Chilling in Park City and Moab, Utah

We work smart - and hard - here at Sawmill Marketing Public Relations, but we also know when it’s time to take a break and play hard.

That’s just what I did last week with a family trip to stay with friends in Park City, Utah (where we hiked, mountain biked, went fly fishing and more) followed by a drive south to Moab for five days of a Southwest Sampler that included hikes through Arches National Park, a Hummer safari on some intense rock terrain that would rival any roller coaster ride (check out the photo I took, above) and an overnight rafting trip down the Colorado River where we slept on cots under the stars (the photo to the right was our campsite view).

A relaxing, mostly Twitter- and email-free escape from our Baltimore PR firm’s world of media relations, social media, crisis communications and media training.

Now back to work!

‘Outfoxed’ is a Must See

For those who have yet to see the documentary film, Outfoxed, it’s a must see, imo, regardless if you are a PR professional or not. In a compelling way, it lays out Rupert Murdoch’s “vision” about news as well as its implementation that is in place 24/7 on Fox News.

As the competition intensifies among traditional and online media outlets for eyeballs and ears, the Murdoch “model” could become a greater temptation for other media to imitate. Even though he promised to keep out of the Wall Street Journal newsroom at the time he bought it, Murdoch and his definition of “journalism” will undoubtedly seep into every nook and cranny of the WSJ newsroom.

However, one of the people in Outfoxed had a smart and obvious recommendation that each of us should act on—now and as many times as it takes until we get results: reach out to the FCC and let them know your feelings/opinions of Fox News, its management and reporters. Before it’s too late. Please.

John Edwards Didn’t Use #1 Crisis Media Relations Rule

Former Democratic presidential candidate and Senator John Edwards will never know if the current situation as well as his political future would be different if he had adhered to the Number One Rule of crisis media relations: tell your story—and all of it—first.

He had many chances to break this story well before he contacted Bob Woodruff of ABC News to conduct the interview this past Friday night which was, of course, too late. His credibility is zero and it’s way too early to predict his future. Meanwhile, the credibility of the National Enquirer has skyrocketed among its Fourth Estate peers as well as John Q. Public.

By telling your bad news first, truthfully and completely as it is known at the time, your version will be the one that matters and upon which others will be judged. Continue to be the key source for the story as well as for updates.

Once the smoke clears and the cameras and requests for interviews disappear, your credibility will be intact as well as your self respect, two of your most valuable assets.

Meanwhile, we’ll be editing the Woodruff/Edwards interview to include in our upcoming crisis communications and media training summits.

Summer Forecast: Baltimore Newspaper Competition Heats Up; From Buyouts to New Features

We’ve been part of the Baltimore community for decades, handling community relations and media relations for our clients, and never before witnessed such a change in the local newspaper scene.

The Baltimore Sun: buyouts cause dozens and dozens of experienced news staffers to head for the exits, while the editors work internally on a late August/early September release of a ”re-design” expected to greatly reduce the space alloted for news. Already, readers have seen the elimination of a separate Business section. There’s more to come, sources tell us. Once household names, many reporters are taking on new careers (we know of a Pulitzer candidate turned inner-city kindergarten teacher). Who knows what the new Sun will bring, while the online version of the paper continues to see increases in visitors.

Meanwhile at The Examiner, they’ve switched to a Thursday- and Sunday-only home delivery schedule and introduced a competitive lineup of features that makes the tabloid-sized newspaper now appear surprisingly full of content: Credo, a page featuring a Q and A with an interesting local resident (the inaugural issue featured a Columbia, Md. native who is an astronaut); Green Scene, showing a company’s environmental innovations (have we got a client for you!); and Kudos!, honoring those residents who have achieved a special recogntion for their work or expertise. And there’s much more. If the paper can shake some of its startup ills (to begin with, way too many typos and factual errors by a young staff) it will continue to make a serious run at The Sun.

It’s tough times for the print newspaper, so the innovations - or missteps - here in Baltimore are sure to provide lessons for others.

