DWPub Sporadic

A British athlete's perspective on the media ahead of London 2012 - guest post from Jade Nicholls

Having achieved two all-important Olympic standards in the US last month, Jade Nicholls is now one step closer to securing her place on Team GB. We announced our sponsorship of Jade in March and are very pleased to see all of her hard work paying off.

In this special guest post, Jade discusses the positive and negative coverage of the Olympics, her own experiences with journalists and gives her perspective on how the games will impact the public.

The Olympics has created a buzz in the UK but, as with most things, there are sceptics.

How typically English of us to be pessimistic about something so exciting! It’s much easier to criticise the government for everything they’ve done ‘wrong’ than it is to stand up and praise them for their focus on the Olympics. I believe some parts of the UK media tend to take a negative angle by default and then invite the public to join them.

UK athletes are often perceived as underachievers because of old tennis and football stereotypes, but we actually have a number of Olympic and world champions among us. Positive press attention on a small number of well-known athletes like Jessica Ennis really spurs me on – I use it as fuel to motivate me.

I think the only press that have been positive towards the Olympics throughout are the sports reporters, as well as many local news reporters. In my experience, Crawley News and Observer have been very supportive, and seem to want to know about my achievements. They don’t steer questions in a way that encourages negativity, but rather offer Joe Public the chance to learn about the local athletes that are either aiming to get to the Games or those that are potential medallists.

The press has the power to rally public feeling for big upcoming events. However, there is a big difference in the way royal events (such as the Royal Wedding and the Queen’s Jubilee) and the Olympics have been portrayed. The Olympics is a much more inclusive event, and as a result, I believe it gives both the public and the press more freedom to say what they really think. The government has much more involvement in the Games, and as money spent on the Olympics is from the public purse, some people were always going to oppose the Olympics coming to London. It becomes a political issue.

However, thousands of people will be inspired by the Games. Kids will feel motivated to take up sport after watching the Olympics, and that will make it all worthwhile. Those kinds of things are priceless.  I think it’s an exceptionally proud time to be British – hopefully in the end the press will too.

10 tips for journalists just starting out on Twitter

There is no doubt loads of stuff out there for journalists wanting to use Twitter for their work but I've recently been asked for such advice by journalists so here's my take on it.

I guess to be more 'current' this should be about Google+, Pinterest or Instagram. But despite Twitter being considered to be well established within the media community there are still many thousands of journalists who have yet to dip their toe in.

So for those journalists just starting out on Twitter here are ten basic tips:

1. Be transparent. Make sure you have a decent picture of yourself and biography that clearly states that you are a journalist, the sectors you cover and the main titles you work for
2. Find specialists. Follow organisations and experts in the areas you cover. This may require some research
3. Hook up with PRs. Follow PR professionals in the sectors you cover. You may not be interested in everything they have to say but by following them you will be making your existence known
4. Tweet your stories. This is not egotistical, instead it is very useful to those who follow you to see what sort of thing you are producing. When your articles go online Tweet the headline and a link (use a link shortener), it is a good idea to add [by me] so it's transparent
5. Be opinionated. Tweet thoughts on major issues relating to the sectors you cover
6. Tweet as you research. As long as you don't think you're giving too much away to competitive titles it is a good idea to tweet facts you uncover during research
7. Seek interviews. If emailing or phoning a PR contact does not elicit a useful response, tweet the organisation instead. To publicly ignore you does not look good
8. Be consistent. Aim to tweet at least once a day. This will keep you going while you get into it, it's very easy to abandon Twitter early on before you've developed your community
9. Make it easy. Install a Twitter app on your phone (if you don't have a smartphone then get one) and make sure Twitter or a Twitter client is a default tab on your laptop/desktop browser
10. Think 'community'. Remember Twitter (as is social media in general) is a two-way street, don't just talk at people but converse with them too

Another good tip is to use ResponseSource to make media enquiries and choose the 'reply by Twitter' option or include your Twitter ID in each request, this is a good way of encouraging relevant followers.

It's also worth mentioning the #journorequest hashtag, which you can use when tweeting requests for help with articles. I don't know how effective it is, I'd be keen to hear any feedback on how well it works.

Can bloggers learn from journalists?

Attending Cybher, a recent event for women bloggers, was a revelation in many ways – not least how the event felt more like a ‘movement’ than a conference, a wonderful antidote to the hundreds of dry corporate events I’ve been to over the years.

I spoke on the ethics panel at the end of the day. Normally at this end of a conference many of the seats earlier filled with delegates would be empty, such is the temptation for many to bunk off early . But at Cybher the room was still very full, a demonstration of the passion many bloggers have for their craft.

During the session I made the point that journalists are often trained – either in college or on the job – on many aspects which relate to ethics. I went on to assert that it would be very useful for bloggers to have access to this kind of knowledge.

Someone in the audience challenged me, saying “that’s a bit rich,” referring obviously to recent examples of ethical abuses among the journalist community, most notably the hacking scandal.

