2006 October

This may be the time to reverse bad law

By Joel Campbell
UPA Legislative Monitor

As we look toward January and another session of the Utah Legislature, we may find that this is the session to push for some cleanup of public notice and public records laws.

At least two bills have been enacted in the last several years that brought surprise consequences to UPA members.

The first is a bill enacted in 2004 allows the Division of Construction and Facility Management to electronically post all of its bid notices on the Internet. That means the division has pulled its notices from Wasatch Front papers, but a division director said they will still put notices in “outlying newspapers.”

A DFCM rule, based on the law, went into effect in May and reads:

(a) Public notice of Invitations For Bids shall be publicized electronically on the Internet; and may be publicized in any or all of the following as determined appropriate:

(i) In a newspaper having general circulation in the area in which the project is located;

(ii) In appropriate trade publications;

(iii) In a newspaper having general circulation in the state;
The change in legislation also affected the Procurement Division and the division has been on a Web-only system for more than a year. UPA should take a lead on examining the change and working with legislators that may help us restore the newspaper notices in these areas.

The second bill has also resulted in the loss of access to business licenses. The Legislature passed language in 2002 that closes personal information. In able to obtain the license information, Bonnie Miller was told she would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement for use of the “private” records. Here’s the section of law that the government is using to close business licenses. We need to work with other groups to reverse this.

(1) When any permit is issued, a record shall be maintained in the office of the licensing authority. Notwithstanding the requirements of Subsection 63-2-301(1)(b), the names, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of persons receiving permits are protected records under Subsection 63-2-304 (10).

(2) Copies of each permit issued shall be filed immediately by the licensing authority with the division.
The Legislature is ready to make additional changes to the state’s Open Meetings Act. Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, is sponsoring a bill that will modify the definition of public body to include those that are created by the state Constitution.
That means that administrative bodies of the judicial branch would be subject to the act. It also clarifies what should be contained by the public. That’s good news for the public. The only hope is that language about serial meetings where public bodies can “divide and discuss” topics is not thrown in along the legislative path.
There is also concern that some may try to further restrict records in the name of identity theft. Here’s an excerpt from a blog by Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove, that sounds as if he is contemplating restrictions.

“Utah’s GRAMA (Government Records Access and Management Act) laws are designed to protect an individual’s right to privacy while allowing the public to access unprotected data collected by the state using a GRAMA request (i.e. name, home address, real property, etc.). Often, statutorally, a fine line exists between a person’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know. An individual’s Social Security number is considered a Protected Record.” Read the entire blog at: http://underthedome.org/?p=22
Theses topics will be on the UPA board meeting agenda in October. We’ll be working on ideas about how to restore public notices and stop erosion of public access to important public documents.

Advertising-Editorial Still Don’t Mix

by Randy Hines

You’ve read about it and now it’s here. The doom and gloom of front page advertising that will ruin the Utah news industry is upon us. Much has been written about the large number of newspapers that are succumbing to the temptation to sell that precious real estate to the top bidder.

Who are we kidding? Do readers really care that much about an ad along the bottom of the page—whether section front or 1A? There has been little outcry among the public, only from purists—where I hung my hat in prior decades.

I’m still totally against the trick pulled off by The Daily News of New York, which ran a full-page ad that appeared to be a wrap-around (or fake front page). With tiny type at the top that said “Sponsored Copy,” readers read only about Mazda. Another similar surrender to the dollar was arranged for Toyota.

Undoubtedly, that ploy should irk readers. They want to see major news somewhere on the front page.

"To give the whole front page away seems to me a dangerous message to send to readers," said the Poynter Institute’s Kelly McBride in The Media Trainer back in May 2006. "The front page is for the news you consider most important to the community."

USA Today popularized the section front ad years ago. Many other dailies have adopted the practice. But the latest rhetoric concerns the growing trend of small ads running across the bottom of front pages. Seeking additional revenue, newspapers realize that the additional funds from that bottom banner will help the bottom line.

Selling that sacrosanct spot to advertisers is not new, of course. Look in newspaper archives and you’ll probably see front pages with ads as late as the 1950s. The trend started once more at the close of the 20th century. USA Today, again, started doing that in 1999. But its widespread adoption is causing a slight uproar in 2006. Even The Wall Street Journal announced its intentions to sell ads on its opening page.

The underlying fear is that the Page One advertiser will get a break from the folks on the news side in covering stories. Nothing could (or should) be farther from the truth. All reporters would even scoff at the idea of preferential treatment for a particular advertiser, whether it is buying a front page ad or a Page 8D ad in The Herald Journal in Logan.

Most newspaper operations are created with news and editorial staff members separated from advertising by floors or long corridors. A few I’ve visited even have separate exterior building entrances, as if employees from the two departments should not know each other.
I can recall one time—while serving as wire editor—when I calmly mentioned needing more room for major stories when I had a three-quarter page ad assigned to my tiny section of only two pages.

