“PR person” now belittled by Trump

I don’t often weigh in on Trump online, because, where does one start? However today, I’m motivated, because in addition to smiling through the assassination of a Washington Post journalist, Trump has lashed out at his former treasured personal lawyer Michael Cohen as nothing but a “PR person who did small legal work.”

Then, of course, he decided to crunch down on the porn star that he had Michael Cohen buy off after he had an affair with her while he was married by decrying her as a “horseface.”

My only comment is that the President of the United States is a very small person; too small to waste any time on, if he hadn’t been raised to such an exalted position by people who are amused by such revelations.

As an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America, and someone who is proud of my lifetime of work building communications bridges between organizations and the public, I am offended by this very small person who is temporarily cluttering up office space in the People’s House.

A recent “Trump in the Media” exchange on Facebook

A journalist friend: Everyone has biases, but reporters and editors are supposed to check that at the door when they do their jobs. As a journalist, I am embarrassed by the actions, statements, editorializing etc. Of the mainstream news media. There has been a complete double standard of coverage on this president vs. The last one. The last one could do no wrong in the media’s eyes and the current one can do nothing right. That is a problem.

Comment from another friend:. Chuck needs more friends like you

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Charles Ebeling (Journalist above) is a friend, but we disagree. My long career in PR taught me that every media person has a personal bias. Some overcome that, and some don’t, and some use it as a moral compass for their journalism. Most are a bit of all three, to varying extents. I happen to agree with the weight of the current mainstream media regarding Trump, not because of their bias, but because of my own.

A Kind Review of Trump on PR – I was there that day, cringing for the younger people and women in that PR audience

Bring on the Clown

Learn about PR from the man whose hair, ego, and finances are all about puffery.

BY RYAN UNDERWOOD2 MINUTE READ

Donald Trump

CEO, the Trump Organization
New York City
October 24, 2004

It’s hard to tell if Donald Trump truly is a ruthless, self-serving billionaire with a weakness for Ottoman decor, or if he just plays one on TV. Either way, one thing’s certain: Nobody beats Trump at PR.

So it was that, at the behest of his front man Howard Rubenstein — the closest thing public relations has to Vito Corleone — Trump found time one recent Sunday to school 4,100 PR pros in the art of self-promotion at the Public Relations Society of America’s fall conference.

Accompanied by his now-standard royal trumpet fanfare, Trump trotted out his usual Darwinian script on how to make it big in business: Always hit back, only harder; don’t trust anyone, especially loved ones; and never underestimate the power of a good prenup.

But that’s not why Trump was addressing the flacking masses. He is himself the king of hype, with a genius for winning attention for Donald Trump and thus the Trump Empire. Why that is became clear in a streak of mean-spirited, profanity-laced, misogynistic asides that, true to form, melted everyone’s heart.

LESSON ONE: DISH DIRT, LIBERALLY.

Mid-riff on humility, of all things, Trump got big yucks for this digression: “I was walking down the street with a very young and beautiful woman named Marla. Did anyone ever hear of Marla? I have. Trust me, it cost me a fortune. It wasn’t worth it.” Trump isn’t above dissing himself, either, if it will score him a few points for color. “I think I get terrible press,” he observed. “If there’s half a sentence that says ‘his hair is terrible’ or ‘he looks like s — t,’ I take it very personally.”

LESSON TWO: KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.

Part of Trump’s PR power is his black-and-white view of the universe. He hews to a simple character narrative of brash-businessman-with-a-big-ego that makes even SpongeBob SquarePants appear complex. “All my life I’ve been successful,” he began. “All my life.” When it comes to business, Donald is always, always doing “great,” despite an occasionally contrary opinion from his accountants in Atlantic City.

LESSON THREE: THE EXPLETIVE IS MIGHTIER THAN THE IDEA.

Trump regaled the crowd with his savvy strategy for managing headlines when the media thought his real estate empire would collapse in the late 1980s. “I said to the press [long pause], ‘F — k you!’ “

LESSON FOUR: SEX SELLS. MENTION SEX. A LOT.

