Position Paper 4 - Wild Card

Ways to Improve Public Relations

Many successful business people have, at least, one thing in common - they understand that public relations are a necessity for a business to be successful.

Public relations is not an option for businesses, as we all relate to the public in some way or another.  We will always have those relations, whether they be good or bad. We will never be rid of them as relationships area function of business that has, and always will be, an existential part of it. The relations relate, not only to our respective companies, but to our own everyday needs. 


Savvy business leaders have long understood that putting your name forth is not an issue of ego, but a valid marketing technique. After all, public relations is all about the credibility and trust of a company. And the best way to achieve that is by getting a third party to endorse yourself or your business.  Creating or enhancing reputations takes two to three years at a minimum.  And a plan must be developed, and updated, to be successful. Here are seven different ways to increase your public relations and, by extension, keep a good reputation, according to Forbes.

• "Identify the topics you wish to speak on.  Are they management, product or service-oriented?  Concentrate on your areas of expertise and two or three messages of interest to your target audiences.  A focused plan will achieve satisfying results faster than an unfocused one."
• "Target audiences.  Know precisely to whom you want to communicate these messages.  These are your target audiences.  Again, you must be focused.  A quote anywhere in The Wall Street Journal is terrific, but it may be even more effective if it appears in the marketing column, depending on who you are trying to reach."
• "Practice Techniques.  Personal publicity, speaking opportunities, community activities, serving on boards of directors, and the reprinting and distribution of articles and speeches are very effective techniques."
• "Develop media interviews.  Both traditional and digital media are hungry for content and the experts who can interpret it and provide additional insight."
• "Identify all the outlets that are most interested in your issue.  Insure that your targets include general business media and those that focus on trade issues."
• "Develop a rapport with the other content providers. Explore what their current interests are and what stories they will be writing in the future to see if you can provide them with commentary and article ideas."
• "Speak before target audiences.  Seek three to four speaking opportunities a year before audiences that you consider important to you and your business.  Contact those involved, determine their criteria for speakers and panelists, identify a niche for yourself, and submit a proposal to them."

With the rise of technology and social media, marketing your business has become easier than ever before. Now, instead of needing to put up billboards that nobody reads or creating a boring television advertisement that many people, especially younger viewers, won't watch, one can simply make a Facebook advertisement, or tweet out an event that's going on. According to Sales Artillery, there are three main ways a business or individual can increase their public relations with social media.

1. "Developing relationships. Social media, especially Twitter, enables you to interact directly with many journalists, bloggers and reporters. By communicating with and helping these influencers, you can increase your company's chances of being top-of-mind."
2. "Pitching. Social media enables you to follow what the influencers have been covering, and occasionally, what stories they are developing. Armed with that additional background, you can pitch more relevant and helpful story ideas."
3. "Creating interesting content. Using social media, a back-to-back marketer can create interesting and even fun and entertaining content. Publishing industry data and research that your company has fielded can be enormously effective.  This interesting content can be made available through social media channels such as a company blog and even a social media newsroom."

Social media has also given rise to a new way to monitor a company's public relations. It gives you the ability to assess all statements, events, etc., all from the convenience of your phone or computer. But beyond just monitoring the conversations, social media enables companies to engage in the conversation and respond to the community. The greatest benefit to PR efforts, however, can be your ability to respond in a crisis communications situation by updating your clients and/or customers early, often, and with transparency.

Using social media is a good way to not only keep the customers informed and up to date, but a good way to keep your employees up to date as well. Whether it be a simple message about an upcoming meeting, or a sales pitch that needs to be delivered to a client, using social media allows you to stay in contact with your staff at all times. With the efficiency and convenience of using social media platforms, such as Facebook messenger, it makes the everyone's life a little easier and increases public relations between the employees and mangers/owners. 

