Ask Charity Weblog

On April 12th we blogged that a new site - Newscounter - was offering a right to reply to organisations and individuals who felt a media story needed correcting. I don't know much about the background to the site but it does seem to be "current"
http://www.newscounter.com/index.jsp. Now Google is offering a similar service. Google News http://news.google.com/news?ned=uk have said they are willing to add a response to any news story they publish. They will only publish responses from people who are directly involved in the story. If that's you and you want your point of view published on Google News, e-mail it to news-comments@google.com

Posted by Charity at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's worth having a listen to the latest edition of Radio 4's The Message. Jenni Murray chaired a debate about the behaviour of journalists: "Journalists were once cultural heroes. They were glamorized in the movies as the salt-of-the-earth, wise-cracking and sassy. Today the public appears to have withdrawn its affection and the media has lost too much public respect. But are journalists really any more morally or ethically corrupt than they were?" The cause for the greatest sadness and concern was expressed over the demise of the local reporter/ journalist.

Posted by Charity at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Journalists hate giving copy approval. Until recently approval was only ever promised to uber-controlling celebrity agents. Then Piers Morgan blew it apart at The Mirror. He'd simply had enough of kowtowing to celebrities' demands and refused to give them approval anymore. But now with the explosive growth of real life magazine titles and the fashion for case studies (in both broadsheets and tabloids), journalists seem only too pleased to offer case studies copy approval in return for exclusive rights to their personal story. But copy approval is not all that it seems. Usually it means that a journalist will offer to read back the article over the phone before it's printed. They are not bound to make any requested changes to the tone or angle of the story; it is a way to ensure that quotes are correct. What then happens to the story in the hands of the sub-editor is often not within the journalist's or the case study's control. Articles can sometimes be cut and edited to change the meaning or a sensational headline stuck on the top of the story. The painful truth is that no PR, no charity can ever totally control a story. There's always a risk involved. Charities must be prepared for the gamble, but journalists mustn't make promises they can't keep. I noticed this in this year's Guardian Editorial Code: "Copy approval: The general rule is that no one should be given the right to copy approval. In certain circumstances we may allow people to see copy or quotes but we are not required to alter copy. We should avoid offering copy approval as a method of securing interviews or co-operation."

Posted by Charity at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Spotted a recent conversation on an online messageboard where several journalists were moaning about how PR's contact them. What they all hated was when PRs called their mobiles and didn't leave messages. Who knew that something so slight could cause such grievance?! Here's what one journo had to say, "at what point did it suddenly become the norm for PR's to call but never leave a msg? I don't like being called for the usual 'have you got the release', 'can i pick your brains'... but i accept them - as other journos probably do - as just one of those things...But when i'm busy and screening calls it just gets my goat that so many pr's call and don't leave a message and because you're busy you're not sure if it's someone you need to talk to so you call back just in case and then you just get a generic 'Hello xxx organisation name' response and they've no idea who just called you either." So now we know. Always leave a message when you call a journalist even if they don't pick up.

Posted by Charity at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So often TV programme titles are designed to shock and pull in audiences. Recent titles such as "F*** Off I'm Fat" have caused a furore. Charities are more cautious than ever about working with TV production companies, never knowing what attention grabbing title will be added by broadcasters to a documentary before it's aired on TV. Yet beneath some of these salacious titles lurk some well made documentaries dealing with big issues in a sensitive manner. The insulting titles betray them. Danny Cohen, the new head of BBC3, was interviewed in the Guardian Media this week. He was the man who devised some of the most well-known reality formats and 'shock docs' for Channel 4 before joining the BBC this month. He's already announced a new series he's commissioned called Pramface Mansion "in which 10 single mothers and their offspring will live together for a month... A big social experiment seeing whether living together can help solve some of the problems in their lives". Who knows if it will be any good. It could help highlight some of the parenting issues single parent famillies face. It could help those that watch gain more parenting skills. But with a title like "Pramface", the tone seems set to be shocking and will no doubt enrage several charities who work with single parent famillies and young mothers. Questioned about such programme titles, Danny Cohen argues that the BBC3 needs to re-engage with a youth audience. Is "Pramface" really the way forward? We'll have to wait and see when it hits our screens later this year.

Posted by Charity at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)