# What is a PR department? - a primer



## notimp (May 27, 2020)

11 Local TV Stations Pushed the Same Amazon-Scripted Segment
(This is not journalism (media literacy required).)


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## Chary (May 27, 2020)

Gotta pay the bills. 

TV news is sketchy as it is--they always have the same pattern. Show a story in the morning news that'll get parents tuning back in later at night. "Top 10 reasons why this potato chip brand is killing your children!!! More at 9pm". Then a "hard hitting" sad story to unsettle the average person, "cops shot a black guy/child kidnapped/local tv studio investigates FACT CHECK on x story". Then you end the day with something heartwarming, like child sells cookies for charity, donates it all to homeless. 

It gets worse when they're outright lying to cover up something, aka Amazon totes isn't bad, look look consumer! Amazon good!! Which goes against like even the common sense that Amazon is a slavedriver company and every other news story out there.


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## Xzi (May 27, 2020)

"The company has spent $800 million on increased wages and overtime during the pandemic."

And probably billions on this positive spin from various news networks.  Not to mention what they've spent fighting off efforts by their employees to unionize.  Literally a drop in the bucket for them regardless, one day's profit likely covers all those costs and more.

Unfortunately this is just capitalism working as intended.  If this was occurring anywhere else in the world we'd call it propaganda, but in America you're the odd one out for not licking the boot of "altruistic" billionaires like Bezos and Musk.  Please just ignore the fact that their wealth and power is so obscene that they could end world hunger and homelessness in one day and still have well over a billion dollars to their names.


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## notimp (May 27, 2020)

Xzi said:


> "The company has spent $800 million on increased wages and overtime during the pandemic."
> 
> And probably billions on this positive spin from various news networks.


I just felt the need to address that statement as well. Amazon works using seasonal temp workers because demand is strongly fluctuating (seasonality), as they might have had troubles sourcing temp workers during the corona crisis, they also increased overtime pay. But this comes at a time where demand for them frankly exploded and they reached an audience of people that they havent reached before, which is the holy grail for customer acquisition. If those become repeat costumers - money in the bank. So from a purely economic standpoint, you increase workhours.

Customers saw that increase in demand, with amazon, for the first time ever 'rationing' delivery capacity in a way - where non essential goods were pushed back in delivery schedules. Which means, demand was exploding way beyond normal levels.

So the easiest story to contrast this with is, that Bezos personal fortune grew by 24bn USD during the Covid-19 crisis:
src: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/15/amazon-jeff-bezos-gains-24bn-coronavirus-pandemic

Perspective..  Also, always pay attention to 'grouping' "increased wages and overtime" could mean they payed out bonuses to 20 people in management and called it a day.  (In theory, practically its a little too much for that.)

Which is what makes the 'news' immediately suspicious, since its so freaking vague. No journalistic outlet doing any research would want to report on something that swimmy, because it means - you done goofed on your work in journalism - or that the story is bought.  Here we know, that the story was bought. (Which in my neck of the woods is still illegal - if you are not disclosing it.

Jim Sterling has summarized this very entertainingly, not that long ago.. 

 )


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## Xzi (May 27, 2020)

notimp said:


> Amazon works using seasonal temp workers because demand is strongly fluctuating (seasonality), as they might have had troubles sourcing temp workers during the corona crisis, they also increased overtime pay.


I'm pretty sure all the "hero pay" is done by now too, the corporations that even bothered to give a raise to employees in the first place have gone back to their original (poverty) wages.  Worst part is that Amazon does pay better than most at $15/hour starting, but they still severely underpay based on the ridiculous productivity benchmarks they have set for their warehouses.

Kroger's/King Soopers even went so far as to send collections letters to employees in an attempt to recoup the extra $2/hour they had been receiving for all of a month and a half.  They backed off that tactic after massive backlash, but still.



notimp said:


> Customers saw that increase in demand, with amazon, for the first time ever 'rationing' delivery capacity in a way - where non essential goods were pushed back in delivery schedules. Which means, demand was exploding way beyond normal levels.
> 
> So the easiest story to contrast this with is, that Bezos personal fortune grew by 24bn USD during the Covid-19 crisis:
> src: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/15/amazon-jeff-bezos-gains-24bn-coronavirus-pandemic


More recently they decided it was conveniently no longer "viable" to deliver goods from third-party sellers during the pandemic, so if you want a product quickly now, it has to be one sold and shipped by Amazon themselves.  Everything else is listed as taking weeks to arrive, and has a delivery fee of $10+.  Seems like a really good time to start enforcing America's antitrust laws again.


