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I was just cleaning up my favorites sites on Internet Explorer. I have not updated my links section on this blog in awhile. I use these favorites for both my work as a fire department PIO and as a marketing and public relations professional for a national not for profit organization. Over the weekend I will hopefully add some of these new sites to my links page.
I present to you the most often visited PR sites that I rely on for information.
I was recently looking at the “competition’s” websites as I often do to see what other departments are posting and updating. There are some really great fire department sites on Long Island. Unfortunately it dawned on me that even some of the top sites, and even in their contact areas, do not list an email address to reach.
There was a time in life when folks would not receive a “free pass” for their indiscretions. Recently I was pounding away on the computer in the conference room at the firehouse when two of the younger guys walked in and sat at the table to shoot the breeze.
One of the guys was talking about a friend who cheated by hanging out with his girlfriend. When he confronted the friend, he admitted to his misdeeds and was forgiven. He got a “free pass.” In my younger days a similar situation would have ended with fists flying. That might not have been the correct resolution to the problem, but it did replace the “free pass.”
I have always feared the comma. Am I using it in the right places, not using it when I should, overusing it? There has been a lifelong cloud hanging over me in terms of my relationship with this grammatical little guy.
To come up with some rules of thumb pertaining to the comma, we direct your attention today to the comma guru, Don Ranly, who is a professor emeritus of the Missouri School of Journalism. Hopefully we can all gain from his commatic expertise.
One of the more hotly contested Senate races taking place this fall is in Nevada where Sharon Angle is trying to unseat majority leader Harry Reid. I think it is safe to say that Angle, who was leading Harry Reid and is now trailing slightly in the polls, is starting to be looked upon as a “wingnut.” She certainly is not making any new friends in the media. Angle held a so called “press conference” recently in which she invited the media but bizarrely refused to even acknowledge their presence when they tried to ask her questions after the event ended.
One of the challenges of writing a daily firematic blog and serving as a PIO of a volunteer department is making sure that my opinions do not affect my department negatively. This is what I must do regarding the general public’s perception of my department and this is also what I must do in the blogosphere.
I do report on my own department and how we handle public relations and crisis communications occasionally, but I would, in my own opinion, be a fool to make my department look foolish to the folks from across the country who read this blog.
Ever since the enactment of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 confusion has reined in our profession about exactly who and what is covered in the law, and what we can and cannot report on and take pictures of. I think allot of what we hear is fact but allot of the interpretation of the legislation is based on “folk law” handed down since the passing of the bill.
I recently received an e-mail from a fellow PIO and newsman asking for assistance in mucking through the separation of fact from fiction.
To volunteer fire departments across the country local community newspapers are our bread and butter vehicle for getting news out to the community. Unfortunatly, like many other print publications, local papers are also suffering through hard times. I think it is our responsibility to tell as many members of our communities as possible that these new sources are vital to spreading the local word.
My “office” at the firehouse is in a corner of the conference room. I have a desk against one of the walls. On the wall in front of my desk is a bulletin board that has all the current 2010 new clippings from press the department has received. It’s just about full, and that’s both good and bad. Good for the press we have received on stories concerning fire prevention, community award ceremonies, parade appearance and member recognition but bad for those clipping that resulted in devastating fires and MVA’s or loss of life.
Anyone who has been in the public relations field for any length of time has used the AP Stylebook to help them at least try to look literate. For those novices a little background -
The Stylebook was first produced in 1953 as a stapled collection of rules totaling 60 pages, and has grown to a publication of more than 450 pages today. The book’s creation was prompted in part by a technical change in the way the AP transmitted news as well as a need for consistency among a worldwide editorial staff that produced stories for newspapers with a variety of style preferences. There have been major periodic revisions over the past few decades, the last in 2008, and the print edition is now updated annually.
I was driving to the airport a couple of hours ago after attending the Maryland State American Legion Convention in Ocean City.
Great place to hang out for a couple of days!
I was not going to post today but was listening to Fox on Sirius and heard a story about Apple holding a press conference tomorrow. Since this is a first time they are facing a negative situation in many moons, I thought I’d give you a heads up to closely follow how their PR strategy follows through. I call following these stories “recreational PR.” It’s a great sport to watch how the big guys handle a crisis.
What’s currently the toughest crisis communications job in the world of public relations and public information? It very well could rest in the hands of one Brian Sibley who is the hired gun from his very own Sibley PR who is currently in the uneviable position of serving as spokesman for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Incident Command post, the central information command for everyone involved in the Gulf coast oil spill clean up.
