PRNewser Interview: Jon Friedman, Marketwatch.com

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Continuing in our weekly series interviewing the movers and shakers in PR and media, PRNewser this week spoke with Marketwatch.com senior media columnist Jon Friedman. In his most recent column, “R.I.P., the American magazine, 1923-20__” Jon wrote, “this industry seems intent on choking itself to death.” We talk to him a bit more about that, working with “flacks” and his local sports affiliations.

 

 

What time did you wake up this morning?

5:45 a.m. (to get ready to go to a 6:30 a.m. spinning class at a nearby New York Sports Club).

 

 

Best part about covering the media beat?

Chiding and needling pompous people.

 

 

Worst part about covering the media beat?

Seeing how incredibly thin-skinned and image-conscious media people at all levels can be – they are much worse about protecting their reps than CEOs.

 

PRNewser Interview: Geoff Livingston

Continuing in our weekly series interviewing the movers and shakers in PR and media, PRNewser this week spoke with Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications. Geoff is a widely read blogger (what, you haven’t heard of him!) at the Buzz Bin, and recently wrote a commentary for the Washington Post on green PR titled, “Actions, Not Just Words,” as well as a book, “Now is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs.”

Hardest part about running your own shop?
Operations, no doubt.

Best part about running your own shop?
Saying no to clients and opportunities that aren’t worth doing.

What time did you wake up this morning?
6:10 a.m.

Brian Solis: The PRNewser Interview

A few weeks back, a reader emailed in to say we should do more profiles of pr and media people. This is actually something we’ve been meaning to do, and now we present you with the first in what will be a weekly occurance – the PRNewser Interview. Do you know someone we should interview? Do you want to be interviewed? Email us at prnewser at mediabistro.com.

Our first is with Brian Solis, Principal at tech pr agency FutureWorks, widely read blogger at PR2.0, and regular contributor to industry sites such as WebProNews.

What time did you get up this morning?
I got up at 4:30 this morning, but the normal routine is about 5:30.

How many emails do you receive a day, roughly?
Over 300…

Who are your favorite active journalists?
I enjoy reading Kara Swisher, John Markoff, Ed Baig, Rob Hoff, Eric Savitz, and Jessica Guynn (Truthfully it’s a long list. I read the work
of many writers across multiple industries.)

Former CBS Comm. VP on Writer’s Strike

With the Hollywood writer’s strike already in full swing, the NY Times reported today that CBS, “will face the prospect of a second one when news writers, producers, editors and artists take a strike authorization vote tomorrow and Friday.”

PRNewser caught up with Beth Feldman, Former VP of CBS Communications Group , who has since gone on to launch both Beyond PR and Rolemommy.com, to get her take on the entertainment strike.

Banner PR CEO: Brits Deliver Innovation

Rod Banner, founder and CEO of Banner PR told the Financial Times:

“The British are quirky and eccentric but innovative. The US is good at marketing and China is good at manufacturing but a lot of the ideas still come from here. That may be why we push technology to do more things here and why we have technology enthusiasts like myself in this country.”

What do you make of Mr. Banner’s candid assessment?

Peggy Siegal Chats With Barbara Walters

Peggy & Steven Rockefeller (image cred)

PRNewser received the transript of publicist to the stars Peggy Siegal’s interview on Barbara Walters’ Sirius Radio Show.  You may remember the New York magazine story from this summer about Peggy and Andrew Saffir battling it out to fill up their Hamptons events with the most A-listers.

Some choice excerpts after the jump.

Talking To Jack Flack

Our buddy Hamilton Nolan at PR Week has an interview up with Paul Pendergass, aka Jack Flack, who writes Portfolio’s “Business Spin” column. When asked what advice he would give the PR industry, Pendergass responded:

I think in general, flacks need to have more conviction in what they do. And I think they need to be able to express that conviction internally, and advocate that there is a new day of scrutiny coming, when the integrity of your story is going to be essential, and the ability to tell it not just honestly, but in a compelling way, is going to be important. They have to be the outside ears of the organization in terms of sensitizing it to how the world is seeing it, and to the outside world they have to be the advocate that explains what this organization is going to accomplish. It’s not a new role, but given the intensity of the media environment now, it’s just going to get more intense. It puts a lot of pressure on them to be able to do most of those things well.

We have to admit to being regular readers of Paul’s column. He puts out some hard hitting stuff without overdoing it on the blog snark. Ok, well not all the time. You can email Paul, or “Jack,” here: jack_flack at condenast dot com

The Survival (or Death) of the Newsweekly

With the major newsweeklies – TIME, BusinessWeek, U.S. News and World Report, and Newsweek – all experiencing a decline in circulation and ad pages, they are quickly beginning to develop new strategies, the foremost of which seems to be re-designs, and lots of them. On the heels of several major re-designs to both the web and print editions of these titles, PRNewser spoke to MEDIAWEEK Senior Editor, Lucia Moses to get her take on who will come out on top.

Philly Inquirer and Daily News Owner: Newspapers Will Cost $2.50

PRSA recently caught up with former PR man and now chief executive of Philadelphia Media Holdings, Brian Tierney, who put together PMH with local investors to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Some interesting nuggets (to us, at least):

Know the market

I would not have done this in another part of the country. I did this because I knew these papers very well, having been the [city's] largest advertising agency. And I knew that the core of the problem here – and I don’t want to say that I’ve got some answer for the entire industry, because I don’t, and I would never want to run one of these huge companies that is in 38 markets. That’s a big challenge. But here I saw the gem . . . you know, this is the fourth-largest market in America. It’s a healthy market.

Murdoch and other influential owners meddling in editorial decisions

If he starts manipulating the news he’s going to devalue the [paper]. We faced that a little bit, people saying, “Oh, well you guys manipulate the news.” And I said, “We have several billionaires in my group. I’ve had a certain amount of financial success as well. We’d be pretty stupid to take the asset that we have, which is the editorial integrity, and screw around with that.”

The $2.50 paper

I think that the printed product will be around 10 years from now. It may be that instead of being 50 cents a day, it’ll be $2.50 a day because I think the price of the product is very low.

Ok, so we don’t know about that last one. But it makes us wonder, if people are willing to shell out a few bucks for their favorite mag, will they do it for a newspaper as well? The NY Times raised its Sunday price to $4 and no one blinked. Hmmmm.

Tierney is a keynote speaker at PRSA’s International Conference, which takes place in Philly from Oct. 20-23. Will you be there? If so, remember to keep the tips flowing our way.

PRNewser Interview: Tom Foremski

When we were in middle school, every time someone would act up in gym class, our teacher would always say, “Strirrin’ the soup, you guys are always stirrin’ the soup.” He was near retirement and didn’t appreciate much our daily efforts to cause a scene in his class.

Every so often, there is a blog post that stirs the soup, the latest being Tom Foremski’s Wily E Coyote: Traditional PR is Running on Thin Air. The title is self explanatory, so PRNewser caught up with the former Financial Times reporter turned SiliconValleyWatcher publisher to get his take on the state of the PR industry.