Getting Ink

Did the journalist die out in 2009?

Most journalists have that experience of telling someone at a party that they're a journalist, only to be met with the hilarious riposte: "ooh, better be careful what we say, eh?" Ho flippin' ho.

Except I'm not sure how many journalists I actually know these days - at least in the sense I understood journalism back when I started out.

One of my former editors has given up B2B journalism in favour of publishing sponsored supplements for CIOs. Another former editor from Emap now commissions me for a website about the use of technology in the NHS - the website is sponsored by a vendor. Another former commissioning ed from a national now commissions me for articles in the national press - but they're supplements paid for by major IT vendors.

I write for a couple of magazines published by professional associations, one magazine published by a University, another published by a government department - but at the moment, I only have one regular client that involves actual, independent journalism (insofar as any business journalism is ever independent of course). 

The remainder of my work is split pretty evenly between writing white papers, websites, blogs and other commercial content and taking on PR clients - at the moment I do PR for a women's development social enterprise, for a pre-school activity provider and an acupuncture clinic. Through my PR work, I started a parenting blog and that's translated into a couple of writing gigs and some fiming work  - on websites owned by a travel company and a major consumer brand. I've also expanded my training to include blogs and social media as well as mainstream media.

Honestly, these days when someone asks me at a party what I do for a living I'm more inclined to say that I'm a "writer" than a journalist - it somehow feels more honest. Is it just me? Are there any bona fide freelance journalists still out there?

Can you fake it till you make it?

A couple of years ago, I ran a 101 training workshop with another freelance journalist. We’d met through blogging and the other freelancer regularly commented on this blog.

As the course was starting, everyone around the table introduced themselves. One of the PR execs attending was another regular visitor to Getting Ink, and a frequent commenter. At the coffee break, the freelance journo confessed to me: “I never realised Katie was a real person – I thought you made her up!”

It was one of those moments where you’re simultaneously a bit insulted (you think I need to fake comments on my blog?) and also want to slap your forehead (HOW did I never think of that?).

Fortunately, I’m not usually in the position of lacking comments on a blog these days, and if a blog post doesn’t generate comments, I tend to just think, “Oh, well, I thought it was interesting, but obviously that was just me, then.” Possibly, this is because I'm just too idle to think up fake opinions.

But this week I noticed a blog I occasionally read had posted what I strongly, strongly suspect were fake comments. Call me cynical, but five comments in five minutes, none with a URL attached, look suspect. Especially when the first comment begins with “I checked out your website and I think it looks gr8! Can’t wait to sign up…”

Hmm.

I can see why you might be tempted to post a fake comment. It’s like a positive version of what local government types call the ‘broken window effect’ – if there’s one smashed window left on an estate, more will inevitably follow. So with blog comments, one fake comment might be seen to ‘break the ice’ and encourage others to comment.

Here’s the problem, though: bloggers are a pretty savvy bunch. They can smell a fake comment from 50 yards. Within half an hour of my posting a Tweet about fake blog comments, four bloggers had identified the blog in question. By the end of the night, I’d guess a lot more had identified the site, judging by the parodies that starting popping up on the comment s over at Who's the Mummy? (my parenting blog). As one blogger said to me: “They couldn’t have made it any more obvious, could they?”

It’s not THAT hard to get genuine comments. In fact, it’s very simple. First, post interesting content that people will want to engage with. Put a bit of personality and authenticity into a blog, and I think people will always respond. Second, take the time to comment on and read and link to other blogs. A blog that never acknowledges anyone else’s existence can seem a bit snooty and tends to be forgotten about.

Ultimately, I think blogging is a long game. And if you lose your credibility, especially if you’re blogging on behalf of your business, it’s going to take a really, really long time to get it back.

** UPDATE: The business operating the blog this post refers to has since changed the time stamps on several comments, making them appear to have been posted at different times, and has deleted one comment and posted a new one in its place. Draw your own conclusions from that one, chaps. **

Would you hire a reporter?

I had a conversation this week with a veteran IT journalist who’s looking for a job in PR. He’s worked in journalism for almost 20 years as a reporter, news editor and editor, and has been freelancing for too long – now he wants a regular salary, a nice office and company during the day.

Honestly? I’m not sure how quickly he’s going to be snapped up.

I think there’s a tendency sometimes to assume that journalists can waltz over to a cushy PR job when it gets too much, but I think there’s always been a lack of understanding about exactly what it is PRs do when you’re not pitching the likes of me (for proof of that, see the roasting this reporter got at Bad Pitch Blog). I’m sure it’s not all about sipping lattes and cutting little articles out of magazines.

