SeanReadsTheNews

On Hiatus - SeanReadsTheNews Will Return October 15, 2009

This is a wrap for the 8-day trial period for SeanReadsTheNews.  I'd like to thank my beta-testers for helping me properly calibrate the blog's content and in particular Bob Markee, a PR/journalism layman who really put in time to help me get the content right after the first few days.

A few of you have mentioned that the title isn't weighty enough and that I should shell out to own my own domain name rather than go with .typepad.com.  So when we return from hiatus, I may have a new name for the blog as well as a new URL, or I may not.  I'll keep everyone posted.

Please continue to leave comments or e-mail me privately with suggestions for the re-launch.

Enjoy September,

Sean Dougherty

Portfolio - Yes, Portfolio - on Magazine Sales

There are three reasons to flag this post by Portfolio's media columnist Matt Haber.

1. Yes, Portfolio, the unlamented attempt at a fourth major business magazine from Conde Nast that hired top talent from across business journalism and then accomplished conspicuously little with it, is again producing original content on its website.  So if you're a PR person and the other national outlets have turned you down, it's worth a shot.
2. Haber's column is actually pretty funny, a review of circulation numbers of consumer magazines that show that a) we are spending more on cooking magazines, b) celebrity-obsessed supermarket titles have peaked and c) there are a lot of old people in America and they sure love their magazines.  Readers Digest may be bankrupt, he notes, but it is the third largest circulation magazine in America behind two different titles published by the AARP.
3. His blog roll of media critic websites is tremendous.  If you're in the media business it's a great way to quickly catch up on trends.  One of these days I'll add a wider blog roll to this site, and when I do I'm going to grab a bunch of links from there.

It would be unfair to note these minor observations without at least mentioning that USA Today's excellent media writer David Lieberman today has an interesting CEO interview with David Zaslav of The Discovery Channel.  It wasn't quite ground-breaking enough to warrant its own post and there aren't any major PR lessons to learn from it but if you're interested in what's selling on basic cable these days, there is a lot there.

Milwaukee Commercial Real Estate Broker Scores By Facing the Negative

NPR's Marketplace hosts a segment by WUMW reporter Erin Toner about the economic downturn's impact on commercial real estate in Milwaukee.

Bill Bonifas, head of the local CB Richard Ellis, gives an interview on how he sees the current conditions in Milwaukee as among the worst he's seen.  His willingness to acknowledge the downturn and put numbers behind it (quoted as saying 1 in 5 offices in Milwaukee are empty) also offers him the opportunity to talk about his strategy for extending current leases and discuss where he sees the turnaround happening.

Too many leaders hide under a rock when they don't have good news to announce - but Bonifas has just secured national coverage for himself as the face of Milwaukee's eventual recovery.  If the city recovers, he'll be in the middle of the deals.  If it doesn't, the segment will not be on his list of problems.

Another PR lesson is that finding ways to tie your story idea to a local market can result in national coverage based on the way NPR manages its member network stations.  NPR stations are usually among the most respected and listened to in their markets for starters - and with Marketplace as an even greater upside, that's good reason for PR people to know them.

Two Looks at Cancer Care Trends - WSJ & NYT

Today Carl Bialik, who writes the "Numbers Guy" column for The Wall Street Journal turns his eye toward outwardly negative data about cancer survival rates in the U.S. and breaks them down to show why they are misleading.

At the same time, veteran drug industry reporter Andrew Pollack of The New York Times provides an extensive look at the economics of developing cancer drugs as part of a review on the "40 Years War on Cancer."

Both articles attack the complexities of treating cancer and the difficulty of measuring success in novel ways that stand apart from other reporting on the subject.

Bialik's column opens by noting the stubborn resistance of cancer survival rates to move - but immediately cautions readers not to see this as futility.  He measures years gained by cancer patients - yes the mortality is the same but it obviously shows improvement if the average time from diagnosis to death is longer.  His story features several quotes from both government health and private hospital and University researchers. He notes that because cancer is an amalgamation of many diseases there will never be one "cure" as with polio.