Trump knows that settling into a stable relationship would make his PR hits drop faster than the fat diamond he just gave new fiancee Melania Knauss. In the course of a 30-minute address, he managed to make at least 15 references to women and/or the woes of marriage.

The look, the ego, the swearing, the sex. Crass, sure — but in that way, brilliant. He nailed his message, and he won 4,100 fans. It was all part of Trump’s signature (and carefully copyrighted) strategy: not just style over substance, but style as substance. Sadly, it works like a charm.

A version of this article appeared in the January 2005 issue of Fast Company magazine.

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Facebook and Politics Don’t Mix

To all my friends on Facebook: I am tired of the political bickering here largely based upon divisive left vs right party issues. As of right know, if you post such, I will read less of it and respond even less, unless I think I must, which perhaps might be too often, until I get used to ignoring you.I am not blocking anyone now for these reasons because I believe in open communications, but at my age, I don’t have to put up with any junk I don’t like. But I am tired of this BS, and it is making me increasingly tired of Facebook. One thing I swear to do is look vastly less at supposed news posted, real or fake, on Facebook, and I will turn again to direct news sources, which is easy enough to do with a few spare seconds. Thanks for the sparring, but no more, please!

Trump’s First Press Conference

One nice thing about getting to be an older man is that one no longer needs to give a damn about taking a strong position, and after just watching Trump in what was billed as his first press conference as President-elect, I’d rate him a one on a scale of ten, as he might say in commenting on young actresses.

Nice try, Mr. Trump. No, he didn’t even try.  In my 40 years of conducting scores of corporate news conferences and press briefings, I’ve never seen even the most calcitrant and abused CEO treat the press with as much open disdain as Trump did today. He courts the most intense scrutiny from the press any President has ever seen. I spent my career trying to build honest-broker relations with the press. In that respect, Trump is a total disaster, and if that is what his “base” wants to see, they are only confirming how “base” they are.

The loser in all this is not the press, it is you who are reading this, because of the questions not allowed to be asked and the questions remaining unanswered. You know, the French have had 13 governments since the original French revolution. That means they have peacefully thrown their entire government out 13 times. At this early stage of Trump’s reign, I’m sad to say it seems we may be due.

“The Flipper?”

Ran across the following item in an article titled, “25 Things You didn’t Know About Le Cirque,” in Jetset Magazine, March, 2013.

“#20. The Donald Loves… – Donald Trump has always been a regular at Le Cirque, and a good friend of Sirio. His favorite dish? The flipper.”

It was the fall of 1999, and I was dining at Le Cirque, one of New York’s legendary restaurants, celebrating my coming retirement with two associates from the Golden Arches, on the occasion of my last round of visits there with the news media on McDonald’s behalf. We happened to be seated at a table next to Mr. Donald Trump and his two male guests that evening. As I recall we had a many laughs and a marvelous meal at that magical restaurant, in it’s old Palace Hotel location.

During a stop in the men’s room to powder my nose that night, I remember hearing Trump’s two young guests, apparently financial types, standing together at the urinals, discovering that they each owned identical red Ferrari’s. How Trumpish.

I also noted that it was in 1999 that Trump, then considered a possible Presidential candidate under a Reform Party banner, was widely quoted as saying things like: “I’m very pro-choice,” and “I believe in universal health care.” He also said: “Democrats are too far left. Republicans are too far right.”

That leaves only one question about his preferences: what is the “flipper” dish he favored at LeCirque? Perhaps that is what defines him still, in 2016, as the newly presumptive Republican candidate for President of the United States.

“Earned Media” — a tarnished badge. Introducing “Goofy Media”

“Earned Media” is one of the most-used expressions in the world of public relations. It refers to the media coverage given to an issue, person, product or brand that is covered as news because of its potential appeal to readers, viewers or listeners, and not because it was paid for by an advertiser. Earned Media is free media coverage as opposed to paid media coverage.

