Home / Archive: March 2010

Memo Banning ‘Newsspeak’ Signals
Better Direction for Traditional Media

March 22, 2010  |  6 Comments

A Chicago radio station’s controversial memo banning broadcast newsspeak reflects the scramble now under way in the traditional media world as bloggers, Facebook, Twitter and other new information sources emerge.

The list of 119 words and phrases now banned at WGN 720-AM range from the sensational, like “lone gunman,” “killing spree” and “clash with police,” to basic poor English, like “5 a.m. in the morning” and “at this point in time” (see the whole list on the right).

Getting these words out of newscasts will improve the delivery of news by making it more about information and less about theatrics. More importantly, it will remove the impression that the broadcast news industry thinks it’s so special that it needs to preserve its own special, stilted, silly language.

It’s a new world now

Although it’s become borderline-cliche to observe this, the traditional media have a new role now. They’re not the only sources of information anymore.

Sometimes they’re slower and less complete than blogs that cover the same events and issues. Sometimes their stories are not as interesting or relevant as content posted on Facebook.

This doesn’t mean traditional media are toast. We still rely on them for news that’s completely accurate, fair and objective, which far transcends our expectations of Twitter or YouTube.

That’s why getting rid of newsspeak is a good thing.

Phrases like “senseless murder” and “fled on foot” make intelligent listeners roll their eyes.  As a language constructed to convey superiority, almost like the guy who prays with “thee” and “thou,” it’s a drag on objectivity. (See National Public Radio’s amusing mock newsread that uses all of the silly phrases.)

Resisting change

The Chicago list, developed by Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels and issued by WGN news director Charlie Meyerson, was big news in the media world last week, but for the wrong reasons.

Because the memo also asked WGN employees to snitch on anyone who disobeyed the order, it got panned as micromanagement.

Whenever there’s change, there’s resistance, and the entrenched will grab anything they can to defend their comfort zones.

But the crumbling facade that is broadcast newsspeak isn’t worth defending. Time and energy would be better spent on gathering more and better news and delivering it in real words.

Indy Colts Goof Again, This Time on Facebook

March 21, 2010  |  No Comments

The Indianapolis Colts have goofed again.

A month after bumbling their way to defeat against the underdog New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl, the AFC Champion Colts took some shots from their online fans Saturday after goofing up big-time on Facebook.

This morning, the Colts began flooding the newsfeeds of their Facebook fans with posts from February about pre-Super Bowl activity. More than 50 of the outdated posts rolled in by late this afternoon.

The blitz ended this evening, marked by two messages from the Colts. One included an apology and a vague description of the problem, and another stated (accurately) that the goof was fixed.

Thus spake the fans

Reactions ranged from amused to ticked off.

“Please quit posting stuff every five minutes and taking up my whole homepage feed!!!!!,” hollered Kevin Brock of Monrovia, Ind.

Joked Michael Wallace of Cincinnati: “Appparently, the Colts have just announced that with the 1st pick of the 1998 NFL Draft they have selected Peyton Manning, QB from U. of Tennesssee. So much for the information age.”

Reflecting a stronger team spirit, Heather Harlan of Kingsport, Tenn., cheered, “i still love the colts!!!!!!!!”

What’s in an API?

In this first message from the Colts, the team appears to blame Facebook.

An API (application programming interface) is basically a way for a program to accomplish some task, usually through an alphanumeric API key. The reference to “a change” in the Facebook API that activates the feed of Colts news to its fans is hard to understand.

Here’s the Colts’ second message:

Now the word is that the API got stuck last month, then made up all of its lost ground today. The old posts really were done at this point.

Taking bull rush to a whole new level

As a long-time Colts fan, I don’t agree with all the criticism levied at the Facebook page caretakers.

Those guys should get a shot to replace Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis on the defensive line. If we had any kind of rush like that in Super Bowl XLIV, we’d have the Lombardi Trophy on our Facebook profile.

Disdain for Plain English Can Doom
Promising Change Management Plans

March 14, 2010  |  4 Comments

Not long ago, a client sent me a piece of communication, written by a colleague, and asked me if I could rework it. Believe it or not, this is how it began [specifics concealed]:

“[Company] in partnership with [Big Consulting Firm]  is conducting a 90 Day [Department] study championed by [Executive’s Name], [Executive’s Lengthy Title], that supports understanding our business and Go-To Market strategies while leveraging existing functional strategies in Manufacturing, Logistics, Procurement, IT, as well as broader global blueprints from Europe and Latin America to define a transformational roadmap for our future.”

