanted to hear and that’s why they didn’t question it. That’s what I mean by the template.

Today’s media members are overwhelmingly liberal.  A 2005 UCLA study confirms this. Former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg has written a book on the subject – Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How The Media Distort The News that was spawned by an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. Goldberg says that it’s not a purposeful left-wing conspiracy. According to an article in Newsmax,

Goldberg, who spent his last years at CBS in the doghouse for his 1996 Wall Street Journal piece, says that if these correspondents were to take a lie detector test as to whether they slanted the news leftward, they would deny it and pass with flying colors. Many of them don’t consider that they’re leaning in any political direction. They really think they are simply mainstream. There is no other side of the argument except what you hear from a few right-wing nut cases. In their world, mainstream conservatism doesn’t exist.

Don’t be surprised by more of these hoaxes.They are just too easy to perpetrate.

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Top 5 Tips For Media Selection

Marketers have a wide variety of media at their disposal. Even in this digital age, many think first of the advertising troika of newspapers, magazines and TV. But there are a number of other options depending upon what you are trying to accomplish.

1. Create a sense of urgency. Direct marketing offers that contain a deadline for consumer action can create that sense of urgency that motivates your customer to buy now.

2. Fill in the blanks. Brochures are a great vehicle for providing the detailed information about your product’s many benefits.

3. Be impulsive. Signage speaks to people when they are in buying mode at the point of sale. Besides spurring impulse buying, signs also act as a reminder, connecting the dots to your other marketing efforts.

4. Get interactive. Your web-related marketing efforts can capture a consumer’s attention, direct the prospect to additional information to help educate and answer questions, ask for the business and make the sale.

5. Establish intimacy. Radio is a one-to-one medium that allows the marketer to build a close connection with the prospect.

So, before you select your media, think about what customer action you want to spur.

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Links – 8/5/2008

Broadcast Usurps Newspapers, Online To Dominate

Despite broader issues in the overall economy, the media industry continues to be among the fastest growing industrial sectors in America.

Into The Abyss: Newspapers Continue Freefall

Most of the big newspaper publishers have seen their ad revenues fall sharply over the last year, if not longer. The downward trend is clearly established, with executives warning investors that there are more declines on the way.

Newspapers Could Be Bargains

WANT to buy a newspaper company? No? You’re in good company.

SEC To Recognize Corporate Blogs as “Public Disclosure”

SEC special counsel Kim McManus outlined new guidance the SEC is about to give companies on when they can use their Websites, including blogs, to disclose material information. What this means is that we can now finally kill the press release, at least in its current form

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Mammals 1, Dinosaurs 0

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile
Crowdsourcing applications, like Knewsroom, are going to kill the traditional media behemoths. Knewsroom is a news publication where readers help decide on content and they get paid to use the system. Here’s how Knewsroom describes itself:

The Knews” gets published every morning, featuring the previous day’s top stories in Politics, Business, Technology, Design, Sports, and Entertainment. What makes it in? The community decides. The best part? 20% of every dollar we generate in advertising gets split with the people who make the Knews happen: writers, readers, evangelists…anyone looking to turn extra brainwidth into extra cash.

This is where news is headed. MSM dinosaurs continue to lose readers for a variety of reasons I don’t need to dwell on. Read this recent SocialMediaExplorer post for some thoughts on the matter.

Further, Knewsroom explains,

We want to know what YOU think is news. Unlike mainstream media, Knewsroom™ leaves the decision of what’s worth publishing up to you. So yes, if enough people want to see a story about something no one else is covering, it’ll be in tomorrow’s Knews. The more involved you are in Knewsroom,™ the more power you’ll have to shape it. You accumulate watts—our official community currency—by being an active member of the community: suggesting topics, writing stories, voting, and referring other members. The idea is to invest your watts in what you think should tomorrow’s Knews should be. Just like on Wall Street, your return on investment is determined by the risk you take. You can invest in Topics—which are kind of like mutual funds (lower risk/lower return), or you can bet on Stories—which you can think of as individual stocks (higher risk/higher return). Of course, you can diversify and do both. Like everything else at Knewsroom,™ it’s entirely up to you.

Citizen journalists – like small mammals – are supplanting the dinosaur MSM. And the bad thing for them is, the large reptiles won’t notice until it’s too late.

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Twittering Journalists – Part 2

Here are some more media outlets using Twitter, mostly from Red 66. Please add to the list if you know some we’ve missed.

47 News, Tokyo, Japan @47news

ABC News, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia @abcnewsbrisbane

AgendaTwiMedios @agendatwitter

AmericasReport @AmericasReport

Breaking News Alerts @BreakingNewsOn, @LivePressAlert

CNET News @CNETNews

ESPN Headlines @espn

Mahalo News @mahalonews

MarketWatch @MarketWatch

Marketwire @marketwire

Motor Awards, Venezuela @MotorAwards

MSN Noticias, España @msnnoticias

MSNBC @msnbc_world

Noticias Emol @twitter_emol

WFPL News (NPR – Louisville) @wflpnew

More Twittering Journalists

Adam Boulton, Sky News, London, UK @SkyNewsBoulton

Darren Waters, Technology Editor, BBC News @djwaters1

Ginny Skal, WNCN NBC 17, Raleigh, NC @ginnyskal

Jim Long, NBC @newmediajim

Wayne Sutton, WNCN NBC 17, Raleigh, NC @waynesutton

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Twittering Journalists

UPDATE 12/19/2009 – I have consolidated all of the Twittering Journalists wiki into Twitter lists. 

