Kent Newsome on technology, music and life

4/24/2007


How Not to Deal with Mainstream Media

When a mainstream or even semi-mainstream publication wants to cover something Web 2.0 related, particularly when it is something owned by your crony, take the reporter's call.  You are not a Rolling Stone and they are not The Rolling Stone. 

You are a blogger for crying out loud.  You are some guy who's current claim to fame is that you write an online diary and have some other friends who write online diaries too. 

In other words, you need them much, much more than they need you.

They get interviews from people a lot busier, richer and more famous than you all the time.  If you won't accommodate them, they'll just move on.  Or maybe embarrass you and then move on.

I learned a long time ago that there are more of me than there are reporters who want to talk to me for background and/or get a quote from me.  The law of supply and demand taught me to welcome the opportunity to be cooperative with the press.

Sure, I've been misquoted a time or two.  Once badly.  But I have also built brands and netted a lot of business by being accessible and cooperative with reporters.

The rules of business, marketing, supply and demand and common sense apply to the blogosphere.  To fail to recognize that is just another reason why so much of the real world doesn't take the blogging culture seriously.

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Posted by Kent @ 4/24/2007 10:24:00 PM | Permalink

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3 Comment(s):

I understand that you are just trolling here, but...

I am a WIRED subscriber. By the time I get their magazine in my hands there is not 1 Web2.0 related story that I don't already know. If WIRED is going to be a part of the Web2.0 conversation, they are going to have to allow it to happen transparently on the web. Information just moves too fast.

Also, I have been misquoted and it is frustrating. Email interviews are a much better way to go.

By Anonymous Jackson, at 4/25/2007 8:02 AM  
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First of all, I am not trolling. I am chastising a little because I am interested in mainstream acceptance of blogging.

I get the fast moving information point, but here's the thing- publications like wired can help that evolution along by reaching a lot of people who don't read blogs. But for now, mainstream media has the power and we need to realize that.

Everybody who gets calls from the media has been misquoted, just like everyone who drives has had a fender bender.

All this makes bloggers (and Web 2.0) look like a nursery room.

By Blogger Kent, at 4/25/2007 10:40 AM  
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Ok, 'trolling' was too harsh.

Still. Don't you think that part of what is so cool about blogging is that we get to write our own rules? Refusing to enable processes that we don't like is not exactly being a crybaby. Afterall, it was WIRED that contacted Dave and Jason.

By Anonymous Jackson, at 4/25/2007 9:21 PM  
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