How does the NHL tie in with communications?

Here's how.

NHL SEASON CANCELLATION COSTS $400 MILLION IN AD REVENUE
By Rich Thomaselli

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- Faced with a half-billion dollar loss from advertising revenue and TV contracts after canceling its season last week, the National Hockey League must now grapple with an erosion of confidence from fans and sponsors that threaten its future.

NHL must convince corporate sponsors and TV networks that it can be a viable entity again. (...)

"To say that future revenue streams have been compromised is an understatement," said sports marketing expert David Carter, a principal at Los Angeles-based Sports Business Group and a professor at the University of Southern California.(...)

Now if that isn't the destruction of a reputation, I don't know what is. You've got both short-term costs (advertising revenue that'll never come back) AND what is called here "an erosion of confidence" (quite the understatement).

Analysis Paralysis

Fred Wilson, a blogger and partner at Flatiron Partners, quotes Teddy Roosevelt in this post:

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Not only is that one of my prefered quotes but it also made me think of Malcom Gladwell's "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking."

Congratulations to Mike Manuel

Mike Manuel tells us that Media Guerrilla was voted "Best PR Blog" in the 2005 Business Blog Awards.

Congrats!

Radio-Canada offre des fils RSS

Plusieurs fils différents couvrant les nouvelles générales, les nouvelles du sport et les nouvelles régionales. Félicitations à Rad-Can.

Eason Jordan quits

Jeff Jarvis rounds up a lot of stuff. The money quote:

News people, who are used by PR people, are the worst at figuring out their own PR.

Robert Scoble in The Economist

A while back, Canadian PR blogger Colin McKay wrote a post titled "When is corporate blogging going to break through to the mainstream?" He answered his question by saying:

When BusinessWeek runs a story on corporate blogging, give me a call.

I answered here when blogging was covered in BusinessWeek.

That said, we've now gone one step further since Robert Scoble is profiled in The Economist!

Is that mainstream enough for you?

A Robert Byrne Quote

Getting caught is the mother of invention.

Payola scandal continues

Two items today:

USA Today reports that PR spending doubled from Clinton's second term to Bush's first term.

Key parts of the article:

The Bush administration has more than doubled its spending on outside contracts with public relations firms during the past four years, according to an analysis of federal procurement data by congressional Democrats.

The administration spent at least $88 million in fiscal 2004 on contracts with major public relations firms, the analysis found, compared with $37 million in 2001, Bush's first year in office. In all, the administration spent $250 million on public relations contracts during its first term, compared with $128 million spent for President Clinton between 1997 and 2000. The analysis did not examine what the Clinton administration spent during its first term.

Now we already knew that Armstrong Williams was shilling to promote the No Child Left Behind program and that syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher accepted payments while writing several columns in support of the president's marriage initiative.

Also, thanks to Salon, we learn (free Site Pass necessary) that Michael McManus, author of the syndicated column "Ethics & Religion," received $10,000 to promote a marriage initiative.

Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

This whole thing is sullying both the PR and media industries. We have to keep looking into this.

Les Bloggies 2005

Les nominations pour les Bloggies 2005 ont été rendues publiques hier.

Bacon and Eh's, photojunkie, marmalade.ca, The Adventures of Accorion Guy in the 21st Century et chromewaves.net sont les nominés dans la catégorie Best Canadian Blogs.

Loïc Le Meur blogs and wikis (!) about Davos

SixApart's Loïc Le Meur set up a wiki listing bloggers blogging both from Davos and Porto Allegre.

The Davos official blog is here. Porto Alegre's site is here.

The Internet as a tool for terrorism and/or democracy

Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña tells us about a conference covering Terrorism, Democracy and the Internet in his latest post (translated to English by Google's translation tool here)

Sounds interesting.

Randy's Blog

Open letter to Randy Baseler, VP of Marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, who has started something called Randy's Blog

Randy,

That thing you're publishing isn't a blog. In addition to what Matt Rosenberg (and his commentors) write, may I mention RSS?

You see Randy, I won't be getting to read your prose since I won't be checking out your site every day. I need a way to subscribe to your thing.

If you had comments on your site, I'd have left my suggestion there. If you put up your email address, I could have contacted you that way. Even a phone number would have worked.

Anyways, if you want to add to this discussion, go to my comments or call me at (514) 244-5228 (that's my cell) or email me at msnyder@total.net.

Regards.

Thanks to Steve Rubel writing for WebProNews.

Jay Rosen versus PR Bloggers

NYU's Jay Rosen accuses "PR bloggers" for what he calls "missing in action" in the Armstrong Williams/Ketchum/Department of Education (DoE) scandal.

Julia Hood, editor in chief of PR Week, a trade journal that exploded with Ketchum news this week, wrote on Monday that the Ketchum case "reinforces many of the worst perceptions of the industry and has potential to permanently link the specter of propaganda with the communications profession in the minds of the public." She added, "This is an extraordinarily dismal situation."

Dismal, yes--also incredible--but somehow nearly invisible to PR bloggers, who, aside from a few mentions here and there, have neglected this juicy and far-reaching story. The one exception was Jeremy Pepper's blog, with three posts that counted. He showed up, along with one blogger who is also a player in the industry.

In that last sentence, Rosen is refering to Richard Edelman, who did condemn the whole situation, twice.

Here's my take on it: Rosen should have called out our associations, not the bloggers.