Position Paper 3

University of Cambridge

When it comes to schools or universities that are considered "fancy" or "prestigious", in the United Kingdom, the first university to likely pop into the average person's head is the University of Cambridge. And it should not come as a shock, seeing as the university's media outreach is incredibly active and diverse. From well-known scientists, such as David Attenborough and Stephen Hawking, both of whom are alumni for the University of Cambridge, to simple radio shows and television advertisements, Cambridge has made a strong name for itself as one of the top, if not THE top, University to attend.

The University of Cambridge does two things very well when it comes to working with the media. The first is their use of social media platforms. The website contains various links to their different social media platforms. There is their YouTube channel, where you can watch various videos, including student life at Cambridge. They have their own Twitter and Facebook accounts, each containing various pictures, videos, and GIFs attempting to encourage future generations of students. They also have an account on Flickr. While I have never heard of this site before, it seems very similar to Instagram or Facebook as a means of showing off various pictures and/or videos. Cambridge's account seems to show off various photographs of student life on campus. A LinkedIn account is also provided, showing off any job opportunities, as well as over 13,000 staff members already employed. 

The University of Cambridge publishes their own research magazine, which anyone has access to via a downloadable PDF file format for each issue. Titled Horizons, the magazine currently has 39 issues, each covering a different area of research and study. Topics include, but are not limited to, Neuroscience, China, Energy & Environment, Public Health, Migration, Africa, Children, and Sustainable Earth.

The second thing that the University of Cambridge has done well is the news that they put out on their website. It seems that they update the website daily, if possible, and publish news stories that not only involve Cambridge, but also involve anything researchers are working with, such as stories of biodiversity changes or partnership renewals with other research companies. 

As stated previously, Cambridge has had well-known alumni throughout its running history, some of which help to build up its repertoire. As with any country, including the United States, people always look up to actors, politicians, scientists, or anyone else who would be considered to have a high social ranking. The same is true with the university, as it has had many of these types of people, both past and present, that encourage others to enroll at Cambridge, all of which are alumni. These include David Attenborough, Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Stephen Fry, Bertrand Russell, Ernest Rutherford, Charles, Prince of Wales, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ian McKellen, Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Tilda Swinton, and John Oliver.

Cambridge has made itself widely known on an international standpoint. Some of their alumni are famous on almost every country in the world, for one reason or another. Their works on various scientific research has made breakthroughs in the scientific community all over the globe. Cambridge is committed to achieving excellence in research and scholarship, and to ensuring that the research contributes to the well-being of society. They seek to provide a creative and supportive environment in which ideas are generated and can flourish. The university strives for excellence in their various fields of research across the Schools of Arts & Humanities, Humanities & Social Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Technology, Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences, meaning that in addition to their achievements in fundamental research, they are also well-positioned to make significant contributions to the global innovation agenda and, by conveying the implications of their combined research, to contribute to the formulation of international policy. 

Finally, the University of Cambridge also presents students with an idea for partnerships around the world, helping to further Cambridge's studies and outreach programs. These are called Strategic Research Initiatives. According to the Cambridge website, the portfolio of initiatives includes the following:

Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences

Connecting world-leading academic and industry expertise to drive therapeutic development and support the education and training of the next generation of world-leading researchers.

Global Challenges 

Enhancing the contribution of University of Cambridge research towards addressing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals through cross-disciplinary research and innovation programs, founded on a properly localized understanding of the needs and contexts where impact is sought.

Public Policy

Connecting research across the University to illuminate and improve public policy making through a cross-cutting program of research on the policy process and support for policy development in key thematic areas.

Reproduction

Facilitating cross-disciplinary research to offer fresh perspectives on a broad range of issues relating to reproduction from global policies to those which affect individuals, families and population.

Trust & Technologies


Setting the strategic agenda on issues of trust and technology; driving the creation of new technologies and applications; and assessing and influencing the societal, economic and policy implications and directions.

Position Paper 2

Toobin Expresses Regret...3 Years Later!