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Suppose we were asked as PIO’s to meet with the media directly after a structural fire where much more went wrong than right. Instead of confronting the situation and transparently addressing where we succeeded, where we failed, and what we should have done to make things run better we took a different tact. We decide to ignore the present, forget about the fire and tell the press that things would have been much worse under the leadership of the past Chief and things are going in the future to get much better. The press would look at us like we were raving lunatics.
Back in 2005 Newsday, Long Island’s major daily paper, spent eight days lambasting the volunteer fire service. Long Island, where I live, is one of the most concentrated areas in the country for volunteer departments. Close to 180 departments and districts span Nassau and Suffolk counties. In the eight part series titled “Fire Alarm” (the word alarm referred to their perception of a serious problem and not the tones we wake up in the middle of the night to answer) Newsday found fault with virtually everything the fire service does and stands for.
My buddy Tiger Schmittendorf who among several things writes the great blog Tiger Schmittendorf.com sent me a note correcting a typo on one of my recent postings. I appreciate Tiger’s observation. No matter how hard we try, proofreading, which is a big part of the work we do, is not a perfect process.
This is pretty cool. Today’s post is just a bunch of useless knowledge. Mark Steiger, a firefighter friend of mine from east Texas saw my Fourth of July post about the founding father of the volunteer fire service, Benjamin Franklin. Mark MC’s a holiday parade each year. Before the festivities get underway he regales the crowd with some Colonial era useless facts. I know it’s not PIO relevant, but it’s allot of fun to read.
A couple of years ago one of the guys at the firehouse was showing me how to use Photoshop. I needed to learn some simple skills – specifically how to erase license plates from MVA photos I wanted to send to the press. As a result of boredom over the lesson the famed “sock on fire” trick photo shot was created.
It’s pretty funny when you look at some of the altered images people create with programs like Photoshop, but it is no laughing matter when the press or a news source uses these tools to create something that isn’t really there.
With the line getting longer for businesses, government entities and displaced workers seeking funds from BP and the federal government to assist in a crucial time of need, one does not exactly think of PR services as a fundable project – well think again.
I think we should all take a moment out of our Fourth of July festivities to think about, and express our deepest gratitude to the founding fathers of our great country for what they did in establishing the framework of a democracy that has survived the test of time.
Of all the forefathers, the one we should place on the highest pedestal is Benjamin Franklin who among his greatest accomplishments was the founding of the volunteer fire service.
When I brief a Chief or department official on what to expect if a media interview appears that it will have negative connotations two of the simplest techniques I offer are:
1. never repeat a reporter’s negative language in your response, and
2. try to frame all your answers using positive language.
Sounds simple enough. Yet the news is filled with examples of people who disregard these tips.
Meg Whitman former eBay head honcho is running for Governor of California. She has held multiple town hall meeting around the state to promote her agenda. Obviously with such open forums tough questions arise from the audience.
At a recent town hall in Modesto, Whitman was asked a question, I can’t tell if it was from a reporter or audience member, in which she was asked – “Have you or any members of your family been arrested or run afoul of the law?”
This is a pretty bare bones Power Point presented by the Army titled “Online Etiquette: 5 Things every Solider should know.” When you scroll through the 8 slide presentation just substitute firefighter for soldier and you can see the parallels in online social media interaction etiquette between the two services.
I was contacted a few weeks ago by a free distribution children’s magazine that was doing a story on what kids wanted to be when they grew up. Obviously, as it has been for generations, becoming a firefighter ranked right up towards the top.
The editor did not need the Departments input into the story but instead wanted me to e-mail a series of photo’s that depicted what we do both in the firehouse and at a scene without being too graphic for children to look at.
When we disseminate information resulting from an incident scene print newspapers are still responsive in reporting on the story. Currently though with print newsroom resources stretched to their limits, the human interest, safety information and feel good stories we like to float around are not in abundance as they used to be.
I have tremendous admiration for GEN Stanley McChrystal. I respect his dedication to attain victory, his strategic objectives and his pursuit to get the assets this country needs in the Afghan theater to get the job done.
Through some of my past posts, referring to President Obama’s crisis leadership, you may sense that I am less then enamored of his decision making process. Yet in the McChrystal-Obama dispute I have to lean towards the Presidents side in this one.
The lifeblood of the volunteer fire service is the adherence to the chain of command. If a Captain is badmouthing or second guessing the Chief, the chain is snapped and chaos ensues. Lack of response to direct orders or discrediting the Chief to members of the Department has never resulted in a positive outcome. It can only lead to internal firehouse strife and ineffective operations on the fireground.
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