PR Resource

Sinclair Broadcast Group is receiving criticism for having its approximately 200 local TV stations read “a message about bias and fake stories in news outlets.”  It is seen as a pro-Trump move since Trump inveighs frequently about fake news. Sinclair, the critics say, is flexing its conservative political muscle and there is a general alarm. Critics forget that in his day, William Randolph Hearst, a media mogul, reached one in four Americans with his newspapers, syndicates, magazines and newsreels. Hearst took every opportunity to promote his agenda and to blast opponents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Hearst didn’t succeed, and eventually his empire shrank. Give the public some credit for an ability to see through what a medium is doing, especially when other reporters point it out as they did this time. Sinclair has produced a PR faux pas, and it has put journalists on alert to examine its pronouncements and actions. Not a good way to operate.

Tim Cook of Apple and Mark Zuckerberg aren’t getting along. The two are sniping at one another through the news media. Cook says Apple wouldn’t have been put in the position of losing customer data since it doesn’t monetize users’ information. Cook is calling for increased regulation. Zuckerberg is defending Facebook’s advertising model and merchandising of personal data. There doesn’t seem to be a way to get the two of them on the same side. There is an increased chance the government will regulate corporations now that privacy has come to the fore, and a company was using customer information to sway the last election. It is a major PR issue for Facebook and Google and the advertising model on the internet. Tech industry executives need a unified front, but they are unlikely to get it. Look for regulators to have their way.

Words have multiple meanings and their essence depends on the person saying it. Such is the case with “denuclearization” and North Korea.  Experts have already said that what Kim means by the word and what President Trump understands are far apart. Any summit meeting between the two would have to come to an agreement as to the time and action of getting rid of nuclear bombs and inspections necessary to insure North Korea is abiding by the agreement. North Korea might insist on the removal of American troops from the Korean peninsula and cessation of war games that the North sees as advance training for an invasion. It is hard to see Trump agreeing to that. The implications of the word are many and fraught, especially since the North has not always honored agreements. Among specialists there is little hope for a summit or for successful negotiation. Surprises happen, but it might not be this time.

Elon Musk’s Tesla automobile company is finally facing reality, and it is ugly. The corporation has lost and continues to lose billions in its pursuit of manufacturing and merchandising electric vehicles. Musk is aware of the cliffs he has to climb to put its mid-priced Model 3 on the road. So far he hasn’t reached his targets and it looks like he will continue to miss them in the months to come. The financial markets, which have been extraordinarily patient with him, are now beginning to circle like buzzards over a carcass. Musk needs money, plenty of it, and he’s going to have a hard time getting it. Meanwhile, his competitors in the auto industry are coming out with fully electric vehicles and threatening his market share.  There are now open predictions that the company will collapse in the near future. If so, it will be a loss to the economy, but it will also be Musk’s own fault. He knows he has to put dollars on the bottom line, but he hasn’t done it. He has lived on positive publicity for too long. It’s time to produce.

Publicity and perception of autonomous autos has turned negative since an Uber vehicle mowed down a bicyclist in Arizona and the company suspended tests. Waymo, Google’s company focused on self-driving cars, is confident it would have seen the person and avoided her. It has driven a stake in the earth with the announcement that it will purchase and equip 20,000 Jaguar electric SUVs in 2018 as a prelude to its ride-hailing taxi service to be initiated in 2020. The cost will be in excess of a billion dollars. That is either deep knowledge or arrogance. Waymo has driven its test vehicles millions of miles and it has simulated driving for hundreds of millions of miles more. The company believes it knows the subtleties of driving without someone behind the wheel. If it succeeds in deploying its vehicles safely without accidents across the US, it will be first to market ahead of auto manufacturers and in a prime position to dominate. But, it is being held to a high safety standard, higher than even that for human drivers. That is as it should be.

One way to achieve gun control is to stop buying guns. It is the ultimate form of economic communications. This is what happened to Remington Outdoors, which went into Chapter 11 yesterday. The company experienced a 30 percent sales slump in 2017 that started with the Trump Presidency. The reason, apparently, is that weapons collectors saw less need to stockpile arms under Trump. If that is the case, then there are millions of Americans who have multiple weapons in their homes. They might all be members of the NRA or they are persuaded their Second Amendment rights had been under attack. It is an irony that when they feel more comfortable about their rights, gun manufacturers suffer. Bankruptcy is a statement that a business is no longer viable under its present organization. It is a chance for a company to start over and see if it can thrive with less debt, fewer factories and changed structure. Remington is fighting severe headwinds with the growing voice of anti-gun advocates. It might not survive even after reorganization.

When it comes to the plight of refugees in Europe, Pope Francis has acted on his words of support for them by taking families back to Italy on his own plane. This is what public relations is all about — deeds not claims. The pope is an example of one who looks out for the poor and who stands as a reminder to world leaders that the helpless need our support. He is the opposite of the current administration in Washington DC and a rebuke. For that, he is called powerful yet he has no armies nor anything other than his actions and words. He is a lesson for PR practitioners and for CEOs. Spin is lying and lying is evil. Stick to who you are and what you do and your PR will have the force of truth in it.

Police in Sacramento, CA shot down a black man who appeared to be carrying a weapon. It was a cell phone. The officers on the scene mistook the black slab of a cell for the barrel of a gun. It was a case of biased perception. Patrolmen are taught to respond quickly to danger. They are put through courses where in an instant they need to identify weapons or not and shoot or not. In this case, it was night and the officers probably couldn’t see that well. Someone was seen breaking into cars before the shooting and he was about to be arrested when the officer thought he saw a gun. Would this have happened to a white man? It is hard to say under the circumstances. But, one thing is certain. Perception can kill.

Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money are on the auction block. Meredith Corporation doesn’t want them. These four orphans were once mighty kings, but now they are weak and slowly vanishing. There was a time not so long ago when PR practitioners would be happy to get their news in any one of the four magazines. Now they risk being split up as they sink into a black hole of consumer consciousness. Ad revenue is just not there for any of the periodicals, and they are faced with cutting deeply into editorial to make up for the loss. One can argue that Time Inc. lost its way in the internet age, but so too did other news magazines. Look for the four titles to shrink further and perhaps, disappear over the next five years. It would be a loss if they do, but the Darwinian publishing market has no pity.

Mark Zuckerberg must feel like he is in the middle of a never-ending storm. His latest data contretemps has the Federal Trade Commission looking into it along with authorities from Britain. So far, investigations haven’t slowed the growth of Facebook, but they are a distraction that could prove costly in monetary terms. The question now facing the company is how it let all this happen. It seems an arms-length transaction went terribly wrong. It trusted an app developer who then sent millions of individuals personal information to Cambridge Analytica. It wouldn’t be so bad had CA not used the data in the Trump campaign to influence voters. It would seem the lesson here is in the matters of personal information, trust no one. Facebook has to become paranoid about security, and it is not there yet. What happened to Facebook can happen to every other company that collects personal information. They might be breathing a sigh of relief that it was not them in the penalty box, but their time will come.