The strange subtheme of David Samuels’ New Yorker portrait of John Coster-Mullen, a man obsessed with the truth about the first atomic bombs, is actually journalism itself: Continue reading
Portrait of a journalist
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Tag Archives: Journalism
The first rule of public relations
If I had to make a guess at the one, cardinal, sacrosanct, unbreakable rule of public relations it would probably be: never take credit.
Does everyone obey this rule? Well, take a look at PR man Leo Hoffman, of this outfit, taking credit. Continue reading
Democracy and the media go together like…
Like Jeff Jarvis, Charlie Beckett, and Richard Sambrook, I too was at Ditchley recently for a conference on the media and democracy. Present company excepted, it brought together a fascinating and lively group of people (not always the case at conferences).
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, formerly Britain’s man at the UN and in Iraq (and someone who speaks in perfect paragraphs), gives his impressions below (bold, italics, and broken paras are me).
For the record, I’m more pessimistic about democracy than about journalism — but I also think Google — the accidental monopolist — should step up to the plate and fund some independent content resource (listen — that’s the sound of me not holding my breath). Continue reading
Marketing, General Motors and the news business
Does marketing offer any insights into business problems — especially those of the news business? Most old school journalists would put marketers in with snake oil salesmen, but marketers can be savvy analysts. Ignore them at your peril.
Here’s marketing ace — and my old Dean from London Business School — John Quelch analysing what went wrong for General Motors: Continue reading
Beyond Trust…
A new book, Beyond Trust picks up some of the issues raised in Can You Trust The Media?
Here’s Kevin Marsh, siding with Andrew Gilligan, in viewing the book as nihilistic:
Journalism’s journey – in Professor Larry Sabato’s (1991) description – from ‘lapdog, through watchdog to junkyard dog’ with all that entails in loss of public trust is, in part at least, legitimised by a strand of academic thinking. Professor Adrian Monck of City University London, concluded in his book Can You Trust The Media? (2008) that we were misguided even to think that we should. Continue reading
Medical journalism: doctors warn of conflicting interests
The British Medical Journal has a piece out — Who’s Watching The Watchdogs?* — about conflicts of interest between medical journalists and big pharma.
Yes, medical journalism is not travel journalism. The article begins:
Doctors should be wary of the increasing entanglement of medical journalists and the drug industry, warn Lisa Schwartz, Steven Woloshin, and Ray Moynihan.