Twittering Media Outlets

Twittering US Journalists

Twittering Canadian Journalists

UPDATE: Twittering Journalists has been moved to this wiki.

I’ll be adding to this list, and if you have names of Twittering journalists, please feel free to post them. Here is what I’ve dredged up to-date from sources including Red66, CNET and keyword searches on Twitter:

MEDIA PEOPLE

BusinessWeek: Sara Lacy

CNET: Charles Cooper, Caroline McCarthy, Ina Fried, Dan Farber, Jim Kerstetter, Elinor Mills, Maggie Reardon, Stephen Shankland

Techcrunch: Michael Arrington, Duncan Riley

The Charlotte Observer: Jeff Elder

The New York Times: Saul Hansell, John Markoff

The Wall Street Journal: Kara Swisher

MEDIA OUTLETS -Newspapers

Charlotte Observer, @theobserver

Financial Times @FTmedianews, @FTfinancenews

Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu, HI @starbulletin

Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville, TN @knoxnews

LA Daily News @ladailynews

LA Times @latimesbreaking, @latimesworldNashua Telegraph, Hudson, NH @NashuaTelegraph

The New York Times, NY @nytimes

The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC @newsobserver

The Oregonian, Portland, OR @oregonian, @OregonianBiz, @OregonianTraff, @OregonianSports

The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL @orlandosentinel

USA Today @ondeadline

MEDIA OUTLETS – Radio & TV

CNN @cnn, @cnnbrk, @CNNNewsroom

Fox News @foxnews

KOAT, Albuquerque, New Mexico @KOAT

KPBS News, San Diego, CA @kpbsnews

News 2 Colorado, Denver, Colorado @News2Colorado

NPR News @nprnewsblog, @nprnews, @bryantpark

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Bad Rep

As we’ve seen recently with the self-inflicted wounding of Eliot Spitzer, reputations take years to build but only seconds to destroy. It is particularly so now that digital technology has given us a minute-to-minute news cycle. DC (digital colleague) Rodger Johnson has an interesting piece on reputation management in the digital age.

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And Now The News

Just a few quick links today to media news of note:

Print version of newspapers continue their downward spiral (MediaPost)

Newspaper sites soar (Hitwise)

Mobile ads make a move (Nielsen)

TV invades kids bedrooms (NY Times)

Radio ad revenues slump (Wall Street Journal)

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8 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

I’m now “it” thanks to Jason Falls. This meme – 8 things you didn’t know about me – has been making the rounds for a while and Jason has challenged me to tell you my 8. Here you go, Jason:

#1. I’m probably too old to blog.

Yep, this old guy (55) has always been an early adopter of technology, and it’s no different with social media. Good PR people should always figure out how to hold conversations with their constituencies. Analog or digital – it doesn’t matter how the dialogue happens.

#2. I got paid to talk.

I did a daily, one-hour current events talk show called Carolina Roundtable on WAYS, an AM radio station in Charlotte, NC. I also was the managing editor of the radio news team and a media critic for the newspaper.

#3. I got paid to watch basketball games.

I did radio color commentary for UNCC basketball games, and got paid for doing it. Now, if we could have been drinking beer at the same time, that would have been the ultimate job.

#4. I can tune up an airplane.

I was in the NC Air National Guard as an aircraft mechanic. I have worked on 28-cylinder reciprocating engines and on turboprops. Also, I can taxi one of the big fellows like a C-124 or C-130.

#5. I’m armed and dangerous.

I won a marksman ribbon in Air Force basic training, hitting 100 of 100 rounds in the kill zone with an M16. I also can fire a pistol accurately with either hand. I’m usually pretty mellow but I thought you ought to have fair warning.

#6. I was almost killed in a thunderstorm.

One hot summer night, while broadcasting a semi-pro football game from a stadium in Meridian, Mississippi, we moved the equipment out of the booth because it was so hot. The only place to move was atop the booth. A thunderstorm whipped up late in the fourth quarter and lightning crackled all around us. Luckily, the game was completed and we were able to pack up before the center of the storm arrived.

7. I’ve seen dead people.

On July 4, 1978 I was working as a reporter on the police beat. Our usual cops reporter had the day off. We got a call about a multiple homicide and I was the first reporter on the scene. I walked into the house, which was the home of a motorcycle gang, where several of them had been gunned down during the night. The bodies were still there. This case has never been solved.

#8. I’ve been threatened by a sheriff.

As a police reporter I discovered the Mecklenburg County Sheriff was involved in a lot of unsavory activities. I reported on these. One day prior to a County Commissioner’s meeting, the Sheriff and two of his deputies circled around me and began making threats. I had the presence of mind to turn on the tape recorder. I used this tape in radio news stories. I made it my mission to ensure that this Sheriff would serve only one term. Mission accomplished.

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