Public Relations

10 Tips To Turning Your Beat Into A Book By Bill Lueders

Garth Beyer

The next few days will be dedicated to posting ruminated-on content gathered from the Turn Your Beat Into a Book event I attended.

Bill Lueders was on the panel and offered this advice:

  1. Don’t write a book on your beat.
  2. Start by thinking about audience.
  3. Writing a book is easier than getting it published.
  4. Write for a press. Most press have a larger mission you need to fulfill.
  5. Not state or local interest. Aim for international interest.
  6. Be flexible on how you define success.
  7. Don’t expect to make money.
  8. Be a reader. 30-50 books a year.
  9. Inaudible. Sorry.
  10. Be emotionally strung, crush indifference.

Vending Machines

Garth Beyer

Why don’t vending machines have a slot for consumers to suggest what they would like to purchase from the machine next time it gets refilled?

No pretzels? Put in request.

Machine gets refilled. Pretzels found.

You can aim for the mass or you can aim for those who will purchase from you and hope to still please the mass in doing so. If not, it doesn’t quite matter. You still made a sale.

Worse Than Being Spied On (Being Branded)

Garth Beyer

You’re getting branded, right now, as you read this, as you think about it. You’re being branded.

What makes this worse than being spied on is that you know you’re being branded. 100 % certainty. The only guarantee this market can give you as that you’re being branded.

Every action you take, the words you share, the style you present adds to your brand.

Food for thought. Hope you’re eating right.

Yes, even food is an attribute to your brand. I will always remember the Justin’s chocolate peanut butter cups and sushi that Seth Godin had for everyone at his Pick Yourself event.

Krugman, On The Web

Garth Beyer

Krugman does it again. His latest post, The Good Web, is why I always visit his blog.

Sorting out the wonkish for you, here are some of my favorite bits.

“What I want to talk about instead is the effect of the Internet on the quality of reporting, which I believe has been overwhelmingly positive.” Which goes back to my latest post about citizen journalism.

On the pre-internet era, “in fact, there was a sort of bias against having reporters with too much expertise, on the grounds that they wouldn’t be able to relate to the readership.”

More on citizen journalism, “The point is that real journalists, as opposed to the idealized picture of the way things used to be, benefit from the ability of knowledgeable non-journalists to get their knowledge out there, fast.”

“newspapers now have a much better idea of what their readers actually care about.” Can this help the industry? Maybe with its transition to the digital platform, but I still believe, like print books, Newspapers will become a thing of the gift shop.

And while Krugman refers to useful economic analysis, stating, “these are the good old days,” I can’t help but think the same about journalism in its entirety.

We’re All Reporters, Seriously

Garth Beyer

I check Yahoo! news every day and chuckle when I see a story that I already caught on Imgur, an image uploading site. Consider it an Image only version of Reddit.

People from all over the globe can upload images… immediately. Especially, eye witnesses.

The argument has been whether everyone is a journalist or reporter now that we can Tweet, take pictures, and upload videos of what will (when “legitimate” reporters get on the scene) be breaking news.

Now, NBC News is working to purchase Stringwire. A video sharing service that will allow users to stream videos directly to NBC News.

Let the conversation continue. Are we all citizen journalists? Deserving the same respect of a paid journalist?

Jeff Bezos – Letter to The Washington Post employees

Garth Beyer

To the employees of The Washington Post:

You’ll have heard the news, and many of you will greet it with a degree of apprehension. When a single family owns a company for many decades, and when that family acts for all those decades in good faith, in a principled manner, in good times and in rough times, as stewards of important values – when that family has done such a good job – it is only natural to worry about change

So, let me start with something critical. The values of The Post do not need changing. The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners. We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads, and we’ll work hard not to make mistakes. When we do, we will own up to them quickly and completely.

I won’t be leading The Washington Post day-to-day. I am happily living in “the other Washington” where I have a day job that I love. Besides that, The Post already has an excellent leadership team that knows much more about the news business than I do, and I’m extremely grateful to them for agreeing to stay on.

There will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years. That’s essential and would have happened with or without new ownership. The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.

Journalism plays a critical role in a free society, and The Washington Post — as the hometown paper of the capital city of the United States — is especially important. I would highlight two kinds of courage the Grahams have shown as owners that I hope to channel. The first is the courage to say wait, be sure, slow down, get another source. Real people and their reputations, livelihoods and families are at stake. The second is the courage to say follow the story, no matter the cost. While I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a wringer, if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s example, I’ll be ready.

I want to say one last thing that’s really not about the paper or this change in ownership. I have had the great pleasure of getting to know Don very well over the last ten plus years. I do not know a finer man.

Sincerely,

Jeff Bezos

###

Letter found here

This makes me curious, not necessarily about where Jeff will take the paper (that’s a natural curiosity to everyone in knowledge of the ownership change), but what I or you would do if we all the sudden found ourselves in charge of the newspaper – or any newspaper for that matter.

Would we turn it completely digital? Would we break it up into smaller newspapers covering specific parts of Washington (and America)? Would we find a new way to challenge advertisers? Would we shift the writing toward more gonzo journalism?

These questions, as well as hundreds of others, I’m sure, are questions Jeff is asking himself. Think on them.

Now imagine if the answers you give to the questions turn out to be the same ones Jeff gives. Exciting, huh? Now is the time to make critical educated decisions on what to do with a newspaper company, when you’re not responsible, and you can verify what works, what experts* would do, and how to handle the ever-changing** newspaper market.

*You can argue Jeff Bezos is not a newspaper expert, but he brings enough to the table for me to call him one.

**Some say dying, and sure, the newspaper industry is dying, but when I answer the questions above, I think it’s changing more than dying.