Fortunately, we worked this clicheosaurus into something meaningful.

But unfortunately, some communication like this is actually distributed. And tragically, such communication is often used to support major organizational changes, like combining businesses, shifting information systems, imposing new processes, shuffling staff or consolidating locations.

Why Communication is Important

Poor communication at the outset of a challenging organizational change can ruin its chances for success.  Because employees, customers, suppliers and distributors are people, they:

• Need to understand a change before they can even begin to support it, let alone advocate it.
• May look unfavorably on something that is so shrouded in unclear language that there seems to be a conscious effort to hide what’s happening.

According to a 2007 study by the Computer Technology Industry Association, the top reason major information technology projects fail is poor communication.

Common Sense Goes a Long Way

Because of financial constraints, some critical corporate projects won’t get the benefit of professional communications resources. But common sense can go a long way toward harnessing the power of plain English.

Here are a couple imperatives for communication in the change management arena:

• Focus on the audience. Good communicators consider what the reader needs to receive in order to understand and embrace something.  Look at your writing through a reader’s eye.
• Be honest. Even issues that are difficult are based on some rationale. Learn that rationale and use it as support to communicate honestly. That will advance your project more effectively than hedging and vagueness, which ruin credibility.

For more about the role of good communication in making good things happen, watch this blog. If you have a point of view on this rich subject, share it in the comment box.

With New Press, Vindy Looks Great;
Now It’s Time to Lose the Scowl

March 08, 2010  |  7 Comments

Ernie Brown and Ted Suffolk, right, are pleasant fellows and publisher Betty Jagnow manages a smile here. GM Mark Brown … not so much. (Click for a full view of this photo from last Sunday's paper.)

The Vindicator‘s new design enjoyed a stunning debut this past week, making good on all the fanfare.

Leveraging the capabilities of a newly refurbished press, the Youngstown-based daily has carried heavy doses of color photos and graphics with far more clarity than Vindy readers have ever seen. Even the daily comics are in color.

The paper looks great. The new, slightly larger body typeface is much easier to digest and the sharp headlines beckon from the orange boxes without hollering like a tabloid.

Even the narrower size, which portends a smaller news hole, has an appeal to it. Outside a few minor goofs that are unavoidable in such launches, the Goss International press that once printed the Los Angeles Times has ”the People’s Paper” looking as crisp as the USA Today or any other U.S. daily. 

Along with Vindy.com and the new Neighbors editions, the new press and new look give the locally owned Vindicator Printing Company a huge new opportunity to regain advertisers, hold onto readers and haul in high-end commercial work. 

Hopefully, in addition to the meticulous planning required to launch the new press, the paper will work hard to retool its public image as well. That can use some investment. 

Scuffling and scowling 

On the front of a special section last Sunday, in a huge color photo showcasing the new equipment behind the paper’s management team, nobody could miss the snarling scowls. Unfortunately, that’s the puss the Vindicator wears as an organization at times. 

The paper suffered through an eight-month strike in 2004-05, the latest byproduct of many years of strain between the management and employees. Reporters picketed daily downtown. Some started their own newspaper to compete with their employer. Vindy managers, meanwhile, camped inside for days at a time to keep the paper running.  It’s not hard to understand why the work environment remains challenging. 

While the paper has long claimed financial hardship (a credible story in this market of declining population), employees and Newspaper Guild unionists have scowled over management’s chronic inability to improve the financial look. 

The Vindy is no Fast Company, to be sure. Though its capital launched the innovative cBoss Internet years before many Youngstowners used email, the paper itself took forever to get online. Various heroes recruited to reignite ad sales have come and gone. Even the press installation has been a miniboondoggle fraught with delays and legal action. 

Good news 

Fortunately, the paper has plenty of capacity to redesign its image. Its new editor, Todd Franko, is a newsman and no scowlmeister.  Since joining the paper in 2007, he has brought personality to the paper with his affable Sunday column. 

Since the impressive new color comes with a premium, some low-budget advertisers still prefer black and white. (This ad ran in Friday's business section.)

The online edition — still free — has increased the following of popular columnists like Bert deSouza and Ernie Brown, who also play well with the public and know Youngstown through and through.  Several writers, editors, photographers and designers have won statewide Associated Press awards lately. And the online polls and comment threads on vindy.com are engaging the online audience, drawing thought leaders, business people and young new readers along with the gadflies. 