I also wonder whether the skills involved in PR in 2009 are such a good match with old-school hacks. The journo in question doesn’t blog, doesn’t have a Twitter account, doesn’t understand the basics of SEO.

Then I saw this NY Times story (which has also been written up on the PR Media blog) about a US sports team hiring its own reporter. I wonder if this isn’t a better career option for the disillusioned, experienced technology journalist? Not to be a sports writer, but to become an on-staff writer for a technology vendor, PR agency or similar.

I reckon there are plenty of mid-market vendors who don’t get the coverage they’d like from their target publications. Bringing on an experienced technology writer to cover their events, products and announcements could reap huge benefits.

The company could have their own blog, which could carry dynamic, independent content that’s written by a professional. The journalist would also be able to submit content to press release and news wires on the vendor’s behalf.

I know that there are obvious questions around objectivity and conflicts of interest, so I think this is a career route to be explored with caution. Contracts and rules would need to be in place to protect all parties. But I wonder if this isn’t a smart way for journalists to market their skills (writing, research, industry knowledge) rather than assuming they’re a dead-cert for that senior PR job? 

Pitching Parent Blogs - Top Tips

British parenting blogs are getting rather a lot of attention these days. Various papers are reporting that the "mommy blogging" phenomenon has officially landed in the UK, and the Tots100 index of parent blogs shows at least 500 UK blogs in this sector that are updated more than once a week.

As the blogging community has grown, of course, the blogs and bloggers are becoming increasingly attractive to the PR community. After all, why spend a fortune trying to get editorial in Practical Parenting magazine, when you can get almost the same exposure through one of the top UK parenting blogs – for free?

However, PRs should take note that parent bloggers are getting savvy to your ways. Susanna over at the Modern Mother blog is sick of being asked to do things without being paid, and her views are shared by many of the commenters on this post. Other bloggers resent being asked to promote your client’s brand out of the goodness of their hearts, or in return for a £20 freebie you’ve got lying around the office.

If you’re interested in reaching the growing audience of the UK’s parent blogs, here’s some tips for PR pros:

1. Research the blog first. Don't pitch a baby product to someone who has school-aged kids. Don't ask about little Emily if the blogger's child is called Esme. Remember that bloggers generally write in a personal not professional capacity so when you get it wrong, they're that much more offended than a journalist is when you get the name of their publication wrong. 
2. Read blogs. You'll soon notice parenting blogs tend to read like diaries of family life with the focus on personal experience. So why would they (or their readers) be interested in a press release? They're not a journalist - they don't really want to spend an hour turning the news about your client's new lotion into an amusing 300 word anecdote. Instead, look for ways to provide the blogger with an experience that will result in good, entertaining copy - to test out the product, to attend a product launch with other bloggers, to visit the company HQ.
3. Make life easy. Most parenting blogs are written by people with other day jobs. Or if they're not in a paid job, they're looking after demanding small people. So don't saddle them with a competition that requires them to set questions, write rules, check entries and pick a winner, before lugging the prizes to the Post Office. Take as much of this load away from the blogger as you can, so the competition doesn't cost them any additional time or effort.
4. Mummy bloggers will tell you they're part of a supportive community. Take it from someone who's seen the underbelly of parent blogging first hand - they're not. There are rivalries, cliques and feuds to rival anything you'll find in a traditional newsroom so if you're doing anything that involves more than one blog or blogger, do a little research to make sure you don't start a war in the process.
5. If you offer a blogger a review product, and you need to have the item returned, don't ask them to arrange the shipping. Don't ask them to write something positive. Don't post fake gushing comments on their review saying how much YOU love the product even if they thought it was crap. Yes, all of these things have happened.

Manners, much?

I write a blog for one of my clients, and recently posted something on life lessons we’d like to teach our children – you know, the stuff they learn that isn’t in text books.

One of the lessons I try to teach Flea is ‘manners take you places’. She knows when to say please and thank you, to say ‘excuse me’ when she wants to talk to someone who’s otherwise occupied, and that sort of thing. When she gets a bit older, I’ve got a new one to add to the list: return a bloody phone call once in a while.

Seriously, the media business is all about relationships – and it’s impossible to have a fulfilling relationship with voicemail.

I must waste an hour a day trying to get people on the phone. I call editors about pitches, I call PR agencies to arrange interviews, I speak to my various corporate and PR clients … and I inevitably hit the voicemail roadblock.

I recently had a contact email me with a query. I phoned them directly because the information they wanted wasn’t straightforward – it depended whether they wanted solution A or B. The call went to voicemail. So did a second call. Neither call was returned.

