There appears to have been considerable interest in my comments on Farmers Weekly, the so-called Yellow Peril.
Not many of you left comments which is disappointing. The blog had its highest number of hits on a single day in the 24 hours after it was posted. Seems there were a lot of people at one publication who looked at it judging by the Site Meter which allows me to monitor your visits (oh yes, I know where you view the blog, the time, the number of pages and your IP address).
Would love more comments. All you need to do to leave a view point is to click on the blue comments link immediately below these words.
Exercising Clydesdale foals at the Clydesdale Winter Fair at Perth
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4 comments:
Joe,
I'm probably responsible for a few of the clicks - I, too, was interested to see what other people might have made of this.
I didn't comment further because, other than the two of us having a bit of fun baiting each other, I figured it would be more interesting to let other people have their say.
If you want a few more of my thoughts, though, I'd say I don't think FW does typically get preferential treatment by PRs. Now I know I would say that - but it genuinly doesn't feel like that.
As for this story, it was inevitable that RASE sought covererage in England more than, say, Scotland (the clue's in their title!)
As for the exclusivity point, I guess this is one for us to discuss over a pint in The Coal Hole after the next Guild lunch!
I agree: it wasn't an exclusive in so much as RASE did press release it. But I was the only person who got an interview with John Torode about it, so that was exclusive.
Be good to hear what other journos/PRs think about the whole subject... I'll certainly encourage the ones I bump into to comment.
Joe,
I haven't commented on your blogs before but this is a particularly interesting debate, looking at it from the PR side - and there's nothing like joining a good baiting session.
I have never quite got my head around the ethics of an 'exclusive'. My experience in agricultural press circles is that the benefit of giving an exclusive to one publication is far outweighed by the anger/complaints that come from the rest because you have shown 'favouritism'. Hence, as a general rule, I don't do it.
It is a different story for the newsdesks of the dailies or Sundays because you don't have the same day-to-day relationship with these guys (with a few exceptions) and a story sometimes needs the 'exclusive' tag to get onto the news pages.
The only time I do manage the release of statements to the agri-press is to give the weekly guys a copy on the Wednesday and the farming pages of the Scottish dailies a copy on the Thursday, so the stories are both published together on the Friday (although this is still the subject of some moans!).
It strikes me that if the agri- press corps want to take a stand and avoid this kind of stress, they should just collectively agree not to accept spoon-fed exclusives from industry (because inevitably you'll lose out as often as you benefit). Of course, the 'exclusive' will always have its place in life, but you don't need to be spoon-fed, go hunt out the story for yourself.
My parting shot is that people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones! Joe, dare I say that you have been the recipient of many an 'exclusive', the content of which is equally applicable outwith the P&J's readership (which seemed to be the basis of your charge against FW). If you're happy to accept an exclusive, you can't begrudge others doing the same.
Perhaps, as Guild Chairman, you should take a lead, ovecome your competitive streak and henceforth refuse to take exclusives delivered on a plate by industry. I'm sure everyone else would follow.....
I forget the last time I was offered an exclusive by an agri PR. Yes it happened often when on business, but I haven't done that for more than two years.
Most of the exclusives carried in the Press and Journal's farming pages are the result of journalist endeavour, ie: getting off one's own backside and going out and finding the stories, or through investigation and making use of techniques such as Freedom of Information or through contacts in the industry.
You'll find more exclusive tags as a result of the latter process, rather than the former in the P&J. I doubt anyway I'd tag anything exclusive if spoon fed to me as that isn't particularly exclusive in my understanding of the word.
Over to you Mr Withers for suggestions on the spoon fed exclusives I've been given in recent years from the agricultural industry. I'd suggest nil, zero, none, nothing, diddly squat, zilch.
OK, Joe, you have put me somewhat back in my box.
Although, in my defence, the 'spoon-fed exclusives' comment was directed at the masses and with the Farmers Weekly/RASE saga in mind, rather than a slur on talents of the P&J!
I can only recall one story I gave you exclusively some years ago, not long after I'd started the job - I think it was to do with a copy of the Commission's final CAP reform proposals. Anyway, I recall you went big on it in the Saturday edition and gave our reaction to it a full airing on the Monday. So, to that end, we both got benefit out of it.
However, I recall the pointed complaints and moans of disgust I got from a couple of former contemporaries of yours on the other dailies - they treated it as an act of treason.
Hence I think in our small world of agri-media, a conscious decision by an organisation to hand a story to only one publication is a recipe for discontent and won't help relationships over the longer-term.
Having said that, is my view clouded by the fact that NFUS is fortunate enough to get pretty good coverage in general? We don't need to advertise a story as an 'exclusive' to get the press to consider it. That doesn't mean they'll always run the story, but they'll at least take a look at it. Maybe other organisations make the calculation that giving an exclusive at least guarantees one bit coverage whereas a general release might get lost?
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