Inside PR 498: Facebook asks some Hard Questions

• • Show Notes

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This week, we talk about news on Snapchat and Facebook’s Hard Questions blog series. Credit where credit is due.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 498 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 497: Take control of your personal privacy and data

• • Show Notes

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Who will give us the tools to have control over our personal privacy and data?

This week, we keep the focus on Facebook and its algorithms. As long as two thirds of us are using the platform, it is important. We start our discussion with Matthew Ingram’s recent Columbia Journalism Review article, Facebook’s latest changes will probably make misinformation worse. Facebook is indisputably a media company. A change in its algorithm will not change that. And so measures like its two question news questionnaire are something we should examine closely, like every move Facebook is making in this area. But as we do, we must recognize that Facebook’s algorithm is opaque to its users. There is no way we really can know what is going on under the hood. And that affects what we read. It’s a question of having control.

And, if you think that we are just baying at the moon, another piece of news worth noting, this time out of Canada. Think about the Right to be Forgotten. Then think about the GDPR. Think about CASL, the Canadian Anti Spam Law. Now read a discussion paper from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada . The need to give individuals more control over their data leads to a focus on de-indexing and source takedown. The bottom line: We may have a global internet, but we have national sovereignty over privacy and personal rights. So, pay attention. You may not want government regulation, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get it.

Finally, we talk about Google Bulletin, It reminds us that, before Facebook pushed into and then fled news, there was Google. And when we talk about innovation, let’s not count out Google.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 497 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 496: News on Facebook. Payola PR. Where’s the accountability and responsibility?

• • Show Notes

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We take a further look at Facebook’s shifting treatment of news that appears in our newsfeeds. The problem: Facebook has become the dominant news distribution platform. However, the algorithms have had a nasty propensity to elevate what has been broadly labelled as fake news. So, in this new world, how are we to know what is real, what is reliable, what is trustworthy? In recent weeks, Facebook has announced measures to address this issue. Today, our conversation centers on the introduction of two survey questions to ask Facebook users about their awareness of and trust in news sources.

Also on this week’s agenda, payola PR. Does it exist? What does it say about ethics in PR? What should we as an industry and as individual practitioners do to combat it?

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 495: Facebook drops news. Now what?

• • Show Notes

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Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg last week announced that Facebook’s solution for fake news is to remove news from the newsfeed. In making the announcement, Zuckerberg said:

“…I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.

“…The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.

“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

So, less news in the newsfeed. More things that my friends share or that I click on. Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about the implications of this for news outlets, PR people and Facebook users themselves.

Some people say this is not a problem for them. Others say that this could be the nail in their coffin. It will take some time for this play out. It most assuredly creates a vacuum. And that could well lead to a period of innovation as publishers and communicators turn to other platforms and tools (check out Feedly).

However this turns out, there is no doubt that Facebook always looks after its own business interests. And in this case, its interest simply was not to come to grips with the problem it created in its relentless push to aggregate audiences and content outlets.

Facebook made this mess. Now the rest of us are left to deal with it.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 495: Facebook drops news. Now what? by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://insidepr.ca.

Inside PR 494: Creativity and Long Bike Rides by the Lake

• • Show Notes

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A recent post by Gini Dietrich on Digital Distraction and Creativity provides our jumping off point this week. We talk about he importance of times when our minds are “in neutral” for creative thinking and serendipitous inspiration. For Gini, it’s long bike rides. For Martin, it’s long walks. For Joe, it’s shaving and the shower. It may be something totally different for you. But whatever it is, it’s important that you make time to enable your mind to free associate and generate new ideas.

Just a couple years ago, Canada’s Antispam Law (CASL) forced marketers everywhere to revise their approach to building mailing lists, as marketers everywhere discovered that, if they captured any  Canadians in their lists, they had to clearly indicate the intended use of the data and provide people with a clear opt-in for the list, not an opt-out.  And failure to comply with these standards could lead to legal action and fines.

Now publishers and marketers around the world are gearing up for Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which compels a similar rethink about the way that data about people is collected, including cookie data. And, similar to CASL, living outside of Europe is not a shield against the regulation. It’s effect and the truly sizeable financial penalties that can be levied against those who violate the regulation can be applied to anyone anywhere if the capture data about Europeans.

Finally, we discuss research from Pew that underlines the relentless erosion of television news consumption, that is leaving it as a medium consumed by older, less educated, less wealthy Americans. No wonder I see so many drug ads on CNN! And this trend leaves PR people scrambling to reach audiences in the new online places they habituate.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

******************************************************************

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 494 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 493: Return of the Ink_stained Wretches?

• • Show Notes

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This week’s conversation was sparked by a comment from  Monica Miller, who wonders  how the flow of sponsored content and content originated by companies and published by communicators affects media credibility. This leads us to a discussion of the limits to sponsored content, new models for journalism and the possibility that local journalism may be linked to a more traditional blue collar model than it is to the television-fueled celebrity salaries of recent years.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

******************************************************************

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 493 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 492: Is 2018 the year that AI will take over my job?

• • PR, Show Notes

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Artificial intelligence was a hot topic amoung communicators in 2017 and it’s something to continue watching and exploring in 2018. Clearly, it will have an impact on the nature of the work we perform. It will destroy many existing jobs, especially those involving repetitive, data-based tasks. But, for those who are lucky and prepared to innovate, it also holds the promise to create new opportunities.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

******************************************************************

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 492 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 491: To Bot or not to Bot

• • Show Notes

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On this week’s episode of the the Inside PR podcast, Martin Waxman interviews Fatima Zaidi about the chatbot a couple of Toronto-based firms created for TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival. This led to a partnership with TIFF. Smart marketing for the firms involved. A good way to explore the leading edge of the communications practice. And something that more firms should try.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 490: When an apology just isn’t enough

• • PR, Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley discuss two topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast:

  • Can Snapchat be fixed? It is a great service with the right set of users, but just a terrible user interface? Or do its problems runs deeper?
  • The outing of sexual predators gives us pause to examine how you can respond to the unconscionable. What do you want? An apology? Or a commitment to change? Are either sufficient alone or even in combination?

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 489: People before Platforms

• • Show Notes

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We talked to one another for 42 minutes to plan the podcast before we started to record. At the end, we’ve decided to take the pressure off by saying that this is a recording that is not remarkable. Just three friends, three communications professionals talking about issues of importance to us. The responsibility of the big platforms, Facebook and Google.  Their begrudging appearance before Congress, an appearance that makes that case that government has levers that, just by their existence, keeps the big players in check. If Congress had not persisted, we never would have gotten the real picture about what was going on with Facebook, Google and Russian interference in the US election.

Yep, Facebook and Google are media companies. Publishers that makes judgements through the algorithms they deploy just as surely as humans do. Have they become too dominant, too focused on their own commercial interest, to realize the original dream of people connecting with one another in a meaningful, positive way?

And what’s the impact of a few dominant players on innovation? When they buy new innovative companies when they haven’t yet fully realized their potential.

That may not be a remarkable discussion. But that doesn’t make it unimportant.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.