When I said I would go ask the ad director for more space, the newsroom personnel around me gasped. No one had ever done that before, even though this was a Pulitzer Prize-winning daily. Their mouths dropped ever farther when I returned and announced she had swapped it for only a one-third page ad.

European, Asian and South American newspapers have been selling large ads on front pages for decades. Even many nondailies in the states are full of Page One ads. A local weekly recently had 50 percent advertising on its front page. Are your Utah readers even bothered by ad placement? Or just those remaining purists?

Perhaps a soon-to-be-released American Press Institute study will approach the topic. Titled “Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project,” the research was prompted partially by the decline in newspaper circulation, both subscription and newsstand sales. Results will be announced soon and implementation will be experimented in early 2007.

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Dr. Randy Hines teaches in the Department of Communications at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa. He can be reached at (570) 372-4079 or randyhinesapr@yahoo.com. © 2006

The Perfect Ad

By Robert Evans Wilson, Jr.

I saw it on I-75 South heading into Atlanta, Georgia. It was exciting to see -- like spotting the nearly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker. But this was no rare bird; it was a perfect advertisement. Perhaps just as rare. Five words in black print against a pale purple ground. No design. No graphic device at all. No need; the words said it all. Two of those words were from the top-ten list of words that generate the strongest response.

The ad presented a clear benefit. It made a powerful offer. It was aimed at a specific target audience. All that in five simple words. The ad was on a billboard, but its message would work in any media: TV, newspaper, radio, magazine, internet, direct mail, or... restroom stall.

It called out only to people who could benefit from the company’s products and services. It did not need to entertain anyone. It was not trying to win any awards. It did not waste the time of anyone to whom the message did not pertain. I have no doubt that it has been extremely successful. Here it is:

20/20 or FREE
Lasik Guarantee
www.woodhams.com
800-639-8474

It’s beautiful isn’t it? I’d say pure poetry, but you’d think that I was referring to the fact that it happens to rhyme -- that’s just a bonus -- it doesn’t need to rhyme. By the way, I did not write this ad. Congratulations to the person who did!

But, you’re thinking: “Sure, that ad is fine for a specific service like corrective eye surgery, but my company offers a common product with lots of competition that nearly everybody uses. I can’t use straight-forward advertising like that. I need to be funny or clever to get attention. Or, I have to speak to the emotions of my customer and get them to relate to my product on a subconscious or visceral level.”

Nonsense! That’s the image-advertising trap. And, unless you’ve got millions of ad dollars to spend, I’d stick to the scientifically proven formula of benefit driven advertising. Every product or service -- no matter how generic -- can advertise a benefit. Yes, soft drinks too! I can replace the above billboard with the following:

Driving is Tiring
Coke is Refreshing
QuickTrip
Exit 112 -- Now!

I selected a specific audience. I offered a clear benefit. I even snuck in a Call-to-Action. Brilliant! Coca-Cola actually used to advertise this way. I’d encourage them to test a quarter of their advertising budget (maybe a billion dollars or so) on it again.

What powerful compelling benefit can your company offer? Put it in words; be concise and specific; then run with it. The results will be amazing.

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Robert Wilson is an award-winning advertising consultant and speaker. He works with people who sell advertising and with companies that want ROI from their advertising. You can contact Robert at www.jumpstartyourmeeting.com or 404-255-4924.
© 2006, Robert Evans Wilson, Jr.

Learn the trade, not the tricks

By John Foust
Raleigh, NC

As I sorted through the day's mail, one envelope stood out among the others. Through a window on the front were the words "Vehicle Recall Information" in bold letters. Wondering why there would be a manufacturer's recall of my car – which at the time had nearly 100,000 miles – I opened it immediately.

It was a trick. There was no recall. Inside the envelope was a mass-mailed message from a local car dealer, offering to buy my car "with incredible incentives." One of the incentives was something they called "dead cost pricing." The letter didn't explain what they meant by that term, but as far as I was concerned, the offer was dead as soon as I read it.

They used a cheap gimmick to get me to open their envelope. Why should I trust them to give me a fair deal on a car?

A couple of weeks later, I mentioned the direct mail piece to Clark, a regional sales manager at a large market paper. "It sounds like their letter writer's baloney detector is broken," he said with a laugh. "We'd never let one of our advertisers get away with something like that. It's not a classic bait and switch, because it doesn't involve money. But it still looks manipulative and dishonest. That kind of tactic makes the advertiser – and the advertising medium – look bad."

Clark was right. The car dealer's trickery worked on one level, but failed miserably on a deeper, more important, level. Although it succeeded in making me open the envelope, it failed by making me suspicious of everything they said in the letter. (Think of a good news/bad news joke: The good news is you've got their attention. The bad news is they think you're a liar.)

Sadly, some advertisers don't look beyond that first level. Their entire focus is to get attention, even if they have to resort to word games and visual gimmickry. The most blatant example that comes to mind is the clichéd industrial equipment ad featuring a bikini-clad model and the headline, "Now that we've got your attention." Thank goodness – or perhaps thanks to better baloney detectors – it's been a while since that one has appeared.

