TechCrunch Extra Crunch this week posted a pair of articles containing admonishment and advice for tech PR pros. The top portion of the posts does appear for free in regular TechCrunch. The full text is available only to TC EC subscribers. We hereby excerpt (in fair-use fashion) what our readers most need to know.
Invest 15 minutes in last week’s LA Times profile of Huawei and you’ll appreciate the power of candor. The Chinese telecom giant had every reason to expect a grilling from legendary journalist Norman Pearlstine and his team. Instead, Huawei received fair treatment in context useful for both parties.
RSA Conference (RSAC) has come and gone, and hopefully the email flow has finally stopped. As usual, the conference and its associated 300 or so emails shows what the best and worst PR practices are. This time I asked Sam if I could share with you my analysis of these inquiries, in the hope that we (we being the trade press) can work better with you.
SWMS subscriber Amanda Orr writes:
Thank you for bringing this topic to the light in Media Survey, Sam, as it’s been on my professional mind for quite some time. Anecdotally, about three quarters of my clients over the past two to three years have had “social good” corporate missions.
I’ve previously written about managing difficult clients and maintaining profitability – two daily challenges in the life of PR leadership. While these are critical to your everyday role, there’s another key factor that will help or hurt you while juggling the work: your team.
It’s time to address the big bad B word: Budget. Oh, and that O word, too: Overservice. Budgets are one of the most important aspects of any client/agency relationship: they help set the basis for the scope, and without the dollars, an agency can’t operate.
SWMS contributing editor Lindsay Ciulla writes: Welcome to a new series focused on agency management concerns. Each month we’ll share a new post dedicated to issues and concerns that senior staff deal with on a regular basis.
So, you pre-briefed a group of reporters on an upcoming announcement, with the expectation that they’re going to post a story shortly after your embargo lifts. You and the client worked closely together to make sure the reporter had all assets they’d need for a story.
“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.”
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?
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
… and it has no problem disclosing how. Reporters still run the joint, but they are getting AI assistance.
The Atlantic’s Karen Hao, in conjunction with the Pulitzer Center, is designing a course in AI for journalists. Classes begin next month. Details here. Might be something to alert your friendlies about. Karen hopes to help train 1,000 journalists in AI over the next two years.
Joshua Topolsky‘s edit project for Robinhood is optimized for mobile but you can peruse it here. The design seems crazy. Context from Axios’s Sara Fischer here.
‘The Prompt” is not out yet, but you can sign up for it here.
That’s the strategy as expressed to NYT’s Katie Robertson by Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. First up: Eleanor Hawkins, Sara Fischer and Dan Primack.
Forbes’s reputation is taking a hit because of the ad scandal unearthed this month by the WSJ. Some advertisers have stopped spending with Forbes, at least temporarily. Here’s the latest from Digiday [subscription required].