Keeping with tradition set by its founders, the Vindicator remains heavily involved in community affairs. In addition to its storied Vindicator Spelling Bee, the paper invests quietly in many do-good initiatives, ranging from the Community Improvement Corp. that sparks business activity downtown to the Power of the Pen student writing competition. The much-ballyhooed Youngstown Business Incubator owes its existence to a benevolent building donation from Vindicator Printing. 

A happy face 

In the past year, Franko has taken on more speaking engagements, which have given the paper more of a happy face. That’s a front-page public relations strategy for the Vindy, which has a big room full of professional storytellers. 

Though quiet philanthropy was fine in the day when competition was limited, the paper needs to toot its horn more emphatically now that it’s competing with so many others in town and online for the hearts, minds and budgets of readers and advertisers. Its toughest assignment is to delete the union-management strife before the next round of Guild negotiations. 

As reflected last week in the widespread cheers for the paper’s new look, many in Youngstown are pulling for the Vindy. One of America’s few locally owned dailies, it employs more than 250 people, most of them downtown, and has over 300 independent carriers.  It’s as much a bedrock Youngstown institution as Youngstown State, the Canfield Fair or the Symphony. 

If it’s to avoid being the next Sheet & Tube, Dollar Bank or Butler Wick, it will need stronger bonds with its employees and other neighbors. That’s why a corporate smile has to run daily, above the fold.

Ex-TV Reporter Clarifies Facts
As Cafaro Company Spokesman

March 02, 2010  |  5 Comments

In this 2002 file footage, used last week on Channel 21, Bell the Channel 27 reporter chases J.J. Cafaro after Cafaro pleaded guilty to bribery.

Joe Bell certainly had tough days in his old job as a television reporter.

Now, as spokesperson for the Cafaro Company, he’s learning difficulty at a whole new level.

Bell, 51, chased news for WKBN Channel 27 in Youngstown from 1992 to 2007 and had an edge to him.  Though a short fellow, his deep, clear voice was good for a zinger at many a news conference.  He was a newsman in a trade often plied by would-be movie stars.

Tough week

When he joined Cafaro as director of corporate communications in early 2008, he could not have imagined a week like the last one.  Last Monday, J.J. Cafaro pleaded guilty to making an illegal payment to an election campaign of his daughter, Capri, now an Ohio senator. The next day, Flora Cafaro was revealed as the provider of a loan accepted illegally by a Youngstown judge.

These stories surfaced less than two months after Bell’s team announced the retirement of J.J., 58, and his older brother, Anthony, 63, from their leadership positions at the real estate concern in what was described as a transition long in the making.

Last week’s news was tragic in that the Cafaro Company, one of America’s largest shopping center developers and a highly philanthropic and still-Youngstown-based concern, established in the 1940s by J.J.’s father and uncle, is being mentioned alongside serious criminal offenses. So is Senator Cafaro, a respected young stateswoman.

Setting things straight

To minimize the damage, Bell, the family’s Cleveland lawyers and Capri’s personal public relations firm have cut the ribbon on an anchor store full of clarifications, corrections, asterisks, addenda and other ”corporate communications.” To wit:

• J.J. admits illegally advancing $10,000 to Capri’s unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2004. But a formal statement emphasizes that this was a personal action that had nothing to do with his official capacity as executive vice president of the company.
• A person working on Capri’s campaign acknowledges receiving her dad’s $12,000, far above the $2,000 contribution limit. But that does not mean Capri condoned it or was even aware of it. She tells The Vindicator that her father ”has made a habit over the years of doing things and not necessarily telling me about them.”
• Flora Cafaro is identified as the provider of an $18,000 loan to a friend, Maureen Cronin, the ex-judge now headed to prison. But another Cafaro Company statement emphasizes that Flora has no day-to-day involvement with the real estate company. Although The Vindicator digs up a public record in which she lists herself as a Cafaro Company official, Bell clarifies that this information is not accurate.

Time for a change

These are the kinds of clarifications the old Joe Bell may have ripped apart … especially if they were being conveyed by a Congressman, commissioner or contractor charged on the public record, making them safe targets for such rippage.

Today, though, Bell is a contributing author and provider of such clarificata.

“We are only stating what the actual relationships are,” he stated in a phone interview.

“On the whole, our local writers have been fair and balanced,” Bell said of last week’s front page coverage.  “There have been some inaccuracies, but a lot of the stories don’t have an awful lot to do with the work I do.”

He says he has no second thoughts about his leap from Channel 27 to Cafaro.

“I feel the same way as when I first left the news business,” Bell said. “It was time for a change.”