Jeffrey Toobin, a journalist for The New Yorker and member of the CNN News Team, has admitted, almost three years later, that he "expresses regret" for his coverage over the trial involving Hillary Clinton. Initially in 2016, when the scandal first made worldwide news, Toobin was one of the first to write an article involving Clinton's private email server. He admitted this on October 18th during the final hearings of Clinton's trial involving the email scandal. 

Toobin admitted that many responses to his initial article have been mixed, with many thanking him for what he said, while others criticized him for writing it in the first place, calling him vulgar names and some even threatening him. 

Jeffrey Toobin

According to Politico, the conclusion of the nearly three-year State Department investigation into the Clinton email saga has reignited criticism among Democrats of the news media’s heavy coverage of the issue in the 2016 election. The claims that she had exposed classified secrets through her use of a private server dogged Clinton down to the final days of the campaign, when a surprise admission by then-FBI Director James Comey that the bureau was reopening its probe into the emails corresponded with a last-minute downturn in her polling numbers.

Nonetheless, the State Department found there “was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” by any officials while Clinton was serving as secretary of State, a conclusion that Democrats quickly seized upon to bemoan the campaign coverage.

Most of those journalists have kept quiet. But Toobin didn’t mince words Monday in offering a mea culpa on CNN, where he serves as chief legal analyst. “I talked about the emails here at CNN, I wrote about it in The New Yorker,” he said. “And I think I paid too much attention to them and I regret that.”

Toobin has admitted that he's not upset about anything he has said about the scandal or Clinton's email use, but he does regret not stressing the importance of the situation enough, claiming the coverage was insufficient for the importance of the issue. 

Toobin had this to say during his interview with Politco: “I think I got into the trap of false equivalence during the 2016 campaign. Comparing Donald Trump’s record of ethical problems with Hillary’s emails lent a misleading impression. And I have to say, I am determined not to do that again to the extent that I can. I am going to try to look at corruption and ethics issues each on their own rather than trying to create some sort of equivalence that isn’t there.”

Recently, Toobin claims to be covering the Ukraine situation involving Hunter Biden, claiming that the magnitude of what is happening there and what happened in 2016 with the email scandal should be the same, and that he does not a repeat of the effects of his previous article. 

According to Politico, Joe Biden’s campaign has aggressively pushed back on coverage of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine in hopes of not becoming ”Hillary 2.0” and allow unfounded allegations of impropriety involving the former vice president and 2020 Democratic candidate linger to the extent that the email stories did for Clinton four years earlier.

Brian Fallon, who served as Clinton’s press secretary in 2016, said, “Toobin’s comments were refreshingly honest and admirable and it’s a level of introspection that I don’t think we’ve seen from another single journalist of his prominence.”

Still, Fallon doesn’t consider Toobin one of the main offenders, noting that the analyst is booked on television to provide legal commentary on topics decided upon by producers and executives. Fallon believes there should be an industry-wide reckoning over 2016 coverage and puts the onus on newsroom leaders, such as CNN chief Jeff Zucker and New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet, as well as those “making decisions on conference calls and in editorial meetings and changing headlines and deciding the placement of stories.”

According to Politico, The Times, in particular, has faced scrutiny for its front-page treatment of Clinton email stories in the final months of the election, including after the Comey letter, and so it’s handling of the State Department having concluded its yearslong investigation didn’t go unnoticed.

“For months, @nytimes put stories of Hillary Clinton’s email on its front pages,” Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione tweeted Saturday. “The final investigative report clearing all of wrongdoing? That is on page 16 today.”


The Times’ Amy Chozick, who covered Clinton in 2016, wrote last year how she “became an unwitting agent of Russian intelligence” in covering the hacked Democratic National Committee and John Podesta emails, though editors have largely defended covering those emails because they were released publicly and deemed newsworthy.

Toobin has spoken before about contributing to false equivalency and made clear his comments Monday were only about his own coverage, not that of the media writ large. But he suggested more broadly that journalists, who can be “the most thin-skinned people about criticism,” are well-served by self-reflection.