Harry Vardon, the legendary British golfer, advised young Bobby Jones to "learn the trade, not the tricks of the trade." Jones took those words to heart, and before he retired from competitive golf at 28, he won 23 of the 52 tournaments he entered – an astonishing 44 percent. In 1930, he won the Grand Slam of the day: the U.S. Open, the British Open, the British Amateur and the U.S. Amateur.

That's good advice for the advertising business, too. Don't learn the tricks of the trade, learn the trade.

Sure, you can trick people into reading your clients' ads. But don't forget that you ultimately want readers to trust them. Without trust, consumers won't buy what your clients are selling. And without sales, your clients will spend their advertising dollars somewhere else.


(c) Copyright 2006 by John Foust. All rights reserved.

John Foust conducts on-site and video training for newspaper advertising departments. His three new video programs are designed to help ad managers conduct in-house training for their sales teams. For information, contact: John Foust, PO Box 97606, Raleigh, NC 27624 USA, E-mail: jfoust@mindspring.com, Phone 919-848-2401

Conflict Reporting 101: Building Arms-Length Rapport With Sources

By Matt Baron

In the course of history, some of the most remarkable pieces of journalism have come out of combat reporting. Especially these days, amid the violence in Iraq and elsewhere, there are ample opportunities to expand on that body of work.

But you don’t have to trek to the military frontlines to engage in “conflict reporting.” If you’ve been at the reporting game for any length of time, then you know that’s a redundant term.

Simply pursue stories in your own backyard, and conflict tags along. Maybe not on every story, but frequently, in a variety of ways, reporters must confront conflicts that arise en route to deadline.

At the same time, the heart of any successful business is relationships. And our business is telling stories in a fresh, compelling way. The stronger rapport we build with people, the stronger our stories can become.

So how can we walk that tightrope and manage the inevitable strife with sources while nurturing positive relationships?

Here are three strategies that have helped guide me over the years:

1.Anticipate the conflict.

With new sources, who might very well become regular sources, I emphasize that my goal is accuracy. Consequently, I urge them to speak up when they feel a story misses the mark.

Nothing is too minor, I say, and I go to bat for them when an error I make warrants a clarification or correction in the paper.

The result: heightened respect, and rapport grows through experiences that otherwise would damage a productive reporter-source relationship. In the end, readers benefit because information continues to flow and my stories achieve greater balance, even if one side of an issue feels that my last story was tipped in the opposing camp’s favor.

This is especially helpful in covering local government, which can descend into day-to-day spats among public figures.

2.It’s a good idea to know your source’s kids’ names—just don’t show up at their birthday parties!

Some reporters remain distant from sources, nibbling at the corners of a story’s potential because they skim only the surface of interviews and are content with a bare minimum. These reporters have no personality, no warmth and little interest in anything but answers to questions for the next story.

If this describes you, then develop some “small talk” skills. Really, it should be called “big listening” because you need not say much to spark someone else’s conversational fire. People thirst for a genuine audience, and you’ll rise in others’ esteem when you provide it.

Less prevalent is the hazard of reporters growing too chummy with sources. For these over-the-liners, no friendly social outing is too inappropriate to attend. They cozy up too close to people they write about, undermining their ability to report with comprehensive fairness.

While covering a police beat, for instance, stick to friendly small talk during visits to the police station to review reports and other brief, chance encounters in your day-to-day travels.

It is not a good idea to play cards on Friday nights with a group of cops—an invitation I politely declined more than once some years back. If I had agreed to tag along, I would have been co-opted in no time flat.

What if, over a drink and backslaps, they said something newsworthy but swore me to secrecy? What if I saw illegal activity or, worse yet, had become part of it? I would have become a part of the story—a story that someone with better sense would have been able to cover.

3.Suppress your natural yearning to be liked. Seeking fondness from sources plants seeds of journalistic dysfunction. It’s far better to gain your sources’ respect and trust.

Your job description does not include expanding your friendship circle.

The circumstances of the real world dictate that we must write hard-hitting stories. They can be uncomfortable for the newsroom, for the advertising department, for the publisher, for sources, and for the community at large.

Thankfully, our job is not to keep people comfortable. It’s to take a snapshot of our community that is as faithful, accurate and balanced as we can muster.

So aim for 100-percent accuracy. In the process, you accomplish two main things. First, you get it right. And second—of more long-term importance—you develop a reputation as someone who is dedicated to getting it right.

That commands respect. And that’s something sure to strengthen the arms-length rapport that you need and your readers deserve.

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Matt Baron of Oak Park, Ill., is owner of Inside Edge: Public Relations & Media Services. He has more than 20 years of journalism experience, from community newspapers to national magazines. He leads training workshops for press associations and other groups, and can be reached at 888.713.5894 or online at www.mattbaron.com.