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## FAST6191 (May 27, 2020)

I am too bone idle to watch the video. It is a nice bit of paid meh or just news stations being lazy and copy-pasting the same AP wire story or whatever?


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## notimp (May 27, 2020)

FAST6191 said:


> I am too bone idle to watch the video. It is a nice bit of paid meh or just news stations being lazy and copy-pasting the same AP wire story or whatever?



Paid meh.

The best moment features a supercut of nine (videos in grid form) of them in sync reading the script.  Its something.


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## yuyuyup (May 27, 2020)

notimp said:


> Paid meh.
> 
> The best moment features a supercut of nine (videos in grid form) of them in sync reading the script.  Its something.


I'm sorry but I believe you are doing a disservice to the thread participants by omitting any mention of the vast coverage this story has actually received, you didn't even mention the well-known partisan group that controls these stations, here I'll do it for you, "Sinclair Broadcast Group."  Why is the libturd the first to mention the company in this thread?  Why the hell did you let the libturd spike that football?


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## gamesquest1 (May 27, 2020)

most media at this point churn out the same BS "news" stories, sure in this case it was probably some paid advertising posing as news but the amount of times I have read an article and saw a near 1:1 identical article on a completely different site is obscene credited to different people, am I supposed to believe 7 "reporters" just happened to have the exact same opinion and writing style, talking point images and conclusion" as each other and happened to hit publish at round about the exact same time, there is a lot of media synchronisation that goes on, they need to make sure all viewers of different sites/publications are all reading from the same hymn sheet, its the best way to sway public opinion, if as many people as possible read the same or similar things all around the same time regardless of what outlet they use


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## Chary (May 27, 2020)

Xzi said:


> Kroger's/King Soopers even went so far as to send collections letters to employees in an attempt to recoup the extra $2/hour they had been receiving for all of a month and a half. They backed off that tactic after massive backlash, but still.


You're only a hero when you're making the company mad bank during peak panic buying. Kroger logic.


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## notimp (May 27, 2020)

gamesquest1 said:


> most media at this point churn out the same BS "news" stories, sure in this case it was probably some paid advertising posing as news but the amount of times I have read an article and saw a near 1:1 identical article on a completely different site is obscene credited to different people, am I supposed to believe 7 "reporters" just happened to have the exact same opinion and writing style, talking point images and conclusion" as each other and happened to hit publish at round about the exact same time, there is a lot of media synchronisation that goes on, they need to make sure all viewers of different sites/publications are all reading from the same hymn sheet, its the best way to sway public opinion


Yes, but NO.  Media news cycles have become very, very short ('yesterdays news' is almost worthless in terms of clickthrough), the media outlet that gets an information first, increasingly is disproportionately rewarded by articles going viral on social platforms, and people arent paying for outlets to do much research. (on facebok they usually dont even realize what outlet the news comes from, and facebook furthers that, design wise, because it increases stickyness) The 'craiglists ad' business is gone (not in newspapers anymore), and advertisements all but entirely go through google and facebook by now - which sell out their userbase better (personal data, clustering, ...), so ad prices have fallen.

None of this was the case before facebook became widely spread. And if you as a moderator had read any of the about five postings on this I posted in several articles in here already, you wouldnt come across as entirely oblivious.

At the same time, copying stories from newswires (international news networks, you can subscribe to) is common place for all sources that cant afford an international reporter network (= pretty much all of them), and you are also right, that news proliferation is very much influenced by formerly the blogger infrastructure, and nowadays even more so twitter, and the propagation follows a "story gets picked up by increasingly more reputable channels, very rapidly - and thereby grows in importance mostly unchecked" nature.

I've mentioned several times in the past that Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday is probably the seminal work that describes this development, from the perspective of an ad/pr guy, trying to get their story out.

You dont have to 'just guess' why this happend, people have written about it. 

Also yes to the part that repetition makes a 'keyfact' stick, regardless if true or not - but thats common knowledge in the ad business since way back when, i.e. thats not a new development, not even when actually trying to sway an entire publics opinion.

In the example above - I expect its either simply an outrageous ad buy, or ownership structures within local TV news networks, which in the US can be highly (!) affiliated, and are usually run centralized, and under economic pressures more and more editorial influence has crept in there. (Owners want to make a profit.) I havent seen the John Oliver clip above yet, but he talked about this I think twice in the past. The trend to centralize journalism, is primarily driven by people not paying for journalism as a product anymore. Which means small outlets are dying, or banding together, firing most of their staff (restructuring).

Regardless, what you see in the clip above is pretty outrageous. And not intended in a functioning news ecosystem. Or democracy.

