Infographics are quickly becoming a media and public relations industry buzz word / topic. Why you ask? Two major reasons. As corporations continue to shift into their role as media companies and content curators, they’re realizing the opportunity to package interesting data to the media and consumers in new ways. More importantly, media organizations and editors are now focusing on finding new ways to engage their readership. Infographics happen to solve both of these problems by packaging data in a way that makes it both engaging and easy to read.
A few weeks ago I sat down with Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey for Racepoint Group’s video newsletter to discuss how brands and agencies can leverage infographics and why they’re becoming the “new slide shows” for media outlets desperate for engaging content. While Sam cautioned that infographics aren’t B-roll (most media outlets like to play a role in building them), he did pass along some interesting insight into how PR practitioners and marketers can leverage the media’s interest in this new category of content.
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A YouTube video of Israeli soldiers dancing to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” has quickly become widely viewed – but is not without controversy and criticism.
The soldiers appear to be patrolling the streets of Hebron (the largest city in the West Bank) when a song is suddenly blasted over speakers, and the soldiers break out into a choreographed dance. They are fully dressed in their uniforms and carrying weapons during the duration of the video.
While the video is entertaining, the soldiers are currently facing disciplinary charges. Additionally, the chosen location for the video (Hebron) won’t help the soldier’s cause, as the conflicted area is the centerpiece of many ongoing disputes. A location such as Tel Aviv would have been a better location for the video – but any video at all might have still been frowned upon by army officials.
This is not the first time social media has been a problem for the Israeli army. In April 2008 an Israeli soldier was jailed for posting a picture on Facebook that contained sensitive information.
The June 19th issue of the Economist features a cover image of President Obama standing on beach in Louisiana, looking down in deep thought and seemingly pondering how the BP oil spill raveled out of control and the negative impact it could have on his upcoming re-election campaign.
However, that’s not what the picture is actually about. A New York Times article reports that the Economist modified the cover image which was shot by a Reuters photographer.
The unaltered image, shot on May 28 by a Reuters photographer, Larry Downing, shows Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard and Charlotte Randolph, a local parish president, standing alongside the president. But in the image that appeared on The Economist’s cover, Admiral Allen and Ms. Randolph had been scrubbed out, replaced by the blue water of the Gulf of Mexico.
Reuters has strict guidelines when it comes to photographer, especially following their 2006 photo scandal when a photographer doctored a picture of an Israeli air raid on Beirut (pictures below).
In an email, Economist deputy editor Emma Duncan told the Times that Admiral Allen was removed by the crop, and that Charlotte Randolph was edited out of the picture because no one knew who she was. Duncan claims that goal was not to isolate President Obama, but to have readers focus on him while the article examines the oil spills damage to business in America, not the President.
As the de facto aggregator and home of what is news in the digital age, Google News plays an integral role in publicly determining the biggest news of the day, hour and minute. For publicists, marketers and brands, it’s also a public viewing area for observing and measuring brand mentions, message penetration, etc. For most stories, a Google News’ alert is the first sign that a piece has gone live.
Those alerts and the homepage layout got a little more personal today, with Google launching “News for You.” News for You allows you to filter and dictate the stream of news headlines you see, based on your interests. Think of it as your Facebook stream and the ability Facebook gives you to tailor the “status updates” and posts you receive from friends. To improve the personalization of the news stream Google is providing an “Edit personalization” box, which allows you to specify your interest in different news categories — Business, Health, Entertainment, Sci-Tech, etc.
In addition to those personalization features, Google is also adding functionality today to share story clusters with other people via email, Buzz, Google Reader, Facebook and Twitter. These news clusters are common around big news and of course product launches, and gives you the ability to quickly see different headlines and views on the same story (like techmeme). After a few years of copying and pasting these news clusters in sharing with colleagues and clients, the addition is music to my ears. To do so today, you can simply select the drop-down menu marked by an arrow on the top-right of each story cluster.