Back when I was doing public relations work for corporations and not-for-profits, we would take pride when the quality of our messages and messengers on behalf of these clients would be perceived by the news media or worthy of coverage as news for their audiences. Our PR agencies or departments would receive praise and great credit from management for “Earning” such free media coverage based upon the merits and creativity of the messages we crafted. Such “earned media” coverage was usually seen as more credible and thus more valuable than messages we purchased as advertising. Though we could precisely choose how to phrase and present our own messages in advertising, it was seen as much more valuable when such messages were communicated through credible news people, who supposedly selected what to cover as “news” based upon its editorial   worthiness and suitability to their target audiences.

But in today’s news, when “infotainment” is the new norm in so-called news coverage, and entertainment value trumps (pardon the expression) real news content, it is increasingly embarrassing to professional communicators to see gratuitous coverage of political foolishness passed off as “earned media.” The public relations profession either needs a new term for real news that  “earns” its place in news coverage versus advertising, or else infotainment that tries to pass for “earned Media” should perhaps just be called what it is — “Goofy Media!”.

Living With “Mediated” Lives

As illustrated so clearly here, we are living in a time of “mediated” existence. Most of us, much of the time, are connected to our friends, family and the external world through one form of media or another. I-phones, computers, TV, newspapers, movies…all both separate and connect us all. Good thing, or bad thing? Both, most certainly. We see people, ideas, events that we could not be present for personally, at a given time or place. But we remain separated from many of those same people, ideas and events by the very digital technology that connects us. Sometimes we can’t tell the difference, and sometimes we can. Yet nothing can replace sitting across from one you love, holding hands, or touching your sweet cat, or gazing at the beauty of nature, with nothing but the short distance from that living being or object to your eye standing in the way. We innately know that the best “connection” is the live, interpersonal connection, unmediated by technology, yet technology enables us to leap beyond our physical boundaries, whether it’s reaching out to family or friends, or reaching out and connecting with the world beyond our grasp. Yes, communications technology changes us, but it does not eliminate our personal responsibility to maintain the live, real  contact with the world that will always be important to our lives. We cannot live only “mediated” lives. But, while all of it is real, it is somehow vital that we recognize and value the meaning of our tactile connections to the world.

“Like to remind folks that a newspaper is actually the first mobile app”

From today’s Milwaukee Business Journal:

Fans of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s print edition can take heart: The CEO of the newspaper’s owner predicts continued publication of a hard copy “for a long, long time.”
Milwaukee is the media market where Journal Media Group (NYSE: JMG) has the greatest daily newspaper penetration with consumers, so the print edition will remain safe for the foreseeable future, said the company’s CEO Tim Stautberg.
“I suspect in a market like Milwaukee, it’s a long, long time (for continued printing),” Stautberg said at a joint luncheon Tuesday of the Milwaukee Press Club and the Rotary Club of Milwaukee at the Milwaukee County War Memorial.
Stautberg has been CEO of the new publicly traded company since April 1 after the closing of a transaction involving Milwaukee-based Journal Communications Inc. and Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. Prior to taking the helm at Journal Media Group, Stautberg was the top newspaper executive at Scripps.
Journal Media Group consists of the Journal Sentinel, 13 former Scripps daily newspapers and a number of community newspapers.
The print edition of daily newspapers remains the preferred way of attaining news for many consumers, Stautberg said. He said 45 percent to 50 percent of adults still read newspapers.
“To me there is still a habit that is very important to a lot of folks in the communities where we operate off reading a physical product,” he said. “I like to remind folks that a newspaper is actually the first mobile app.”

Brian Williams, et al, let’s calm down

Williams is an excellent and committed journalist, who is also clever enough to see the irony (read: comedy) in life. What he did was nothing of significance, and those who want to make this a rorshack (sp?) test on television journalists know where they can put it. Williams is much more of a journalist than some of the ciphers on CNN and FOX and elsewhere, who barely qualify as “news readers.”

Let’s get over this, NBC, and move on.