Posts Tagged ‘ bad press ’

Danny Smith: Tufty Shit

Maybe I’m romancing it because I’ve never been formally trained, or glimpsed behind the curtain of the modern newsroom. But I carry the naive notion that a journalist should be a Jedi wielding TRUTH like the Force and ramming the lightsaber of FACTS up the arse of all that is corrupt. I know it can’t be easy, not only do you have to meet deadlines, smoke fifteen packets of cigarettes a day, and wear a hat with a small ticket that says ‘PRESS’ on it but you also have find interesting things to write about every, single, day. So its not surprising that many journalists fall for the Dark Side of PR. Like this story here http://tinyurl.com/ykn7639. The story is about a squirrel that has been banned from a popular Midlands theme park. Now this theme park is only mentioned twice, but once is in the headline and the entire story is about a new ride — that, apparently defying all common sense, is so good even the fucking squirrel enjoys it. They even named the squirrel after the ride making sure the journo HAS to mention it at least once. Interestingly, the technique they are using to this...

There’s a, probably apocryphal tale, about a Soviet “long lasting lightbulb”being invented — it was a big splash story one day in Pravda, but from thereon in got less and less interesting, ending up with the tiny phrase ‘light bulb still on’ appearing every day in a tiny corner. And that’s how I felt about this story in the Birmingham Post this morning: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! The Lonely Planet says Birmingham is a “vibrant city”. Nice, but not new. Not “news”. Because they said that in 2005: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! and in 2007: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! and are saying at the moment (in the guide online — not updated yet): Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! So, Birmingham still “vibrant” then, carry on, as you were.

The Evening Mail report with inordinate glee about a extra ‘l’ in a road sign pointing to St Philip’s Cathedral: “Council chiefs were left red-faced today after admitting that roadside signs directing drivers to the Cathedral Church of St Philip had been mis-spelt. The authority accepted an extra L had crept into a number of signs around the city centre, despite the presence of a large Church of England sign mounted outside the cathedral giving the correct spelling.” Well the church sign is tiny, I doubt the road sign was produced on the spot, and it’s always a bit dodgy to cry horror at a typo – especialy when you don’t notice the absense of the possesive apostrophe on the names of both churches on the sign you were moaning about. Come on Mail, you could have had two demoninations gving handwringing quotes.

Visit Birmingham — and watch the Blues

Marketing Birmingham have signed an advertising deal with Blues and Villa to promote visitbirmingham.com on advertising hoardings and the like. That’s a sensible move, scenes from Villa Park and St Andrews must be the most often televised nationally (and internationally in Villa’s case) from Brum (plus there’s always the chance of something really newsworthy happening in front of one of the boards — remember the parachuting santa?). Of course there’s always the “visit Birmingham for three easy points” thing, but at least the message is out there. The Evening Mail’s coverage was somewhat bizarre however: “FOOTBALL clubs Aston Villa and Blues have put their rivalries to one side for the sake of the city to sign a joint £1.4 million sponsorship deal to give Birmingham a massive global boost.” Leaving aside that they felt the need to explain that Villa and Blues were football clubs, in what way could the two companies be said to be “put their rivalries to one side”?. By accepting advertising deals from the same company? “The Sun and The Mirror put their rivalries to one side and both ran adverts for Dixons.” Nonsense.

As long as we don’t come last, give us credit

If this ‘Most Musical City‘ vote thing takes off, I can’t see Birmingham beating Liverpool or Manchester or Sheffield, or even London (despite there being very few London bands over the years, as opposed to bands based in London) – please let us beat Colchester tho’. Colchester, is that even a city (clue: it’s not)? It’s a publicity thing, as all these shitty polls are, but it’s promoting something that may be of use £2,000 interest free loans – to buy musical instruments with: Take it away is an Arts Council initiative designed to help more people get involved in learning and playing music. The scheme allows individuals to apply for a loan of up to £2,000 for the purchase of any kind of musical instrument, and pay it back in nine monthly instalments, completely interest free.

Bad Press, Bad Science (?), Bab

If I was the sort to decide on New Year’s resolutions, then one would have been making a concious effort not to get upset about this sort of thing: Why it may be better not to speak up if you’re a Brummie – BBC NEWS “The study, which matched accents with perceived intelligence, found speaking in a Birmingham accent gives a worse impression than saying nothing at all.” Lazy headlines, lazy articles, easy shots – at least for once it doesn’t seem that it’s just a press release form an insurance company (or similar) – Let’s look at the evidence, or lack thereof: 48 people were involved in the study, do you think 48 is a particularly large number, the sort that might extrapolate well to making generalisations on the population of Britain (60M?) as a whole? No-where that I can find are the methods or the details of the study available – I’ve emailed Dr Lance Workman so I’ll see what happens. I don’t think I’m alone in just being fed up to the back teeth of this coming up every six months or so, in different forms. People do it because the media fall for it every...

Weird, but not science obviously

The Mail reports on a clever piece of publicity (it’s all crap obviously), a report that names Birmingham the UK’s weirdest place. All sorts of odd things are revealed including an alien visit to Rowley Regis: “The strange beings told Mrs Hingley they came “from the sky” then talked about Jesus and Tommy Steele.She offered them a tray of mince pies and they took one each before flying off to their ship, which then lifted up in the direction of Oldbury or West Bromwich.”

fame vs power

Jasper Carrott has been announced as the second person to join the Broad St Walk of Stars (icBirmingham) which we can only surmise makes him the second most famous Brummie (out of those willing to turn up the the paving ceremony) – he’s not in the Birmingham Post’s 50 most powerful people in Birmingham tho’. The top 50 list is very much a behind the scenes power-broking list – and you’d be forgiven for not knowing who some of them were. Some are quite random (does Ed Doolan really wield that much actual power?), some are friends of BiNs (Hi Mr Stirrer, Adrian Goldberg), but the problem with power (if this has any real connection to reality) is that it comes with great responsibility – lets hope they all know how to handle it. I’ve never liked the idea of an elected mayor – if we had one they’d surely leap to the top of the list – but with so few of the ‘powerful’ having an electorate to answer to, I’m coming round to the idea. Fascinating fact, did you know that the singer of the Guillemots was a brummie?

Brummie women reject outdated beauty contest

Would have been the far more sensible headline for this story: BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Brummie girls ‘not pretty enough’ (not singling the Beeb out here, they’re just so much easier to link to than the Sunday Mercury, say Edit: found it). The clue is in the quote from the contest organisers “no one applied”.

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Posts Tagged ‘ bad press ’

Danny Smith: Tufty Shit

Birmingham still “vibrant”

Journalists in glass houses

Visit Birmingham — and watch the Blues

As long as we don’t come last, give us credit

Bad Press, Bad Science (?), Bab

Weird, but not science obviously

fame vs power

Brummie women reject outdated beauty contest

@onBirmingham – Breaking Brum News on Twitter