“We dish it out,” he said. “We should take it.”

Position Paper 1

Germany's Crisis Against...Cars?

Back in 2008, American Automakers, specifically Ford, Chevrolet, and General Motors Company, were at an all time low. So bad, in fact, that these companies sent several executives to Washington to try and receive some form of a bailout. They were so desperate that they sent them all in corporate jets. Now, it's Germany's turn to feel the same way...

The total amount of vehicles being produced by German assembly lines has dropped off significantly (12%), as well as vehicle exports dropping by, nearly, 14%. According to an article published by Chris Bryant for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, two of the main reasons for this decline are trade wars becoming more intense and vehicles sales in China plummeting to rock bottom. In the first part of 2019, European auto sales dropped by 3%, causing many German-based automotive companies to seriously consider layoffs or cutting hours and pay. 

The most ironic part of it all? Germany is responsible for vehicles being as well-made and intricate as they are, seeing as how they invented the internal-combustion engine. Nevertheless, September's Frankfurt Motor Show had one intended purpose, as it usually does. It was meant to show off Germany's might in the automotive industry, as well to show off plans for future developments within the companies. 

Instead, most international car-makers decided it best to stay away from the event this year ,with several claiming they would "rather save the money" than show up. Karl-Thomas Neumann, the ex-boss of Opel/Vauxhall, a British car manufacturer company, stated that the whole event was a failure. To add insult to injury, Daimler AG’s Mercedes, BMW AG and Volkswagen AG were upstaged by climate protesters, who accused them of not doing enough to end their addiction to diesel and gasoline engines.

Things had already got off to an ugly start. On the eve of the show, four pedestrians were struck and killed by a sport utility vehicle in Berlin, prompting a fierce debate about the “social utility” of these gas-guzzling, tank-like cars. Featuring a picture of a Porsche SUV on its cover this week, Der Spiegal magazine declared them a “new object of hate.”

According to Chris Bryant's article, "The German car industry provides more than 800,000 jobs in the country and it accounts for a big chunk of its manufacturing production and exports. Past governments fought hard to protect their industry crown jewel from troublesome regulations. That’s no longer always the case.

First, the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal made it unwise for politicians to go easy on companies that put profits above public health. And second, Germans have become alarmed by climate change and the industry’s role in that. The average emissions of new vehicles sold climbed for the second year in a row last year, in part because of SUV sales. That’s one reason why Germany is set to miss its 2020 carbon pollution reduction targets. Passenger cars account for about 11% of its greenhouse gas emissions.

Stringent European Union emission targets, and massive fines for noncompliance, have been put in place already. A German federal government led by the Greens (not unimaginable, given the party’s poll surge) would be tougher still. After the deadly accident in Berlin, there were calls to ban SUVs from cities.

The average age of a new car buyer in Germany has climbed to 53, suggesting that the industry may be looking at a difficult future. Yet claims that Germans have fallen out of love with the automobile feel overblown. They still bought about 3.4 million new vehicles last year, pretty decent by historic standards. About 95% of them had a combustion engine. More than one-quarter were SUVs. Nor does the government have any desire to kill its golden goose." 

With this contradiction between the public’s anxiety about climate change and its fondness for big vehicles, it’s not surprising that the government and car-makers are struggling to keep everyone happy. Riding a bike and car-sharing have become a genuine alternative in cities such as Berlin. But for those who still feel they need a car, electric vehicles tend to be more expensive and their driving range can be limited (for now, at least). The climate package the German government is due to announce on Friday will doubtless try to address this by including more incentives for electric vehicles and infrastructure.

One particular thing that many German auto-makers have done recently to help with the growing hatred for vehicles is to appoint brand new bosses, with the hope being they are able to either help the public eye see that the vehicles, themselves, are not the problem, or to try and change anything they can to ease the public view of them. Volkswagen has decided to try their hand at battery-powered cars, while BMW is pursuing an interest in hydrogen fuel sales.