. . . viewing WGN-TV news at 9 p.m. in anticipation of a story tomorrow night on senior(-citizen) bloggers in which I figure, I have found the show’s first 15 or 20 minutes the fastest-moving. clickety-click-produced news show on TV. They move along briskly, with good pick of Chi-area stories. Can’t help but notice, however, that:
* The on-scene reporter about young Axelrod and the Antonio Davises coming to terms, that A. “has the luxury of returning to private life,” apparently in reference to Davis serving a five-game suspension (near $70G worth!). Flip slip of lip maybe, but it sounds as if A. got off easy. Anyhow, D. has private life for five games with his family in Naperville.
* The Washington reporter saying Bush “claims” the NSA “spying” was legal — “says” would do — and Bush’s mounting “a PR campaign” to convince people. “Campaign” would do. It’s odd to characterize a government’s trying to justify itself as “PR,” which is usually considered private-sector stuff. It also denigrates the effort.
* The anchor man’s story on chips that tell Someone Out There about us, imbedded in things we buy, was a pretty obvious playing to fears about privacy violations — complete with people on street saying they don’t like it: we were to expect they would like it? It had Tom Cruise clips to go with it, from the sci-fi movie "Minority Report.” WGN does not help its credibility with such a ploy. The story had that old bias smell.
1 comment:
Jim,
As a bloody and bent PR man, I assure you that PR applies to governments as well as private enterprise, non-profits, and the theatre. Nowhere do the words PR connote non-government activities or organizations. I think you are stressing a non-existent point.
As a matter of fact, Tom Paine was America’s first PR man. Gen. Washington asked him to write and publicize the reasons we were fighting England to pep up the troops. I consider Paine not only one of America’s best PR men, but Washington the greatest client with the finest story any PR person ever had.
Herb K.
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