Why I Won’t Be at the Museum of Nature & Science’s “News” Conference
On Tuesday at 2, the museum will announce the architect of its new digs at a “news” conference. This is a big deal. The facility figures to be another big draw to our resurgent downtown. I’m looking forward to hearing which of the four finalists will get the nod to build the joint. But I won’t be making the trek to the conference. Instead, on Tuesday morning I’ll pick up the morning paper (or, more likely, check it online) and learn everything I need to know. That’s because the Morning News already knows who the architect is. The museum by now has almost certainly told the paper, with the understanding that it embargo the news until Tuesday. That way the reporter has time to research the architect’s background and get the requisite quotes and prepare a story in time for the announcement (actually, ahead of the announcement). I suppose the conference still has value. The TV people need to get their pictures. But I don’t see any reason for a print person to attend.
6 Comments to “Why I Won’t Be at the Museum of Nature & Science’s “News” Conference”
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Maybe they heard you guys were out of dots.
Is this a guess or is there something else you’d like to tell us? What’s the basis for saying that “[t]he museum by now has almost certainly told the paper”? I’m just trying to figure out if you are implying there is something nefarious going on or you are just unhappy that some organizations “leak” the news to the local monopoly.
As a PR person, I don’t like it when we (very rarely, true) embargo news. It always makes somebody mad. There are usually some sound(ish) strategic reasons to do so, but in this instance I would guess that the embargoer has made a judgement about which media is the most valued or legitimate in Dallas. That would upset me too, and not just because we share a given name.
On the other hand, if a reporter comes up with something about my company that no other reporter knows about, I’ll honor that if at all possible by not divulging it to other reporters until he or she publishes the scoop. So, there’s that. But I still think embargoes tread a line as fine as spider silk.
There is only one “e” in judgment…. As a PR person, I wish PR persons would read the AP Style Book since that’s what reporters use to write their stories, except The Dallas Morning News (TDMN) reporters (another no no), who sucker for First Annual events, and Ad Copy writers who like us to look at homes beginning in the 150’s instead of the 150s…. If we tried to follow the rules, maybe we’d get better placement. If we really had “news” conferences instead of genuine press conferences, where there is little news and a whole lot of nothing a reporter would be interested in, maybe there wouldn’t be an issue when we insisted something was a news conference. I guess after 20 years, I know better than to hope this would ever happen….
What does the AP stylebook say about those run-on sentences that just continue forever, whether through the use of parentheticals, commas, or other devices that merely serve to prolong sentences because the writer has no idea how to stop one sentence and begin another, thereby confusing the reader and making it harder for the reader to follow the writer’s thoughts, which appear to be disjointed as a result of the inability to properly use a period instead of other punctuation marks?
oh I love it! a fight between 2 flacks. what will it be keyboards at 50 yards? ink flinging at close range?