Pollack's article focuses on the implications of that last observation, taking a novel tack to reporting the subject - the difference between drugs that offer marginal improvements vs. home runs that stop tumors in their tracks.

As he analyzes the investment portfolios of the major drug companies, he notes that drugs that are expensive and easier to deliver to market - ones that might extend life by three-five months - can be more profitable than drugs that provide longer-term benefit.  One stark example is a drug that costs $3,500/month and extends the life of pancreatic cancer patients for an average of 12 days.

While the article leads with a review of a massive oncology lab set up by Pfizer, Pollack quotes several doctors, medical experts and drug company executives about motivations, what's possible and why subtle variations in molecular activity among even the same type of cancer make it so difficult to treat.

Bialik is a high-risk/high-reward reporter to pursue because his column on statistics doesn't have a true peer, so if you spend weeks putting together ideas and data to craft the right idea to catch his attention and he doesn't like it, there isn't another reporter you can send it to.  On the other hand, if he does like it, you'll end up with a large feature column.

A lesson from Pollack's article is to engage in media opportunities with your eyes open.  The New York Times' health care reporters as a group trend negative toward the drug industry and health insurers, so Pfizer's team was probably somewhat nervous about dealing with Pollack.  However, what's clear is that by participating, they were able to temper what could have been a hostile article and inject their hope and commitment into it.

Paynet Turns its Business Into Reuters News

Today Al Yoon of Reuters covers accounts payable data from Paynet, a company that provides risk management tools to the commercial lending industry.  Paynet turned its own business into an economic index of sorts worthy of news coverage, a holy grail in the media relations business.

The result is a one-source story  extensively quoting Paynet's CEO on prospects for an economic recovery, a great plug for his business.  That's even harder to pull off when, like Paynet, you aren't actually the lender but someone who watches the lender closely.

Most businesses with a window on such activity tend to be closed mouthed about it, which provides opportunities for companies willing to be strategic about what to share and with whom.

NPR Fails to Consider the Source When Roasting Denny's

Advocacy groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest and PETA survive on stunt lawsuits and press releases that do nothing to advance scientific debate but do a lot to goose their donor rolls.

NPR's Corb O'Connor fell for it today by giving the CSPI a platform on its prestigious Marketplace program for a junk lawsuit against Denny's.  CSPI picked Denny's to sue because it is perpetually the butt of jokes about its downscale clientele and cuisine - but the suit would have applied equally to just about any restaurant or packaged food producer.

There are numerous talking heads on the other side of the issue who would have loved at the chance to engage CSPI in debate - including the American Council on Science and Health and the American Enterprise Institute but instead NPR used old tape of Denny's CEO being interviewed elsewhere as well as a statement from a trade organization for restaurants that is moving to adopt salt-labeling efforts in attempt to get ahead of any pending litigation or regulation.

Without any achievements on which to hang their advocacy, CSPI resorts to these stunts to grab media attention.  Across the public relations industry, successful employment of these tactics is the market of great creativity.  Selling a story that has news and substance behind it is easier than having to craft something compelling out of the air.  Courts and legislators didn't do that - the media's complicity in junk lawsuits did.

To promote a food products client, a colleague once came up with a plan to have each major city name its specialty hot dog and rolled out the contest to local news stations nationally.  There is a difference, however, between applying creativity to craft an idea that is transparently a fun diversion and fear-mongering.

Chevron Fights City Hall

Running a global oil company is as much about diplomacy as it is business strategy.  Billions have been won and lost over the years as governments from Russia to Nigeria to Argentina change the terms on contracts with global oil firms to develop their assets.

Generally, oil companies have little recourse but to roll over and take what's given them, which is why it is so interesting that Chevron is fighting back against court corruption in Ecuador, as reported in today's Washington Post by reporters Steven Mufson and Juan Forero.

