Valley PR Blog

SB Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

Could have been a good post if you would have ran with what I think were your original intentions were. However, you attempted to stay PC. Kissing up to the reporter and for the last sentence, you might want to check how the firms are doing.

barry kluger Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am

let’s be real. there are news outlets, and then there are AZ magazines that are pr tools. They survive on advertising and good news so they depend on a relentless pr person to give them a story.Not that being relentless is bad but it is NOT news.these kind of pieces are pure puffery.I have been in corp.comm for 30+ years and it used to be the client was the star, not the pr firm or the marketer. people used to be king/queen makers, now they want to be the king or queen themselves. it is nice to see a glossy on the stand or in our mailboxes and if your pr job is glamour and hype and not issue, they are the best outlet. The Republic has often been guilty of acting like the magazines.3 stories on Eddie Matney’s new restaurant?puh-leeze.
Now, the female issue. When I was SVP,PR at MTV networks, it was a company that sought to defy the old boy network and had a great % of women in executive posts. Most of my staff were women and rose to be VP’s and SVP’s alongside me. Is it a ghetto, as you say. in some ways. The entertainment industry, cable and networks, drew their early ranks from the music industry where women held the pr and TAR posts.Cable was a natural move for women as it was new and therefore, not old and biased towards women.

I still question whether these publications take female management seriously. They grace the cover, then the ads inside are all about breast augmentation, cosmetic dentistry.talk about paying lip service editorially when the real goal is move revenue.again, a noble idea. but let’s be wise it is not journalism at its highest level.

thats my story and i’m sticking to it.

Tanya M. Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

Hey Len,

I think PR is just something women are more adept to than men because of a woman’s ability to effectively communicate their vision. I think it’s a profession where women naturally excel at, and definitely something that I aspired to pursue at some point.

Now, I’m an official Microsoft ambassador and right now we’re really trying to scale up our connections with influential bloggers like yourself. I’d love to share with you some of the stuff we’ve been doing in the last couple months to help women entrepreneurs; we’re really committed to providing all the necessary resources to help women start, grow and expand their business.

We just wrapped up a women’s entrepreneurial tour across the US called “Vision To Venture;” the response and turn-out was great!

I’d really love your take on these offerings we have right now; I would have contacted you via email but I didn’t know which was the best way to reach you.

Thank you so much, I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds by directly contacting you. Definitely get back to me if I’ve piqued your interest– I’d love to share more info with you.

Best,
Tanya M.
Official Microsoft Ambassador
t-middleton@live.com

Amanda Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 6:58 am

ahoy, sploggers.

barry kluger Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 10:22 am

Tanya: women are better at communicating effectively??. We might as well lump that into to “men don’t show their feelings,” “men have one thing on their mind,” and “all aspirins alike.”

I think it’s nurture, not nature. If a man is raised or seeks out those who are able to communicate both personally and professionally, then he is a good communicator.

We can’t play into any old perceptions such as women make better teachers, nurses. If we did, then we might as well as say that a woman’s place in in the home, not in law, medicine or politics..

and I,as a male, think communicators come in all shapes, sizes and genders.

I grew up in a home where my mother was a professor, my mother in law a teacher, my wife a lawyer, her sister a lawyer and my brother’s wife a judge. Good role models because they were not limited by labels.

Look forward to communicating in person. You may find us “guys” are also pretty good at what we do.

Leah Hardesty Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

I choose not to get into the debate as to whether men or women are better communicators, but I do want to point out that more men need to get intot he profession. Just like engineering schools try to attract women, we need to try and attract men. Having diversity in the workplace only makes a stronger team and generates better ideas. I taught two PR classes at ASU and out of 35 students, not one single student was a male. Pretty disappointing. Where are the men?

barry kluger Says:
June 13th, 2008 at 10:08 am

oh go ahead.it’s a lively debate.LOL. seriously, over the past 10 years as celebrities have become heroes to kids and the whole public relations practice has turned into celebri-ink, these Lindsay Lohan type stories have created the impression THAT is what pr is all about. I used to ask my staff all the time, do they want to be show biz press agents in the classic black cocktail dress manning a velvet rope or be a pr professional” 99% chose to be pr experts and today, some of my pr staffers are EVP, PR at Viacom; VP, PR at Oxygen etc. yes women but in corporate roles.The remaining 1% staffer who went into celeb pr? Anyone ever here of Lizzie grubman?lol

Echo Surina Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

I wrote “Wonder Women,” the cover story in Arizona Business Magazine’s June 2008 issue, an article that has received some attention on this blog. I’m impressed with the commentary about my article (as odd as that might sound, since much of what has been said is critical or skeptical of my reporting). I’m not writing to defend my story but rather respond to some of your questions about editorial decisions, which I suspect might surprise some of you.

I agree with bloggers such as Barry Kluger for questioning whether some publications take female management seriously; after all, how often are women written about or featured on the cover of certain publications? That should be our first clue as to how seriously a publication takes women business leaders. If a publication has been in business for years and has only featured women on the cover a few times out of more than a hundred issues, for example, the message that sends is: well, I guess there aren’t women business leaders doing things worth writing about. This is unfortunate because there are many successful and inspiring women business leaders throughout the Valley and Arizona.

Good or bad, the fact is that those who get featured in editorial are chosen sometimes by the writer, sometimes by the editor assigning the story and sometimes by the publisher (and usually there’s no way of knowing). This particular article is interesting because it’s composed of two parts, which you probably wouldn’t recognize unless I explained it:

1) The main story that I wrote only includes one PR gal, Cheryl Walsh. (I’m wowed by Cheryl and wholeheartedly believe she deserves to be included.)

2) Photographs of women entrepreneurs (along with short quotes from them) who actually have nothing to do with the story other than the fact they’re successful women entrepreneurs who’ve gotten a lot of coverage around the Valley (and deservedly so). With the exception of Cheryl Walsh, these photos are of women who are not included in my story. But you wouldn’t know this by the design layout. Confusing? I’d say. When a story’s design includes photos of various people, the reader logically concludes those people have something to do with the story. Unfortunately, this (understandably) proved confusing/misleading in this story.

I think it’s important to differentiate between an editorial call made by a reporter and one made by a publication. And frankly, sometimes there’s no way of knowing what kind of parameters are given to a writer/editor. I think what makes this background story interesting is that it highlights publications’ ethical responsibility to not mislead its readers. I find myself encouraged by this blog; it affirms that readers are smart and can tell when something doesn’t add up.

I now work for my own company, Philanthropology, a boutique writing studio that produces educational products for businesses and promotional collateral for entrepreneurs and donates a portion of all profits to a nonprofit organization that helps military personnel access resources they need upon returning from duty. I also regularly freelance write for various magazines across the country. If you want to read (or critique) any of my other articles, you can find them on my Web site—

http://www.philanthropology.us

Cheers,
Echo Surina