“This week I’ve had a record number of people tell me they cannot talk to me because their PR department has blackballed me for no clear reason,” Chrissy Farr Tweeted on Apr. 6. “So glad you opened this door,” Tweeted CNBC editorial director Matt Rosoff the next day. “Every week I am stunned anew by how some PRs assume our business works, vs how it actually works.”
Threat-and-breach coverage is by far the biggest topic in security editorial. It’s got the Armageddon thing going for it, which always breeds high numbers of page views and social shares. We once heard a veteran security PR pro refer to covering security as “the crime beat” and he’s not far off.
I’d love to say that every single time I’ve worked on a major announcement or campaign, things went perfectly – but that’s unfortunately not exactly how things go in PR. One of the most crushing let-downs is when an exclusive falls through. How do you react? What do you tell your client?
We got a request for a list of Chicago-based reporters. Here’s a good start. Whom are we missing?
Decipher is the new security site that’s all about hope. The web site launched this week under the direction of editor-in-chief Dennis Fisher and senior managing editor Fahmida Y. Rashid. Both spent years in the IT trades — but that’s not what earmarks Decipher for success.
The new TechCrunch web platform, launched in beta this week, will keep you reading more of what you’ve chosen. And it stands to change how you think of stories and pages. TC’s edit direction remains the same — companies, technologies, founders and investors. It’s still about breaking news and smart analysis delivered wryly.
Never have our subscribers shown so much interest in paid opportunities. So here it is, the SWMS Google Doc on paid opps in tech media, including Tier 1, IT, healthcare, fintech and security titles. We’ve listed 64 publications so far. We’ll add titles and categories as requested.
Continuing with our 2018 focus on tools, here’s a rundown on eight of them that can help tech PR and marketing pros. Some you know, some you may not. We’re always on the hunt for new tools to publicize. Please share your insights with us on SWMSTweet and in your SWMS Slack channel.
When Axios launched in 2016, its founders described its goal as “smart brevity,” or more colorfully, as “Twitter meets The Economist.” Take a look, for example, at Sara Fischer’s most recent Media Trends newsletter and you can see that Axios has succeeded. Observe the form, not necessarily the substance.
Occasionally a client may ask, “What’s the big picture in B2B tech editorial?” If you’re lucky, that is. Usually they’re waiting for your deliverables. But every now and then it helps the client-agency relationship to go have the proverbial beer and discuss what’s happening in B2B edit, in the seams where it’s hard to notice.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Registration is now open for the ‘Bloomberg Tech’ F2F event, being held Jun. 4-5 in San Francisco. With the current early-bird discount, a ticket runs $1,500. There is no better way to build relationships with Bloomberg’s notoriously elusive tech reporters.
Well, for now it’s Jim Jordan… but such news illustrates the kind of world we seem to be headed for. Adweek has the details, subscription required.
No “predictions” post will appear on this site. That said, quite a number of subscribers have asked for a Zoom/MS Teams presentation on what 2025 will bring. A conversation is precisely the right tool for the job. After the election — and with AI transforming publishing and life — “2025” is best discussed among peers, not predicted. So if you’d like to have a confidential group exchange on what stands to unfold, and why, and how comms pros can come out on top in spite of it all, drop a line and we shall schedule something.
According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
