RyanHoliday.net

Why are reporters so lazy? Why don’t any of them bother to their jobs? I do a lot of reading about PR and for a while I was shocked at how delusional PR people were to think that the press release was an effective way to spread the word. I just realized why they use it: Reporters let them get away with it.

Take Facebook’s recent launch of the Facebook Platform. The trained eye can easily see how the reporters are reading off the same document. What document you ask? The official Facebook Press Release:

Facebook and Amazon.com teamed up to develop an application called “Book Reviews” that lets Facebook users write and display book reviews on their profile pages. Facebook users can then click on the “Buy at Amazon” button to go to Amazon.com and complete their purchase

Now look at a few of the articles (I’ve looked at at least 10, they’re all the same)

MSN :Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook said that, for example, it teamed up with Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) to develop a book review application where users write and display book reviews on their profile pages. Facebook users can then click on the “Buy at Amazon” button to go to Amazon.com and complete their purchase.

SJ Mercury News: Amazon.com’s `Book Review’ application will allow people to write and post book reviews on their Facebook profile pages. Friends whose curiosity is peaked by a book review can then click on the “Buy at Amazon” button, which will take them directly to Amazon.com to complete their purchase.

SF Chronicle: Facebook members, for instance, will be able to write Amazon book reviews and post them on their Facebook pages. If their friends read the review and want to buy the book, they can click on an Amazon button and connect directly to the online store.

Techshout: Facebook and Amazon teamed up to develop “Book Reviews” an application that lets Facebook users write and display book reviews on their profile pages. To visit Amazon.com and complete their purchases users will have to click on the “Buy at Amazon” button.

VentureBeat: Facebook and and Amazon have also worked together to develop an application called “book reviews.” (These applications are going live tonight, around midnight, so no URLs yet.) Facebook users can write and display book reviews on their profile pages, then follow a “buy at Amazon” button

…and more and more and more…

So how do we know they didn’t all just see the application and think the same thing? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST. It simply is not real. It hasn’t been released, it’s not out. Look on Facebook, search for it on Google. You cannot add it to your profile because you can’t find it. I went ahead and looked at every single application released to date. Check out these searches, it won’t appear. (1, 2, 3) Maybe it will come out soon, but not today (and not a week ago when the Platform launched.)

What we have here is reporters who got swooped up in the buzz and the excitement. They went ahead and reported on something they haven’t seen. Not only that, they acted like they had–like they’d tooled around on it and found it satisfactory and implied the audience could do the same.

Even then, that might be excusable. But instead they plagiarized the press release nearly word for word. That report after report is worded exactly the same is not a coincidence, it’s laziness. And then people wonder why the media isn’t trusted and why companies continue to launch crappy products. How hard is it to gloss over major flaws when the reporters aren’t going to bother to look anyway? Why focus on creating a quality product if a one page document can sell a journalist on just about anything. Why don’t the reporters just go ahead and reprint press releases each morning if they aren’t going to do any original work themselves?

These journalists got caught hook, line and sinker. They took a corporation at its word and asked no questions. Sound familiar? Where has that dereliction of duty led us in the past? Try Enron and the tech bubble. When the press goes around taking press releases on their face, without inspection or corroboration, we are all at risk of manipulation. Companies claims must be checked and rechecked–and in this case, seen to be premature or nonexistent. Blog are one thing, but for MSN or Businesswire, this negligence is unacceptable. They are call the 4th Estate because they are a check to power, not because they bow to it.

Sensationalism is dangerous. They owe the audience an apology and a greater dedication to accuracy.

It’s up on Digg, vote for it here

Hollywood on Pirates of the Caribbean and the box office

“Summer ain’t over,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, who predicted Hollywood could bring in record summer revenue topping $4 billion. “You’ve got a record number of people in theaters seeing all the trailers and marketing materials for these upcoming films. I’ve never seen a summer so well positioned.”

Robert Greene on the OODA Loop.

Whatever success you are now experiencing will actually work to your detriment because you will not be made aware of how slowly you are falling behind in the fast transient cycle. You think you are doing just fine. You are not compelled to adapt until it is too late. These are ruthless times.

I posted the books I’d read from Sept 15th to March 30th, but since then I have been struggling a bit. I keep getting bogged down in some less than interesting stuff or distracted by school and work. I’d appreciate it if anyone has any recommendations (and I don’t mean that patronizingly, I almost ALWAYS read what people suggest, first throwing them up on my Amazon Wishlist to track what’s next. Check it here.

Anyways, here’s what I’ve done since the last list:

‘Till Death Do Us Part–Vincent Bugliosi

Helter Skelter–Vincent Bugliosi

Man’s Search for Meaning–Viktor Frankl (Again)

Words that Work :It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear–Frank Luntz

Unhooked: Why young women pursue sex, delay love and lose at both–Laura Sessions Stepp

Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning–Viktor Frankl

The Prince–Machiavelli (2x)

What Makes Sammy Run–Bud Schulberg

And the Sea Will Tell–Vincent Bugliosi

Reveille for Radicals–Saul D. Alinsky

The Predator’s Ball–Connie Bruck

The Republic–Plato

Leviathan–Thomas Hobbes (large chunk)

Notes:

-I recommend just about all of these.