Eventually, we got into an email conversation instead, which took four times as long and meant what should have been a five minute job at 10am turned into eight emails back and forth, two iterations of the project document, and the job wasn't finished until 7pm. It's annoying and inefficient - for both of us, surely?

What’s really infuriating is I knew the client was in the office the whole time, screening calls, and basically didn't pick up the phone. I do it myself and I know it's an easy trap to fall into - you're busy, there's so much information coming from all directions and voicemail seems to save you time, right? Except it doesn't - you end up wasting time with asynchronous conversations, and you lose the opportunity to build a relationship in the same way you can when you're talking to someone in real-time.

In my book, there’s an etiquette with phone calls. Just as you shouldn’t take calls at the table, and you should turn your phone off in the cinema (seriously, who are those morons whose lives are so important they can’t turn a mobile off for 90 minutes?) you should try and respond when someone wants to talk to you – even if it’s to say “Now isn’t a great time, can I call you back in 10?”

When did it become okay to adopt this notion of “I’m so busy that I simply don’t have time to deal with other people”? As I tell Flea all the time, manners are about not making life harder for other people. So why don't we try answering the phone and returning calls once in a while?

Moving from BT to Virgin Media: not as easy as you might imagine

PLEASE NOTE: ANYONE WHO THINKS USING BLOGS AS A PLATFORM TO RANT ABOUT POOR PERSONAL SERVICE, PLEASE LOOK AWAY NOW.

THOSE OF YOU STILL WITH ME: DON'T SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED.

So, a few months back, I thought I would look at ways to reduce my fixed costs - it's a recession, I'm a business, makes sense, right?

One of my major costs is comms - I am paying around about £120 a month to BT for phone and Internet service. Virgin Media's website claimed I could get the same service with unlimited, free phone calls for just £9.99 a month. Annual saving £1200. Result.

I call Virgin Media and ask them for phone and ADSL service. I get a MAC code from BT, and it all seems to go smoothly until suddenly, Virgin takes £188 from my bank account, claiming the order was cancelled.

I call back, discuss it with a very nice lady, who advises me to just place another order – I’m also told to reclaim the £188 from my bank (top tip: you can reclaim any direct debit if the company shouldn’t have taken it) The nice lady tells me the new order will be up and running ASAP.

I don’t hear anything until this week when – guess what – Virgin takes another £188 from my bank. Weird. So I call, thinking maybe the second order has been cancelled or something and a chap called Robert (“We’re not authorised to disclose our last names”) asks me for my password.

This is where it all starts to go a bit wrong.

“Well, I don’t have a password, actually. As I explained, I’m with BT, and seem to still be with BT, but Virgin has taken £188 from my account today, and I’m confused as to why.”

Robert asks for my password. When I tell him again that I don't have one, he seems a bit stumped. “Okay, can I just have the date of your last bill and the amount?”

“My BT bill?”

“No, your Virgin bill.”

“I’ve never had a bill. I don’t have a Virgin account. I've never had anything - no router, no password, no user name, nothing. That's the point - I think my order must have been cancelled."

“We don't send out bills,” says Robert, slowly, guessing quite correctly that I am educationally sub-normal and incapable of rational thought.  "It's in the e-service area."

"The what?" (See?  Clearly, I am a moron)

Robert repeats himself, although he knows by now he's on to a loser. I am far too stupid to understand what the e-service area is, and he's had enough. "I'm sorry," he says. "I can't discuss it any more."

"What??”

“You failed data protection.” 

Turns out Robert can’t discuss the matter, can’t pass me on to anyone who can discuss the matter or even discuss why he can’t discuss the matter – until I pass data protection. And, as Robert told me, I failed. I am a data protection failure. That hurts.

To pass data protection, you need a password. I, friends, do not have a password.

So, how do I get a password? “I can get one in the post to you, and you should have it within five working days,” says Robert, quite rightly bored to the verge of coma by this point.

So, now I'm waiting a week for a password to an account I don't have, to call a company that doesn't provide me with any services to try and find out why they took £188 of my hard-earned for cancelling a service that I never had in the first place.

I can’t wait.

[UPDATE: I have to add that someone at Virgin Media was in touch within minutes of my referring to the company as 'incompetent fuckwits' on Twitter, and a nice chap called Alex has promised to look into it for me. If nothing else, it shows they're responsive - fingers crossed it works!]

I'll buy anything if it's shiny and made by Apple...

This made me laugh a lot today - from The Onion, via Chris Norton.

