Never mind Nick Davies’s suggestion that overworked ‘churnalists’ are being hoodwinked by PRs, Mark Borkowski says flaks and hacks are both struggling to cope with the news cycle. So the media world is flipping over and over like a gigantic overdone pancake because of the ethical fix caused by publication of Nick Davies’ book Flat…
Media meltdowns never fail to astound me; the Archbishop of Canterbury’s PR faux pas last week is probably one of the biggest slip ups – it’s high on a list of cock ups alongside Pope Benedict XVI’s Islam blunder, Prescott’s Green Pledge, Stephen Byers getting his times-tables wrong, John Selwyn Gummer feeding his daughter a beef burger,…
The media circus moved out of my village on Sunday. Without doubt the best take on the surreal turn of events came from Cole Moreton. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/chalfords-donkey-derby-780514.html The aftermath seems to have divided the community; some suggest that it’s painted the village as full of eccentric geriatric freaks who can’t clamber up the hill, others have…
I often comment on the stupidity of PRs, but idiocy in media land is not only demonstrated by publicists, but also journalists. I was told two corking tales by a very well placed journalist friend of mine involving two astounding hack faux pas. The first was about none other than Britney Spears; a story was…
The media’s feeding frenzy on poor old Britney’s latest crisis has suggested that further slips into the pit of despair, have actually been a boon to her record sales. Clearly the media who feed from her problems balance it out by suggesting that they can gaup and plunder column inches and that somehow it does…
Matthew Freud’s power and influence of will be boosted into the stratosphere due to the promotion of his brother in law, James. I expect the bitchy PR world will continue to take swipes at Matthew, especially when the small minds of the major PR networks finally comprehend the significance of the new shape of the…
At the end of each year, the Campaign for Media Democracy stages the “Falsies Awards,” to recognize the people and players that take spin and propaganda to new lows. I have been told that 2007 is a vintage year and has some all time lows. Corrupt PR practice in the US plagues the media across…
What a depressing week – I hope the coming weekend will erase the memory of the last 5 days. From data cock ups to sporting ignominy a battalion of incompetents have presided over a series of lamentable events. The nation is left with a clutch of black ostrich feathers to wave at the cemetery gates….
Forensically picking through the PR damage that is left after Heather Mills McCartney’s Halloween PR onslaught, I can only conclude that it was an emotionally crude crusade of her own design. The harm inflicted on her tattered brand after sweeping across media Ville was nothing short of catasphrophic. The screaming banshee is now a textbook…
Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson has decided to list every lazy PR person who spams his mailbox with irrelevant messages. He claims that “Lazy flacks send press releases to the editor in chief of Wired because they can’t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what…