Horace and how we got to war

Horace, at least for those who have a fleeting knowledge of his work, is famous for two lines – Carpe Diem and dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Most people come across the second (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country) because of Wilfred Owen’s famous use of it in his poem Dulce et decorum est in the final stanza The Old Lie. Of course, well before that poem – perhaps the most famous of World War I – Owen had written The Ballad of Peace and War which expressed somewhat similar sentiments to Horace’s but war does tend to change one’s mind about things. read more

Why do an RMIT Media and Communication Masters?

Presentation to prospective Masters students Tuesday 19 October

Graeme Simsion; Harold Mitchell; Robert Thompson; Alisa Bowen; Brendan McClements; Brad Haylock; Simon Rose. Do any of you know any of these people?

Graeme Simsion is, of course, the best selling author of the Rosie Project and the Rosie Effect – the first of which won the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Award prize for an unpublished novel. He has subsequently sold the film rights and is working on the script. read more

Coal campaign emissions

The Tony Jaques issues management newsletter (see last blog) on the Minerals Council’s inept coal campaign was recently re-published on Mumbrella, and perhaps predictably, prompted a variety of responses.

The blog also got some comments about allegedly disparaging PR (would the blog do that?) by endorsing Tony’s views. The comments directed to the blog were in person because, as regular readers will know, the blog has switched off the comments function after making the mistake of reading a few of the comments on its old crikey column. read more

Coal, Christians and climate change – PR effectiveness

The recent Minerals Council of Australia coal campaign – ‘the amazing little black rock’ effort – is probably an odds on favourite to be judged the worst PR campaign of 2015.

The reason was summed up in Dr Tony Jaques most recent Managing Outcomes newsletter when he pointed out that “what coal really needs is an effectively targeted issue management strategy, not a ‘PR battle’ they are almost certain to lose.” See read more

BARRIERS TO SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Australian Association of Social Marketing Symposium 6 October 2015

Today’s talk is really about the mismatch between what social marketers know and what the people who commission and fund social marketing campaigns think they know.

May I start off with some provisos:

First, I am not going to use PowerPoint as I am a great fan of Edward R. Tufte and urge everyone making presentations to read his Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching out Corrupts Within. Tufte for those of you who are not familiar with him has been described as the Leonardo da Vinci of data. read more

A fatwa on Rupert Murdoch?

Will we all be marching arm in arm in London chanting Je suis Rupert? Unlikely as it seems a Murdoch publication The Times Literary Supplement has recently published two articles about the re-discovered Birmingham Qur’an text which do have the potential to upset some Muslims even if not quite as much as the Charlie Hebdo cartoons did. read more

The real newspaper problems

While media critics focus on the doomsday scenarios for print media it is easy to forget that newspapers face two crises: the business crisis and the journalism crisis.

Ross Gittins has written a sort of autobiography – Gittins: A life among budgets, bulldust and bastardry. It’s a great insight into how a Salvation Army kid became an outstanding economics editor respected by Reserve Bank Governors, Treasury officials and others. But, more importantly, it provides an incisive commentary on the twin problems of what’s wrong with journalism and the newspaper business – subjects which tend to be regarded in isolation rather than as inextricable aspects of one problem. read more

…a surprising addendum

One should never be surprised by what might happen in politics.

After yesterday morning’s post the blog received a bit of feedback about the likelihood or unlikelihood of the ALP putting aside attacks on Malcolm Turnbull for a while and offering to work with him.

While it never occurred to the blog that’s what would happen it is exactly what did. Bill Shorten,  in his parliamentary comments addressed to the new PM, made an offer to work with the government to address national issues. He then subsequently wrote offering to meet to discuss the China-Australia free trade agreement. The latter made it into the media but the former didn’t. read more

A cunning plan – what the ALP could but won’t do next

The ALP leadership has almost reflexively – but probably more in panic – started to attack the new Prime Minister within minutes of him being elected.

However, even if they make a few dents here and there the odds are he will still be more popular among voters than Bill Shorten and the blog hesitates to think about the Shorten debacle that pre-election TV debates between Malcolm and Bill are likely to be. More importantly, instant attacks overlook the reality of the honeymoon period Turnbull will experience partly as a result of the community relief that Abbott has gone. read more

Spinners spun – Canning, old hatreds and the media

Increasingly political PR people resemble James Jesus Angleton – the infamous CIA counter espionage head – who probably did more harm to the CIA than any other single individual.

Angleton disappeared into a vast conspiratorial web created by his obsession with what things really meant. If The Russians did one thing what were they really trying to signal? If I work out what they were trying to signal, he thought, then perhaps the hidden message was actually the real disinformation. In Angleton’s defence he spent much of his later career recovering from the shock that his good friend Kim Philby was a spy for the Russians – and Angleton didn’t even have the benefit of thinking, like Philby’s English colleagues, that “one of us” could be unsound. read more

An insider’s view of how public relations really works