Valley PR Blog

Journchat Live today at Phoenix

By Angelo Fernando on August 17th, 2009 In Best Practices

Such great timing, this event. I met with Patrick O’Grady this afternoon to talk of what I thought was an open agenda, but it soon turned into an analysis of where the heck is journalism going, and what do we do with all this network clutter.

Since I wear two hats at ASU, as a social media activist, and Comms manager at Decision Theater, I get to see the problem (shrinking quality media outlets) and opportunities (reporters monitor stories closer than we give them credit for.) But I also see why the noise of tweeting and friending can make it seem like there is too much obsession with the tools and not enough attention to giving the story context.

So with that long preamble, I want to say that Journchat looks like an event whose time has come. Its mission, to keep better lines of communications between journalists, bloggers and PR folk.

As Aaron Baer introduced Journchaphx (yes, do follow the event using the hash-tag #Journchaphx) the Q&A type Twitter sessions will be collaborative, and synchronized with several cities.

First question: Who owns the fan experience at College stadia?  As Aaron Baer framed it slightly differently. How do schools teach this stuff?

This turns into: How do media liked being pitched, contacted? Most say via social media. Adamkress notes that it is a mixed bag.

Back to the right-to-tweet vs sponsor’s rights to to stadia: Alison Bailin of HMA observes rightly that ‘companies fear social media as the new DVR.’

Question on Social Media Press Release. How relevant! JoePRGuy says press releases are not dead.

To the audience question whether media companies are seeing the light and hiring social media savvy reporters, Tiffany Jarratt responded, “no one is hiring, all of us use social media. I use Twitter  all the time to source stories, people, products…”

Great quotes:

• “Forget what you think you know and go learn from some mentors.”  - Joe Cockrell

• “Don’t lose the romance of the language. That’s just as important as the content in a press release.” – Adam Kress, Phoenix Business Journal
  

• “I work for an agency, and I write about fertilizer all day.” - Emily Butler, Canyon Communications. (She was responding to a question about advice tio new grads, and how to develop writing skills.)  “It’s very technical and it can be somewhat dry, so I need a creative outlet for my writing and I turn to personal writing and blogging about b2b marketing to get this.”
• “My boss doesn’t get social media –until someone sends him an article  about it.” – Anonymous
• “I have become  a better writer, now that I use Twitter. It forces us to be more concise.” – ??

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