It was a good challenge and prompted me to argue that while some journalists behave unethically, the majority do not and one must remember that it was journalists who unearthed the hacking scandal in the first place, just like it was journalists that unearthed the MPs expenses scandal. (See this related post by Ellen Arnison.)

In any case, I added, I was not suggesting that bloggers should behave just like journalists (it’s a separate point but also journalism can be quite formulaic which could stifle the creative freedom of blogging) however knowledge of some skills and knowledge associated with journalism could be very useful to bloggers and give them confidence to do an even better job of serving their audiences.

This is a subject I may return to in a little more detail.

Benefits to bloggers of being listed on the FeaturesExec Media Database

Many journalists are familiar with media databases such as FeaturesExec and the benefits of being listed in them. These benefits are possibly even more applicable to bloggers.

Here's an explanation, aimed primarily at bloggers, of some of those benefits:

• Profile raising. Being listed in FeaturesExec ensures your blog is visible to public relations (PR) professionals in the course of their work. In addition to their role in providing content for the media PR people also advise their clients on what media they should be following, including influential blogs. So being listed helps to extend your audience.

• Source content. A listing in FeaturesExec helps PRs learn more about you and your blog. They can then provide you with relevant, useful information such as exclusive content, Q&As, competitions, product trials, vouchers and invitations to events as well as press releases. Thus can be a great source of content for your blog.

• Specify your interests. We can include details in your listing about specifically what you want to receive from the PR community (and, of course, what you don't want to receive). The more detail on FeaturesExec the better PRs can tailor contributions to your blog.

Our aim at DWPub is to help the PR and media communities communicate. Bloggers have become an important part of the media and we are keen to work with influential bloggers to help them engage with the PR profession. Including major blogs in our FeaturesExec Media Database is just one way we are doing this.

We use a range of criteria to indentify major (or 'influential') blogs, including frequency of posts, subject focus, quality of writing and design, number of comments and site traffic. This criteria is always under review and I'm always keen to talk to bloggers to find out ways we can make our services work for them.

Bloggers may also find our other services useful, including the ResponseSource Enquiry Service and SourceWire News Distruibution – more details here.

Blogger requests - love 'em or hate 'em

We've released a request on our ResponseSource Enquiry Service today which will probably make most subscribers have a good old chuckle. Though it may annoy some who take it too literally.

It's a bit of a spoof of blagging bloggers - those bloggers that habitually request 'review samples'.

Here is just a short excerpt from the request:

"We are thinking of setting up our "Owt For Nowt" blog and would like you to send us lots of lovely and expensive gifts which we might - or might not - write about... Basically we just want nice things for free..."

The submitter, Bernice Saltzer from Sorted PR, singled out mummy bloggers - though of course there are many good ones and only a minority behave in the style of Bernice's parody. It's also worth pointing out that there are bloggers of other types who are equally inclined to request review samples.

Bernice was having a bit of a laugh about bloggers that ask for a lot of stuff but don't write much (or very well). I don't believe she was questioning the value of blogger relations, at least I didn't see it that way.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was there has been a big rise in blogger requests and this has put us in a challenging position.

In recent years as blogging has become more mainstream we have of course allowed bloggers to use the service, it's only right that ResponseSource reflects a changing media.

But a significant proportion of blogger requests are of the 'review sample' variety. While many believe they are a legitimate PR opportunity other subscribers feel this clutters the ResponseSource service.

Our response to this is to offer the ability for individual subscribers to filter-out blogger requests or to filter-out specific bloggers. Not all subscribers realise they can do this, and of course many prefer not to filter in case they miss something.

I've always felt that ResponseSource is a barometer of the media. It is a communications channel used by the media and therefore the content reflects media style of the time. Because of this, I feel we should not intervene with the content unless absolutely necessary. We do moderate it of course, but with a fairly light touch as it is not for us to unnecessarily influence the way people use the service.

So for that reason, I personally believe filtering is better than aggressive moderation.

Having said that, I'd really like to hear from the ResponseSource community on how we can balance the needs of those who believe access to blogs is critically important and those who prefer to focus on other media. And that is the reason we let Bernice's enquiry out - it's a piece of comedy and also a catalyst for debate.

What happened to all the journo parties?

I have to thank a couple of journalists - Adrian Bridgwater and David Ludlow - for this inspiration behind this little project.

It was Adrian, a freelance tech journalist, who prompted us to ressurect an idea previously developed by David, who these days is group editor and associate publisher for Expert Reviews and Computer Shopper.

It's a calendar of journalist parties that we have set up very simply on our Facebook page and can be found by going to www.journoparties.com.

Normally this time of year is awash with Xmas drink-ups for journalists. But so far we have only identified about four, including our own annual SourceWire Cheshire Cheese Xmas Press Party.

I know there are fewer press parties these days but surely there must be more? We'll be searching them out and adding them in the coming days.

Journalists say social media is an important tool and PRs don't use it enough

Over three-quarters of journalists believe social media is an important tool for their work according to a survey published today.