The company secured video of the judge in the case speaking of it being over and about distributing the proceeds from the ruling and posted them to its website.

The suit in question alleges Chevron-owned Texaco dumped toxic wastes into waterways in Ecuador from 1972 to 1990, exactly the kind of case corporations usually settle quickly to reduce the bad press.  In fact, such a settlement was in place, ending Texaco's responsibility in 1998.  The government Ecuador came back for more and rather than extorting additional payments, seemed to have ensnared a substantial portion of Ecuador's government, including the sister of President Rafael Correa.

The plaintiffs' attorney refers to Chevron posting the video of the alleged corruption a "dirty trick," and if so, he should get used to it.  No longer at the mercy of limited media distribution channels and better able to tell their side of the story, corporate leaders will become increasingly aggressive with these tactics.

WSJ's McGurn - A Nuanced Take on Labor Day

The revolving door from political operative to opinion writer is a disservice to journalism.  Even after assuming private sector status on the op-ed page, it's hard to take former Clinton adviser Dick Morris or former Bush speech writer William McGurn seriously as independent voices about ideas.  When I see an editorial column by someone who was either recently or currently is a government employee, I usually skip it and look for the news coverage on the same subject.

That said, Mr. McGurn's Wall Street Journal column today on how young workers can reach the middle class without college was a timely and interesting look at the diversity of the U.S. economy and its ladders to success.

The column is mostly a nice plug for the economic research of American University's Robert Lerman and Georgetown's Harry Holzer, who crunched the numbers and found jobs that pay substantially more than the national average and don't require a four-year college degree.

Pointing out how skilled tradesmen such as power plant operators and physical therapists can still make decent wages in the U.S. was a novel way of looking at the bright side on a holiday that often brings gloom and doom formulations about economic divides, outsourcing, dreams dying and so on.

Quasi-journalists like McGurn are among the most difficult to get ideas in front of - but also the most high value once you've done it.

Bloomberg on Disney/Marvel

With financial news focused today on the blockbuster acquisition by Disney of Marvel Comics for $4 billion, Bloomberg News came out on top with a well-reported story focused on where the deal would matter: Hollywood.  Andy Fixmer and Sarah Rabil's story covered the valuable distribution rights and intellectual property Marvel delivers to Disney but also covered the strategic value in terms of fighting Viamcom for the attention of boys -  a demographic not reached by the Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana.

During the late 1990s M&A boom, when billion dollar deals were announced weekly, M&A lawyers would clear their calendars for media calls every Monday, as the deals tended to be announced after weekend of furious negotiation and anyone who worked for a reputable firm and had done an analogous deal would have the opportunity to be third party comment.

Bloomberg's story included such opportunistic sources another level removed, such as editors of a theme-park trade magazine and a Los Angeles talent agent.

Disney's PR people should get credit for positioning a deal to pay $4 billion for a company that was so recently in bankruptcy as a major win.  They were also able to craft the narrative that this acquisition is like their absorption of Pixar, which reinvigorated the company's creative energy, rather than the money it wasted acquiring the Muppets in the previous decade, which seems to have gone unmentioned in all of the major news coverage.

Bloomberg Scoops on Madoff Development

Bloomberg News reporters Erik Larson and Linda Sandler have a nice scoop today - an exclusive development in the picked-over Madoff scandal.  It is a major development that Irving Picard, the trustee for the victims of the fraud, will initiate claw-back lawsuits against charities that benefited, one he could have announced on the evening news if he so chose.

Madoff's nearly unfathomable crimes produced a spate of outstanding investigative financial journalism when the story broke but subsequently have settled into a rut and left the impression there isn't that much more to say.

The image of Picard, until now the good guy/avenger in this proceeding, trying to take down charities that unwittingly prospered with other peoples' stolen money will make the narrative more complex and compelling.