Earned Media

According to Gallup’s three-day national average tracking poll, Mitt Romney received a 5 point “bounce” following the first Presidential debate. With an audience of 67 million viewers, the first debate seems to have swayed a few swing voters.
This all begs the question: how much cash would it cost to replicate 90 minutes of uninterr [...]

We use a media monitoring program to measure our earned media and occasionally have a little fun with it. Today I searched news broadcasts for the term “Facebook” to gauge the amount of TV media the company earned leading into its first day of trading. Turns out in twelve hours, from 7 AM – 7 PM eastern, Facebook earned� [...]

Quick reaction to the fact that 42% of voters still support the “Stand Your Ground” law that George Zimmerman will use as a defense for shooting Trayvon Martin (32% oppose). If this legislation was dubbed the “Shoot First” bill, you would see the poll numbers reversed. Alternatively, if the legislation was explained to voters, the [...]

My old boss Steve Schale is famous for his “underreact” sign – in fact I brought it from the Obama campaign into my current office. I don’t always agree with the sign, but more often than not, I think twice about fleeting, knee-jerk reactions to articles or press events.
Which brings me to this strident, false, and absurd statemen [...]

#gallery-1 {
margin: auto;
}
#gallery-1 .gallery-item {
float: left;
margin-top: 10px;
text-align: center;
width: 33%;
}
#gallery-1 img {
border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;
}
#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {
margin-left: 0;
}

Three of our [...]

Some people chastise the press for never getting it right. Not only are those people generally wrong, they are often the cause of such errors in reporting.
Think of the people within corporations or government who believe they get a bad rap in the media. Most of those folks are dismissive, condescending, or institutionally averse to respo [...]

I couldn’t be more proud of the Policyholders of Florida. Since our first press conference in March, our coalition has been a tireless advocate on behalf of consumers. Earlier this month all of that hard work paid off. That’s my tease for our new web video. Watch here.

The media loves process stories.
Politicos hate them. A process story for a campaign or administration revolves around inside baseball like staff changes, infighting, fundraising or strategic changes (click here for a recent gem). However, some process stories can be positive, like an upcoming campaign focus, initiative, or for Florida G [...]

Get the hell out of the way.
Nine times out of ten, you either have a story worth covering, or you don’t. Rarely will a reporter bite at a pitch from a flack that isn’t newsworthy – no matter how many hours you’ve wasted editing and vetting some wordy and worthless press release.
I understand that I’m being pretty blunt here, bu [...]