Over 900 journalists took part in the survey (see survey results press release) conducted by DWPub in the last six days. Perhaps to some extent participation was galvanised by the on-going superinjuction story which illustrated not just the importance of social media for news dissemination but also how it operates under different conventions than the traditional press.

The survey also found that little more than one per cent of respondents claimed they were using social media less than they were 12 months ago, confirmation that journalists reject the notion that social media may be a fad.

Perceptions of how the public relations industry uses social media could only be interpreted as negative, with only 24% believing that PR professionals make enough use of social media.

The survey coincides with the launch of DWPub's latest whitepaper which examines the impact of social media on the work of journalists. Written by Financial Times interactive producer Martin Stabe, the whitepaper is entitled How social media is changing the role of journalists.

In the whitepaper Martin covers in detail how journalism has adapted to social media as a tool for newsgathering, directing traffic to media sites and profile building for individual journalists. It gives considerable insight to PR professionals wishing to use social media as a way of communicating with journalists.

When what to wear becomes a metaphor for transforming media

I'm not often overly concerned about 'appropriate' dress. Running my own business in media – a sector rarely inhibited by dress codes – means I normally get away with being scruffy.

But the other day I was faced with attending two events, one pretty much after the other, that presented me with an attire challenge that reflected the philosophical gulf between them.

First up was that old school national media shindig the London Press Club Annual Awards Luncheon. There was no dress code, but once I arrived I noticed the presence of guest of honour the Duchess of Cornwall had upped the game, the gents wore suits and ties and the ladies wore smart dresses.

Thinking I was playing it safe, I had gone for the middle-ground.

I appeared in a dark blue linen suit, fresh from M&S, cream linen short-sleeve shirt and finished perhaps a tad rebelliously with Converse All Stars on my feet. I didn't expect to be the only one without a tie, but I think I was. And I was definitely the only one in trainers.

Some of the biggest names in national journalism were at this lunch, and despite the general seniority, it seems both in age and position, I would have expected to see some hacks challenging the status quo. But there were none.

In fact, the overall atmosphere in the Berkeley Hotel ballroom was one of conformity, with just the slightest whiff of elitism. I looked out of place. Camilla seemed to glance at me few times during her speech, I'll leave it to those who know me to decide it what manner I may have indulged in that.

Then, after the fantastic meal and through a slight haze induced by the very pleasant and plentiful white wine provided by the London Press Club, I went on to the next event. This was an informal meeting of those in digital PR PR organised by VCCP Share communities director Jed Hallam through, rather appropriately, the medium of Facebook.

A casual affair in De Hems, a Dutch bar in London's Soho, unsurprisingly outfits were more casual and those few who had to wear suits for work had discarded their ties, while others were decked out in t-shirts and jeans, with perhaps a little streak of geekiness. There was no guest of honour, unless you count the brief appearance by Robin Grant, managing director of fast-growing 'conversation agency' We Are Social – I'm sure he'd be the first to admit he's hardly royalty.

Once again I felt out of place, in the context of my clothing if nothing else. My play-it-safe outfit seemed too middle-of-the-road among this group.

The whiff of elitism was still there, however. You could be forgiven to consider this a cliquey group of agency owners and heads of digital (with a few hangers-on like myself). But this is more perception than reality. In fact the barriers to entry to this fluid and unstructured group are largely non-existent, you just invite yourself.

I enjoyed both events for different reasons, and though I have to confess I felt more comfortable in the evening, this was probably more due to the fact I was among some good friends. But what is for sure is I had experienced a wonderful juxtaposition that illustrated the widening culture in today's media.

Let's shut down all the journalism degree courses

Journalism is a trade, not a profession. That's something I've believed in since I cut my teeth in the local press.

So I enjoyed reading this interview with Kelvin MacKenzie, who was editor of The Sun during what many believe to the the red-top's heyday.

I'm inclined to agree with most of the sentiment in the interview, and chuckled to read that one small thing we have in common is that neither of us have 'A' levels.

A big difference between us though is that I studied journalism at college - a one year course at the London College of Printing (now the London College of Communications).

No doubt Kelvin would sneer at that, he believes the best kind of training is on the job. And I'd agree. But that relies on a culture of in-house training in the media, a culture that faded during the '90s and into its void stepped in the universities with journalism degrees.

Personally, I reckon I could teach journalism to a better standard in three months than any three-year degree course. But shorter vocational or post-graduate courses in journalism are valid in a media industry that no longer has the resources or the willing to train people from scratch.

Hacks at the SourceWire party offer tips for junior PRs

The SourceWire Xmas Press Party at the Cheshire Cheese pub on London's Fleet Street was a bit special this year - we had over 180 journalists through the door.

In recent years SourceWire has become synonymous with this event that was started back in the 1970's by tech PR supremo Bill Moores. We'll keep it going for as long as journalists want to come - and judging by this year's turnout it's going be a long time.

In the video of the event we asked some of them of the journalists for their advice they would give to PR professionals for communicating with the media. You could view the result almost as a training video for junior PR execs.