Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Sad, Scary and Possibly True
June 29, 2007
The immigration bill has gone down to defeat in the Senate. Whatever one’s political beliefs, it was clearly a major defeat for President Bush, who used much of his diminished political capital to try to get it passed, but in the end won only 12 Republican senators to his side.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) came under enormous pressure from conservative constituents who railed against the measure’s path toward citizenship (”amnesty“) for illegal immigrants.
What he said was sad, scary, and possibly true. ”I’ve learned one main lesson,” he said. “A lot of Americans have lost faith in their government – they don’t think we can control our borders, win a war, issue passports.”
From a media perspective, to be successful the candidates of both parties will have to sell against that with all their optimism, energy, and enthusiasm.
Posted in Politics, President-Bush, immigration, public-relations-disaster | 1 Comment »
Rudy Giuliani vs. Paris Hilton: Who’s a Better Marilyn?
May 21, 2007
Is Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani finally more popular than Paris Hilton? Some 70 TV segments mentioned Paris this week, according to CNN’s Reliable Sources, but 141 mentioned Rudolph Giuliani.
More importantly, which one makes a better Marilyn Monroe? (see photos below.) Paris, of course, is convinced it’s her. “There’s nobody in the world like me,” she told the UK’s Sunday Times last year. “I think every decade has an iconic blonde — like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana — and right now, I’m that icon.”
Certainly bald Rudy can’t win on the blonde front without a wig. But judging by Paris’ of ”Happy Birthday Mr. Hefner” channeling , he may well be a better performer.
Posted in Paris-Hilton, Politics, Sex and Society, marilyn-monroe, rudolph-giuliani | No Comments »
Halberstam, Tillman, Lynch: Truth is the First Casualty
April 25, 2007
How ironic that David Halberstam, who made his bones as a journalist in Vietnam, passed on just the day before injured soldier Jessica Lynch and the family of the late Pat Tillman testified before Congress. The hearing, “Misleading Information from the Battlefield,” focuses on the infamous friendly fire death of Army Ranger Specialist Patrick Tillman in Afghanistan and the capture and rescue of Private Lynch in Iraq.
It’s often said that “truth is the first casualty in war.” Halberstam, who won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism at 30, wrote in 1965 about Vietnam, but the parallels to Iraq are inescapable.
If Halberstam had been given one more day, he would have been watching the testimony.
Posted in Journalism, Politics, Television | No Comments »
Joe Francis Gets Jail, Justice Goes Wild
April 24, 2007
No, Joe Francis is not a sympathetic figure. But a conviction and 35 days in jail with a convicted cop killer for a cellmate, for squabbling with a judge?
It’s tempting to blame it all on Francis’ own hubris. But this, the bribery charges, and the crowing Department of Justice press release announcing the tax indictment, makes it pretty clear there’s a government bulls-eye on Joe’s back.
When first they come for the pornographers, to paraphrase Pastor Niemoller, who will they come for next?
Posted in Joe Francis, Journalism, Politics, Public Relations, Sex and Society, Television | No Comments »
Alberto Gonzales Tests Limits of Media Training
April 23, 2007
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales got very poor reviews for saying “I don’t ” over 70 times in his Senate testimony about why eight federal prosecuters were fired. It was a particularly weak performance considering he practiced for a week beforehand.
My company provides media training to spokespeople. Contrary to popular belief, we do not teach executives how to lie, spin or deflect. Instead, we help them focus their story, create key messages and help them practice telling their story to a skeptical press. The best ways to do this are to know your story, communicate your message with energy and passion and if faced with tough questioning deal with the issue and swim back to your story.
With some saying that over 90% of what we communicate is non-verbal, it’s critically important to radiate energy, confidence and belief in what you’re there to sell. If you can’t tap that belief, even a week of media training isn’t going to help.
Posted in Media Training, Politics, Public Relations | No Comments »
Schwartzenegger speaks against genocide
April 23, 2007
Press critics have a point when they say the media rarely reports the ‘good news.’ The ‘good news’ about the Holocaust is that even as survivors are felled by time, the next generation is dedicated to saying never again to genocides like Darfur.
One member of that generation is California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger. On April 15, he spoke to an audience of about 2000, many of them Holocaust survivors and their families, at Holocaust Remembrance day in Los Angeles. Schwartzenegger gave a powerful speech that was not as widely as it deserved.
“As you know, I was born in Austria, a country that I love, but a country with a horrible history, a place where intolerance and ignorance led to the atrocities and to murder. My mother told me many stories about the horrors of the Holocaust. She was working as a young secretary in Austria during that time. She told me that after the Anschluss how she went one day to work and saw in the morning bodies lying there on the side of the road, shot to death because they were Jews. Another time she saw bodies hang from the trees in our state park…
But the sad story is that in this last 15 year the death toll from genocide has been staggering. We all know the thousands of people that were killed in former Yugoslavia. We know the 800,000 that were murdered in Rwanda, and the 200,000 that were killed in Darfur, and the numbers are growing every day.
So on this day of Yom HaShoah let us remember the 8 million Jews and the millions of other people who were killed during the Holocaust. Let us also remember the endless amount of people that were killed just recently in genocides. Let us pray that those murders will stop. Let us pray. And above all, let us not say that we could have done more to stop the acts of genocide that we see today, and those that we will see in the future. Today we must stand up and speak out against all of those who would commit those atrocities, and then we can hope that for one day that Darfur is known as the last human genocide to disgrace our world. ”
Schwartzenegger, like Reagan, is often dismissed as a lightweight mouthing lines from his movies. His blunders get world attention. But as with Reagan, a dispassionate observer can see the energy, optimism and call to action in Schwartzenegger’s speeches. An earlier Bush made fun of it, but a Barack Obama or a Schwartzenegger can touch America–and the world–with that rare “vision thing.”
Posted in Journalism, Politics, Public Relations | No Comments »