-Unless you’re really dedicated, you can probably get just as much out of the Hobbes wikipedia page as you do out of the book

-Luntz–Words that Work–is a really interesting guy. He actually wrote The Contract With America. Problem is, the book is boring and dry. He so wants to be liked by the media that he castrates himself and wants you to desperately believe that everything he does it motivated by true belief. The book’s value suffers under the constant rationalization, but the guy still has a lot to say.

-Bugliosi is AMAZING. Read at least one of them. These came Tucker recommended and I would call Bugliosi the greatest lawyer since Clarence Darrow.

-Unhooked would be better if it focused more on the reasons why the college sex scene is bad–as opposed to merely asserting it is bad because it offends Christian morality.

-The Predator’s Ball is good too, if you have the time and energy to suffer through the first 100 or so pages. Again, this is why financial books are often difficult to read. The author assumes we want to know HOW Milken accomplished everything in terms of mathematics and numbers as opposed to WHY and WHAT for. Other than that it’s fascinating and a good picture of the 80′s.

So hit me with your recommendations.

Edit: I read American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis too. And it’s really good but the movie sucks.

Last month I wrote about why you ought to find a mentor. This week I thought I’d write a little bit about how you go about getting and maintaing one. Let me preface this by the fact that I am by no means an expert but now I have at least been on both sides of the table. Lately I’ve been getting a bunch of emails from kids (many my own age) and time and time again I see the same mistakes. Many of these errors seem to be common sense to me, but I nevertheless understand the tendency to make them.

Here are a few don’ts and a few dos.

1) Don’t be presumptuous. I can’t tell you how often I am literally appalled at the balls on some people. Whatever you’re asking for, it’s probably too much, so scale it back. If it’s a question they’ll answer it. If it’s “Will you sit and listen to my life story?” you’ve crossed the line. Obviously the relationship is centered around getting something from them, but you need to space that out over time. Perception changes everything, so consider that asking for everything up front as opposed to a little advice every couple weeks could mark the difference between learning a lot or nothing at all.

2) Don’t compliment yourself. Don’t insult yourself. Both extremes are equally detrimental. They are the ultimate distraction from the issue at hand. The former, they have to (if anything at all) take you down a notch. The latter, they have to waste their precious time reassuring a complete stranger. Either option leaves you spending capital that is already in short supply. Once you’ve finished writing your email, scroll through and find out all the affirmative claims you make about yourself and delete them. Remember what Ralph Ellison said about power–that it was “confident, self-assuring, self-starting, and self-stopping, self warming and self-justifying.” It does not need to make claims, they are implied. That the issue is even being addressed says the opposite about you. And on the other end, if you’re lacking the confidence to get it done, why should someone bother putting any energy into you?

3) Don’t be obsequious. Compliments are one thing, being full of shit is another. A person worthy of mentoring you is going to be self-aware enough to realize the majority of their flaws and faults. For you to come in and pretend those don’t exist shows that you either are too oblivious to accurately judge situations or dangerous brown-noser. They want to relate to you on a real level, and that’s impossible if you approach them as something other than a real person. So it is imperative that you let them know why you respect them, but they are not the second coming of Christ–and they know it.

4) Whatever you do, do not insult them or what they stand for. I got an email a little while back where someone pretty ruthlessly insulted Tucker, and then the guy wanted something from me. Now aside from the fact that I would consider TM a friend and someone who has helped me enormously, how does it benefit anyone to insult my boss (and indirectly me for working for him)? Understand that people hold certain things to be sacred. You need to find out what those are and treat them with the reverence they deserve. Let me say this again, being brutally honest doesn’t make you stand out, it makes you a dick. If that’s the route you want to take, go for it, but people don’t often mentor dicks.

5) Stay in the picture. You are easily forgotten, remember that. The key then is to find ways to stay relevant and fresh. Drop emails and questions at an interval that straddles the fine line between bothersome and buzzworthy. Even if they don’t respond, that they saw your name again means a little. If they forget your name or what you offer them then the relationship is pretty much dead. And it’s easier to keep something alive than it is to revive the deceased. I get an email from one kid every couple weeks and it’s perfect, they are always short little emails and I almost always see through them–but at the same time, I respect the ingenuity.

6) Bring something to the table. Anything. Quid pro quo. Even if it’s just energy. Even if it’s just thanks. You cannot ask and ask and not expect to give anything in return. The bigger the payoff you can offer, the longer they’ll take you under their wing. Figure out what you can offer and actually give it. Here’s a freebie: Find articles and books that relate to their field and pass on a recommendation and then they won’t have to waste their time searching.

7) Apologize. When you screw up, more likely than not, you’ll realize you did it immediately after saying or emailing it. Don’t wait for their reprisal, or the token period of silence. They’ll forgive your errors (within reason) if you indicate a propensity for identifying them. I know when I’ve crossed the line and you probably too. Reproach can be softened by mutual understanding.

Note: If any of these things reference something you think you might have emailed me, chances are it’s not. They’ve all happened multiple times–and some of them are ones I’ve made myself.

My old Digg account got flagged for some reason, so I got a new one. I appreciate everyone who added my old account and if you wouldn’t mind, it’d be a big help if you could do it again. My track record is pretty solid (almost ten front page stories in 6 months) and I couldn’t do it without you guys.

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