The Launch of Cuil Shows How Publicity Can Be Dangerous if You’re Not Ready for Prime Time

There’s a lot of buzz going on in social media and PR circles about the launch of Cuil, a new search engine that some claimed would seriously challenge Google. Cuil (rhymes with “cool”) enjoyed a stellar day of publicity, with articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

But the next day, the service got skewered by the pundits and users when it failed to live up to the hype. People ego-surfed their names and other test terms and widely reported the off-base results, which were not up to par with what they’re used to with Google searches. Even the name itself poses problems - forget the difficult pronunciation, a simple typo (culi) takes you straight to a porn site! Check out these headlines:

“Google-Wannabe Cuil: Worst. Launch. Ever.” (Silicon Valley Insider)

“Not So Cuil” (CIO Insight)

“Why Cuil is No Threat to Google” (TIME)

“Cuil shows us how not to launch a search engine” (CNET)

Lessons learned: spend more time in “beta” and concentrate on building a core base of users and reviewers as you refine your product and service, and then go for the home run publicity hits after you’ve worked out the bugs.

The PR team had about a day to bask in the glow of its Tier One media coverage - exactly the type of launch publicity every startup asks its PR team to pull off. Now they’re likely spending their days mopping up and looking for ways to counter the negative coverage that has likely turned off a lot of potential users.

Media Training Tip #4: It’s All About Preparation

The Washington Post is midway through its 12-installment series on what they call “Washington’s most famous unsolved crime” - the disappearance and murder of Chandra Levy, the California college student who served an internship with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and went missing for a year before her remains were found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D. C.

Our interest in this case is two-fold. First, Sawmill Marketing Public Relations provided ongoing PR counsel and media relations assistance to the Levy family beginning as the initial non-stop coverage subsided. With our urging, the family agreed not to talk with any media until someone had been arrested for their daughter’s murder.

The second reason is that we believe former U.S. Congressman Gary Condit is the poster boy for how not to conduct yourself with the media. In fact, we use his diastrous interview with Connie Chung on ABC’s PrimeTime Live in our media training as one of the best examples of “bad decision to agree to be interviewed meets bad interview preparation and execution.”

As they view the tape, media training participants note how his body language, posture, facial expression, monotone and hostile attitude each combine to underscore the emptiness of his answers. Why agree to an interview if you are unwilling to put forth your best effort to get your message across?

We’re convinced that the keys to a successful media interview, regardless of the topic, situation or outlet include:

Basic, but thorough, understanding and command of your subject matter;

Knowledge of and practice with simple, easy-to-remember techniques for staying on and returning to your agreed upon messages;

Overview of what the interview will be about, the reporter’s history with the topic and the outlet (tells you about the audience);

Preparation time to gather your thoughts, think about potential questions and therefore answers, take a quick check in the mirror to make sure your lunch is not on your chin; take a few deep breaths;

Greeting the reporter with a smile and a handshake - just as you would a colleague - and be yourself.

Imagine what our perceptions of Gary Condit would be today - many years after the fact - if he had been better prepared to more skillfully deal with the scrutiny of the media. Regardless of what people think of him, he has paid a hefty price for his inability to effectively deal with the press at a time when he most needed their empathy, influence and fairness.

[Photo: The Washington Post]

‘Holy Crap’: Look How Twitter Announced its Acquisition of Summize; Who Needs a Press Release?

Although rumors were fluttering around weeks earlier, when micro-blogging phenom Twitter finally announced its acquisition of the Summize search service on Tuesday morning, it didn’t issue a press release. Instead, the co-founders Tweeted about it, linked Tweets to their blog post and let those in the Twitter community spread the news. No press release. No media advisory. No press conference. No standard PR practices here. Just a bunch of Tweets and a blog post. Did we just witness the future for corporate press announcements?

Check out the chain of events leading up to the announcement, according to the archives of Twitter co-founders Evan Williams (aka @ev), Biz Stone (aka @biz) and CEO/co-founder Jack Dorsey (aka @jack):

“composing a blog post” - Evan Williams on July 14 at 8:49 p.m.

“Big day tomorrow. Sleepy time” - Evan Williams on July 15 at 12:20 a.m.

“Meeting Biz at Whole Foods before we embark upon this grand day…” Jack Dorsey on July 15 at 7:50 a.m.

“watching the clock” - Evan Williams on July 15 at 8:52 a.m.

“Holy crap: http://search.twitter.com (details: http://tinyurl.com/56j2zx)” - Evan Williams on July 15 at 9:01 a.m.

“It’s a foggy 9am. We’re adding a great team and technology to Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/56j2zx. Exciting!” - Jack Dorsey on July 15 at 9:01 a.m.

