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Posted Radio Media Tour

“Newest” Tactic to Grab Journalists’ Attention Isn’t New at All

By Debra Zimmerman Murphey and Maury Tobin

Several weeks ago, we watched the news media gush over Hillary Clinton conducting telephone interviews with TV networks and, as longtime PR ninjas, we found the analyses somewhat amusing. In every election cycle, there are always stories about the inside mechanics of campaigns and what strategies are being used to reach voters.

In this case, wall-to-wall coverage of The Donald – who has trumped many a candidate’s zeal for airtime – motivated Clinton to call CNN and other media operations to gain better control over the media narrative.

But there seems to be a gap in how this story is being told and what it means. Clinton’s move typifies how savvy communicators work. Indeed, while the options for news dissemination and distribution might be as vast today as Anthony Bourdain’s insight into a plate of food, one-to-one conversations with news opinion-leaders still matter.

And the Clinton campaign gets what Tobin Communications, which has been producing Radio Media Tours (RMTs) for two decades, consistently sees: Even in the social-media frenzy (when messages can be delivered unfiltered with a quick click), speaking to journalists is always relevant.

Listen to our recent interview with Chris Krese, a PR executive with the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, who points out that continually bypassing the news media is prickly. TCI reminds that social media is important, but so are traditional methods and organic media relations.

Posted Radio Media Tour

Edelman Exec Discusses Michael Deaver in PR Podcast

By Maury Tobin

As someone with more than 20 years of experience in public relations, watching this sometimes-bizarre presidential campaign gives me pause. The race has turned on its head the various ways American politics plays out, heightening the lightning speed of how information travels today.

Years back, I had the pleasure of working with the late Michael Deaver during a Radio Media Tour (RMT). The campaign was for Deaver’s book, “A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan.” Deaver was an Edelman executive who was also the deft creator and image finishing man for Reagan, turning him into a political brand through stagecraft and media engagement.

Our firm was hired by Edelman Vice President Craig Brownstein, who I interviewed for TCI’s latest “PR Podcast.” Despite the shifts political marketers face, Brownstein recalls that what he learned from Deaver still stands.

But the Deaver era, it seems to me, required a more subtle art. Because of social media and a constant ticker of news dished up by talking heads, there isn’t as much time for the credible and calculated work someone such as a Deaver did. The current deference to brash spontaneity has rejiggered how politicians act and are viewed, and also impacts how ideologues become digital go-tos.

Yet history also provides a compass. I reflect on handlers who didn’t want Americans seeing Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a wheelchair or the well-known retrospection of how John Kennedy prevailed in a 1960 presidential debate because of how a sweaty Richard Nixon came across via television.

Based on this, one would think Donald Trump’s tantrums and tweets could do irreparable damage, yet what we see instead is a phenomenon that may linger long after the November election. But context, such as that from Brownstein, reminds us that managing a political persona or brand requires more than posting a puzzled Emoji or a late-night tweet.