Because life's never simple.

Dear BT,

When I ask to move my business phone and broadband service to Virgin's ADSL service, it would be really great if you didn't actually cancel the phone line completely with no warning, and then cancel my direct debit. Also, next time you're cancelling direct debits as a special New Year surprise, it'd be smashing if you could let me know rather than sending scary letters from debt collection agency for non-payment of phone bill. But I am just loving the fact it's easier for me to order an entire new phone line from sales than get anyone in customer service to actually switch the old line back on.

Thanks,

 Love Sally x

"I can let you in, but can you sort of crouch down?"

One of the funniest things someone ever said about me was that when I arrived at a meeting with another tech hack we looked as though we'd "just wandered in from the garden".

It's sort of fair comment. For many journalists, not being 'suited and booted' at meetings is a deliberate move. It means we're not in any danger of suggesting through our clothes that we think your client is AT ALL important. It's also increasingly unnecessary, I feel, to wear suits to journo meetings, since you're probably meeting somewhere informal where a suit would just look, well, silly.

This week I went for a meeting with a PR and a local government executive to talk about a new child protection initiative. I was wearing a pair of dark jeans with a shirt and jacket. Which would have been fine, except the PR arranged the meeting at the IoD, a stuffy members' club in London.

Arriving in reception I got the kind of look usually reserved for door-to-door clothes peg salesmen, and a frosty: "Are you in the right place, Miss?" I replied that I was meeting Mr Local Government for lunch at the IoD's brasserie, and I thought I was in the right place, probably.  "Ah. We have a dress policy and I'm afraid I can't let you in, Miss. Could you wait here and I'll let the other guest know you're waiting in reception?"

Five minutes later the chap reappears and says Mr Local Government has moved into a secluded booth in the restaurant so that I can sit with him. 

But, could I possibly sit in the corner of the booth, and be "discreet"?

Oh and also, we'll get to the booth by walking along the edge of the dining room and it might be a good idea if I could (and this is a direct quote) "sort of crouch down and walk quite quickly so people don't see you".

So when a work chum blogged* about his experiences at the IoD (being asked to pay for a cup of tea upfront. In cash. And being asked for a £1 deposit for the privilege of charging a mobile) I had a good laugh.It's stupid - this isn't the way we do business any more, is it? How does the IoD survive when it's now competing against the likes of Home House, Soho House and Adam Street?

(*Post may now have been deleted, sorry.)   

Oy, with the poodles already

I started my day feeling a bit miserable and anxious. A client hasn't made a promised payment and my mortgage payment bounced this morning. Still, my lender is a buy-to-let provider so I'm sure they'll be totally fine about waiting a few days. Ahem.

Still, a late payment isn't that unusual for freelancers. We're regularly at the mercy of that most elusive of corporate creatures, "someone from accounts".  So why did it feel like such a big deal today? Could it be because some of us in PR and media are helping to create a cycle of hysteria with shameless, opportunistic stories about the credit crunch?

Surely not?

Like many freelance hacks, the credit crunch hasn't substantially affected me yet. I have a fixed rate mortgage and I'm not looking to buy another house any time soon. Fuel is more expensive, but I moved to a dual fuel fixed price deal, so my monthly bill has actually gone down. Diesel is also up, but I used the Internet to half my insurance bill, so it pretty much evens out. To all intents and purposes, I feel like my household finances are no better or worse than a year ago.

Until I read the papers, when it becomes apparent my laid-back attitude is obviously DENIAL. Because in fact, people, the world is ending. Capitalism is imploding, and it's taking my pitiful savings with it. Journobiz is alive with debate about whether hacks who haven't a snowball's chance in Hell of ever saving 35 grand should clear out their bank accounts, while the papers are gleefully reporting Bad Things That Might Happen at every opportunity.

Obviously, this story claiming that "Crunch Hit Brides Opt for Friday Weddings" is totally kosher, although it's based on figures from 1999 and, erm, 2005.  And I'm just as convinced by this piece, stating that the credit crunch means a "huge surge" in parents who aren't paying their kids' school fees since July 2007. In fact, the credit crunch means we're not even driving our kids to school any more! The poor little mites are walking to school, with only cheap frozen food  in their tummies - and it's all down to the credit crunch.

I'd like to tell PRs to stop with the opportunistic, self-serving credit crunch surveys already, but I'd be an idiot to tell you that when editors are still lapping it up so eagerly. But perhaps just spare a moment to think about what you're feeding in to, and whether the end result of all that hysteria is really going to be good for you, your employer and your client?