Where are Tiger's handlers?

His platinum-plated persona may be less lustrous for declining to cooperate with police, but Tiger Woods will take a huge hit to his wallet if he doesn’t come clean to fans about his Florida car crash, say Boston sports and entertainment crisis managers. “He’s making it look like he has something to hide,” said Hub public relations maven Peggy Rose. “If he made a mistake, admit it and move on. How he reacts now will determine his future image.” - Boston Herald

Tiger Woods is one of the most beloved, admired, respected, clean-cut, boring public personalities we have in the U.S. these days. Few could have imagined that he'd suddenly be the center of an ambiguous story involving crashing into fire hydrants and using golf clubs for things other than golf. Woods has decided to deal with the situation by 1) not cooperating with police and 2) issuing cryptic statements such as, "I'm human and I'm not perfect... This is a private matter." That's only going to make us more curious, Tiger. Was it drugs? Was it domestic abuse? If so, did you hit her first or did she hit you? Things are especially curious because two days before the fire hydrant made contact with the SUV, The National Enquirer ran a story alleging that Tiger was having an affair with a nightclub hostess named Rachel Uchitel, who had travelled to Australia to be with him just the previous week. Woods did not issue an immediate denial. Does that mean the story was true? Of course not. But many people will see it that way. Does the golfer's reticence mean he was driving drunk after getting into a physical altercation with his wife due to the public revelation of his affair? Certainly not. But many people will see it that way. Start talking, Tiger!

-Adrianne (@msfener)

Will social media kill Black Friday?

Or will Twitter make this Friday blacker than ever? You might see even more shoppers out than usual, despite still-low levels of consumer confidence. Stores are using Twitter and Facebook to get out the word about their holiday specials.

"This is the first 'Twitter holiday,'" said Hayes Davis, Founder and CEO of Appotize, the parent of CheapTweats. "This is the time where people are going to leverage this tool and the real-time nature of it." Retailers are taking the concept of "real time" seriously. One trend among vendors is offering deals "for a limited time" -- in some cases, as little as an hour -- to get consumers to jump at the offers.

Read the story at the New York Post.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

PR Daily Webinar: How to pitch journalists in a new media world: Is the pitch dead?

The Campbell Consulting Team gathered around a shiny Mac and took notes yesterday at noon for the PR Daily Webinar: How to pitch journalists in a new media world: Is the pitch dead? Points covered:

• What has and has not changed?
• Boost your online interaction
• What needs to be changed?
• CEO vomit
• Measurement of success
• The Embargo
• The Magic Middle vs. The Human Network
• Is social media a viable tool?

...and the final words from the amazingly blunt and hilarious David Pogue from NYT, "DON'T JUST PITCH!" Webinars are not a waste of time - listen and apply. Cheers,

-Jacq (@jacqsmith)

What is public relations?

An individual or organization which is aware of those with whom it comes into contact may want to make an effort to behave in a particular way so that it can get along with them better. This is the business of public relations. -Shirley Harrison, author of Public Relations: An Introduction Some more definitions: Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the communication between an organization and its publics. -Wikipedia Staff that work in public relations, or as it is commonly known, PR, are able to present a company or individual to the world in the best light. The role of a public relations department can be seen as a reputation protector. -WiseGeek.com Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers who make them seem great. -historian Daniel J. Boorstin Social media is essentially public relations in the online world. Divide the category up by component — blogs, social networks, microblogging, podcasts/Web TV, wikis/collaborative software — they each ladder in some way to a component of public relations — writing, corporate communications, community relations, media relations, event management. -Social Media Explorer I would say something like, "the art of crafting the story of a brand and reinforcing it through effective communication, constructive relationships and creative scheming."

If you need some PR, maybe we can help. Head over to http://campbellconsulting.com and see what we're about. We'd love to hear what your definition is.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

The dark side of social media

Really interesting Q&A in GOOD magazine:

As a graduate student in Papua New Guinea, Michael Wesch studied how the introduction of books and literacy changed government and society. Now, as a professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, Wesch examines how digital media is changing human interaction. His YouTube video “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us,” has been viewed more than 10 million times and he has won several awards for his cutting edge work and his teaching. GOOD talked to Wesch about the dark side of social media, how Anonymous helped the protesters in Iran, and how we can prevent augmented reality from going wrong.

Read it at http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#2tM0Px/www.good.is/post/digital-world-explorer/.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

The Jimplecute and other newspaper names

Stumbled across this paper, est. 1848, while building a media list.

One of the most intriguing facets of Jefferson life is the name of its newspaper - The Jimplecute. Billing itself as the fifth oldest newspaper in the state, the Jimplecute’s name has prompted an untold number of questions and more than a few “answers” as to the origin of the name. It’s doubtful, however, that anyone will ever know the answer since the publisher who chose the name left no clue as to its origins.

Read the rest at http://www.jimplecute.biz/history.htm. Here's another good one -- The White Settlement Bomber, also from Texas. And we can't forget the Sisters Nugget, in Sisters, Oregon. Maybe it's a bad idea to give your paper a cute name -- news is Serious Stuff, after all. But what does the "Star Tribune" even mean? The "Daily News" is too straightforward -- you might as well call it "The Newspaper." We're seeing some more creativity in new online newspaper names -- The Daily Beast, for example. I like their tagline, too: "Read this, skip that." Which no doubt has applied to newspapers since their inception, the catchy-named ones notwithstanding.

-Adrianne (@msfener)