In response to John Drinnan's editorial piece

Earlier this week I lamented the issues around PR and attitude of advertisers towards bloggers in New Zealand.  Today, John Drinnan at the New Zealand Herald has included my comments in his latest editorial on the media but misrepresents the point entirely.

Some bloggers are lapping up press releases from a growing corps of PR people.

They can provide easy copy and filler material and provide mini-controversies filling the voracious appetite for content.

There are two issues here.  Firstly, my comments had nothing to do with the flood of press releases that are sent daily by PR firms looking for some link love and media coverage for their clients.  Our original post was based on public comment around an ad campaign, not a press release from a PR company.

Secondly, the suggestion that bloggers are the ones lapping up press releases from PR people is laughable coming from the one and only New Zealand Herald.  I’m not even going to bother providing an example as it would be too difficult to pick just one.

Drinnan ends the first section with this:

Cunliffe seems to have a highly optimistic business model.

Um, no.  We regularly produce integrated editorial pieces for brands like McDonalds, Dominos Pizza, Twinnings, Samsung etc, all booked by foreign ad agencies for our foreign sites.  And we’re small fry compared to some of our colleagues.

From a journalism point of view, the money-for-bloggers approach is a step down the road to cash for comment – and they should be kept apart or at least be transparent. But purely from a business point of view, you can see the point.

I’m not sure whether this is supposed to be a holier-than-thou comment or a we’re speaking from experience one.  Does anyone honestly believe that there a no kickbacks, either by advertising or other means, for content produced in the MSM?  And in reverse, when negative content ensues, how quickly does advertising get pulled?  With all the fluff that comes out of the NZ Herald these days, I would suggest that the potential sound of coins falling out of a slot machine would be far more exciting to them than bloggers.

Drinnan then goes on to critique Campbell Live over their biscuit story which TV3′s head of News and Current Affairs, Mark Jennings, referred to as a “cute human interest story”.

Do viewers expect more from Campbell Live?

Yes.  But they expect just as much from your publication, sir.

About the author

Regan is one of the co-founders of Throng Media.
He's currently watching Survivor, Homeland, House, Glee and can't wait for the return of Game of Thrones.
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  • John Drinnan

    You want to make a buck – fair enough

    But “We regularly produce integrated editorial pieces for brands like McDonalds, Dominos Pizza, Twinnings, Samsung etc, all booked by foreign ad agencies for our foreign sites.”

    It says it all. Its not editorial – its paid content – and you shouldn’t be claiming it as editorial or the weasel words integrated editorial pieces . Interested to know if you tll readers you tell readers they are paid promotions.

    • http://www.facebook.com/reganjcunliffe Regan Cunliffe

      Ok, so it was a holier-than-thou comment.

      While this is all deflection from the actual point, there is a significant difference between replicating press releases, producing paid content and integrating brands within editorial.

      When we produce “paid content” pieces, they are always labeled accordingly. That is standard practice and rigorously enforced.

      Brand integration is happening everywhere from movies to music to television as well as online. Having brand integration doesn’t necessarily require the content to be about the brand either.

  • TV insider

    Hahaha – finally someone gets to call out John Drinnan for the bovine excrement that pours forth from his computer. Knowing what I know about our business, and comparing it to what Drinnan regularly publishes about us, I can only conclude he interviews his own keyboard. Either that or he is so hard of hearing with his out of touch “sources” (don’t worry John – we know who they are) or he regularly imbibes in his own initial-sake before submitting his pieces. I used to wonder why there was so much daylight between the truth and his version of it. Now I have seen his deliberate mis-interpretations of your posts (or does John have an issue with reading and listening comprehension?) I now no longer wonder. Thanks John for enlightening me and thanks Regan for bringing this issue to light. It made my day!

    • John Drinnan

      Happy to provide a smile I seem to have upset you in the past – criticised your work? – your friends work?
      20 years covering media you are bound to annoy somebody.
      I don’t suppose you would come out of hiding in the closet and give your real name – even on a one to one basis? Can we deal with your allegations? Thought not.
      PS Regularly imbibing my own initial sake? Can you explain what that means?

    • John Drinnan

      Is that you Julie?