“announcing Twitter’s acquisition of Summize” - Biz Stone on July 15 at 9:07 a.m.

With Williams’ “holy crap” teaser, followed quickly by the others, the official word  was out, sending readers straight to the blog post Stone had apparently completed the night before. From there, the followers were on to the story, re-Tweeting it, commenting via Twitter and blogs and sending others to the blog post, Finding A Perfect Match. Online news sources covered the announcement, followed by online versions of the mainstream media, who were offered a “press” link on the Twitter Web site - no more than a six-question FAQ document. Simple.

From a PR perspective, this is a refreshing change for an acquisition announcement and one worth learning from: build a base of followers who are interested in your company and what you have to say (caution: this takes time); engage them with content so they’ll stay with you (relationship building); have the announcement come directly from the top; use a conversational yet factual style that shows it wasn’t crafted by the marketing department; and, send readers straight to a blog where they can learn more (again, direct from the source).

Media Training Tip #11: Don’t Let This Happen To Your Spokesperson

Considering whether it would be a good idea to arrange a media training session for your company spokesperson? Then immediately click on this link featuring “The Economy? Words Fail Me,” Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank’s video recap of a press conference gone bad.

This is probably the most alarming example we’ve seen showing the dangerous mix of (a.) a well-meaning and educated spokesman who’s uncomfortable and not fully prepared, and, (b.) a member of the print media (armed with a cameraperson) on the hunt for a new and entertaining angle to a story.

There is no doubt about the expertise of interview subject and Harvard Ph.D. Phillip Swagel, the Treasury Department’s “sacrificial lamb” for an early July 2008 press conference about the economy. But some basic media training and interview preparation techniques could have made his day in the spotlight a little less painful to watch.

Maryland PR Firm Partner Quoted on PR Strategy

BALTIMORE, Md. - The current issue of the Baltimore Business Journal quotes Sawmill Marketing Public Relations partner Jeffrey A. Davis on the current PR strategy of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. Davis, a former newspaper reporter, said the mayor has handled herself well as she faces an investigation by the prosecutor’s office.

“One rule in crisis public relations is to announce the bad news yourself as quickly as possible,” Davis is quoted as saying in the Maryland business newspaper.

If you don’t announce bad news yourself, the media will find someone who will say something, and that source will not likely know all the facts or properly communicate your point of view, the Baltimore PR firm partner says.

The mayor recently employed a unique strategy by showing up unannounced at a happy hour function attended by members of the Baltimore media. See the PR Buzzsaw account of this crisis communications strategy here.

Sawmill Marketing Public Relations, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a Baltimore PR firm established in 1995 specializing in the development and execution of marketing public relations programs as business development strategies for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and professional services clients. The Maryland PR firm specializes in media relations, media training, crisis communications and social media.

Crisis Communications Tip #16: Seek, Not Hide, from Media

Every crisis situation is unique and requires a unique strategy for handling the media. It may be that the smartest strategy is to reach out to the media in a managed and controlled way such as regularly scheduled briefings hosted by a trained company spokesperson where all media are invited and provided ample time for questions.

Or how about the strategy that Sheila Dixon, mayor of the City of Baltimore, recently put into practice as she continues to receive ongoing media attention and scrutiny about an investigation that is just beginning to unfold and that promises to be messy at the least!

After days of coverage by all of the Baltimore media and answering reporters’ questions wherever she went, you’d think she’d give herself a break when she was off the clock. Nope. Instead, she made an unannounced, solo appearance at a downtown restaurant where members of various local media were gathered for their regularly scheduled get together to talk shop over adult beverages.

According to Baltimore Sun columnist Laura Vozzella, Mayor Dixon joined in the small talk chatter, bought her own drink and disarmed those who had likely earlier in the day held a microphone to her face asking her to comment on the investigation. Of course, the current situation never came up and the reporters had a front row seat to see that the Mayor was in many ways just like they were: enjoying a couple of relaxing minutes with friends and colleagues after a long day at the office.

This strategy is not for everyone. It takes a level of courage, confidence and poise that not every executive can muster - especially in a crisis situation. However, the benefit of the Mayor’s strategy - taking deliberate steps to be one-on-one with them on their own turf and in a neutral situation - allows the media to see her as an individual and not only as an elected official which is almost guaranteed to be reflected in their upcoming coverage of the investigation.