Here's why:

• Colin McKay had blogged about it
• David Murray had blogged about it
• Tom Murphy had blogged about it
• Shel Holtz had blogged about it
• Jim Horton had blogged about it
• Octavio Rojas had blogged about it (in Spanish)
  
• Alice Marshall had blogged about it (and takes Mr. Rosen to task in his comments section)
  
• Shel and Neville Hobson also podcasted about it

And there may be others.

So. What's the takeaway for PR bloggers?

1. Some of us should have reacted to this issue. Myself included.
2. Our associations have been silent/obtuse on this issue.
   

What's the takeaway for Mr. Rosen?

1. A Technorati search is not sufficient research.
2. Maybe an update/correction to that first post is in order?
   

Update: I also missed News Blog / iPressroom. Sorry, no permalinks. Check the January 17th story.

Update 2: I also missed Mediopolis's post on this subject.

Some tips from B.L. Ochman

B.L. sometimes gets on my nerves. Her post yesterday on How to Write Killer Blog Posts and More Compelling Comments is right on the money.

Congrats.

The "Dave Winer/Yahoo problem"

Dave Winer proposes a "single way to subscribe to (RSS) feeds that's vendor-neutral." He doesn't like the multiple "subscribe to this" buttons and the fact that Yahoo! is taking the lead on this.

In his answer to Susan Mernit's comment, Dave says:

Yahoo is trying to be that (the central feed vendor), and if successful, (will) lock all other vendors out.

Dave, since when could anyone "lock all other vendors out" on the Net?

Dave's proposal is here. You can imagine that Jeremy Zawodny, Yahoo's blogging evangelist, doesn't agree.

Nortel Finally Files Updated Financial Statements

I wrote about this in November: Nortel hadn't refiled their financials statements but were launching a "branding initiative."

Well, that situation has finally been updated by this morning filing of their 2003 financial statements.

One interesting tidbit:

twelve senior executives of Nortel’s core executive leadership team have voluntarily undertaken to pay to the Company over a three year period the amount of their Return to Profitability bonuses awarded in 2003 (net of tax withheld at source)

The webcast is here as well a whole bunch of other info.

How to carry a press conference?

The Washington Post writes about writes about the press conference GWB held yesterday.

Quotes from the article:

The President's Grand Elusion
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2004; Page A05

President Bush, an old F-102 pilot, showed at yesterday's news conference that he has not forgotten his evasive maneuvers.

As he fielded questions on everything from Iranian nukes to presidential personnel, the often blunt and plainspoken president employed the full range of artful dodges.

(snip)

For all the bobbing and weaving, yesterday's news conference hinted at an emerging new style for Bush. In his first 45 months in office, he had 15 full-fledged news conferences, fewer than any other postwar president. Bush, a stickler for discipline, didn't want to make unintended news, or to be embarrassed by an unexpected question, as when he was asked what his biggest mistake had been. But since his reelection, Bush has had two news conferences in as many months.

Bush is finding that, with some careful deflection of questions, he can hold a nearly hour-long news conference without serious gaffes or unintentionally making news.

(snip)

When the inevitable question came about the doomed nomination of Bernard B. Kerik to be homeland security secretary, Bush deftly avoided any mention of Kerik's various personal problems and any hint that the White House's vetting process had failed.

"And so the lessons learned is: Continue to vet, and ask good questions," he said. Only the chuckle and shrug of the shoulders accompanying those words suggested there might be more to the story.

Worth a full read.

Sentence de Guy Cloutier

C'est ce matin qu'est tombée la sentence de Guy Cloutier: trois ans et demi de prison. Ce sera bien sûr la "une" de tous les quotidiens demain matin.

Est-ce que la couverture des médias a eu un effet sur la sentence? Pas vraiment.

Extrait du jugement:

Une personne publique qui commet une infraction, de quelque nature qu'elle soit, assume nécessairement le risque de faire l'objet d'une couverture médiatique plus intense qu'une personne qui ne l'est pas.

Lorsque la nature et la gravité de l'infraction sont sérieuses, comme c'est le cas, il devient en quelque sorte normal que celle-ci attire davantage l'intérêt et l'attention des médias.

Vous vous souviendrez que Gilbert Rozon avait eu une absolution inconditionnelle suite à un plaidoyer de culpabilité à une accusation d'agression sexuelle. Yves Boisvert, à l'époque chroniqueur juridique à La Presse, avait signé un texte pour la FPJQ.

J'avais aussi écrit quelque chose sur le sujet en mars dernier.

GWB and "the" message

Here's a funny pic about staying on-message.

More Roadsworth

I spoke with Helen Fotopulos earlier today and just got off the phone with someone on her staff.

The feeling I'm getting is that she is very concerned about the whole Roadsworth issue and is looking into ways of fixing the situation.

I told her how my feeling was that these accusations make no sense. That being said, my conversation with her did make me think about some of the constraints that the City has to manage that I hadn't thought about.

• What do you accept and what can you not accept? Can you write rules to manage these issues? (Think about it, can you really?)
  
• How do you differientiate between graffiti and art? Or, when do graffitis besome art? (I know it's pretty clear in this instance.)
  
• If there are issues with safety, what do you do?
• Can the city intervene in police affairs? If so, when and how?
  

Bottom line, I'm not sure what the City is going to do about this but I do know that Helen is preoccupied and understands the difference between Roadsworth's art and someone "scratching his name into storefront windows." My understanding is that she (as well as the mayor) will be reacting to the questions sooner rather than later.

I'll keep you up to date if I Learn anything else.