Also if you've looked at content marketing on youtube, its the same sh*t. Advertisers want influencer testimonials that are fake, but make people buy stuff at better rates, because they come from 'trusted sources'. This also crept in with youtube - because before that media was better regulated (at least self regulation (ethos), but in europe definitely also better regulated), and rules were in place to prevent 'native advertising' that wasnt disclosed. In todays world, good luck on that - which is why you have to learn some form of new medial literacy, that ideally tells you something is not right the way that story is presented - or go through this constant cycle of outrage and still not paying money for news.. 

The idea is to exactly not go 'well the media is all lying to me then' in the face of all this.


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## FAST6191 (May 27, 2020)

While still far from idea, or indeed good, I am not entirely convinced that was not just terminally lazy sourcing.

I did see a fun one the other day when one of the UK's prime minster's primary puppet masters, sorry advisors got caught out on a "rules for thee and not for me" bit when the rest of us were doing the "stay in your home, citizen" bit. The testing his eyes bit was hilarious as well.


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## notimp (May 27, 2020)

FAST6191 said:


> While still far from idea, or indeed good, I am not entirely convinced that was not just terminally lazy sourcing.


Ehm. The story included the following elements:
- Amazon is stepping up to save 'merica in a time of need and still fully operational
- Amazon is paying workers more because of the crises (but not out of good will, and that part was omitted)
- Amazon is protecting its workers and "keeping them safe and healthy" (do you think a journalist would write such a line?)
- Amazon is still delivering your packages
- Amazon values their employees and they are so valuable to the company, every single on of them
- Amazons employee: "We hope everyone feels our passion"
Had B roll of the logo full screen on two news stations, had B roll material, that also stated, that they do on site Covid-19 testing.

Who on earth would program such a news item? Two of the statements are white lies, half of it is messaging, that tells you, that you can still buy at amazon, the figures arent disected and arent telling anything specific (because amazon added two spending categories up for no reason to make a number look bigger), the B roll package shows Amazon workers behaving responsibly and speaking into camera that they hope that you feel their passion. They had access to the facilities (which journalists never get, because of working conditions snafus)...

In all its aspects, this is an advertorial, and the news value is exactly zero. Except for maybe that they still are operational.

If this was a 'normal' news story, I'll eat a broomstick horizontally.

I'm all for benefit of the doubt and all, but come on... 



FAST6191 said:


> I did see a fun one the other day when one of the UK's prime minster's primary puppet masters, sorry advisors got caught out on a "rules for thee and not for me" bit when the rest of us were doing the "stay in your home, citizen" bit. The testing his eyes bit was hilarious as well.


This isnt PR - and explained very easily. 

Everyone working at that level of changing public opinion, usually hates people for how stupid they are. Because their works feedback loop shows them how stupid they are day in and day out. Every time they do something correctly, they see how stupid the masses are - again.

Ann Bernays at 28:40 in century of the self, and at another timestamp that I'm still looking up (dang it, cant find it, but somewhere in there should be a statement, where she talked about what his image of people was, and that he (Bernays) called them stupid all the time, and that it was linked to how easy he thought they were able to be manipulated as masses. Its in there - I promise.  ):


Its hard for them to design the 'public image' of how to handle the crisis, and then not be cynical about it.. 

(Speculative.)

PR then kicks in again at the trying to brush it over part. In this case, the updated statement for Cummings was, that they had no one to look after their child, and that they made a conscious decision, with all parties involved, and necessary provisions taken. (Basically indicates, that they all had the right masks and, ..  ) Which increases complexity (makes it harder to condemn on the surface level) and signals three times, 'he is not bad man'.


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## notimp (May 27, 2020)

Also @FAST6191 the video you were posting is about the worst agitation propaganda BS, that I've seen in a while.

The guy narrating it is actually agitated (thats contageous), he tells all of what apparently happened from memory and doesnt show it, while he has a slow mo montage of his 'hero' in the background on silent. He uses 'neurolinguistig programming' as if it were a thing (its pseudo science), and would fit in this case - which it doesnt.... That guy is a moron. Why are you posting that stuff? 

On the factual level I might even agree with what is said. Medias job is to 'conjure up' a 'collective moral stance' on issues (Its called taking a stance), that first and foremost they only have to assert. Thats agenda setting. Repeating accusations has an effect (even a subliminal one), but thats a 3000 year old principal, not necessarily NLP.

Whats happening here is, that people that likely have an agenda are forming the public image of that situation and thereby the guy.

But media doing that is in no way a picture book example for PR. F.e. PR usually insnt directed at one guy. Just the same as most PR usually isnt negative PR (attacking the reputation of one guy).

Barely valid contribution to this thread, imho. 

But yes - what the media does in the Cummings case, probably follows an agenda, and is intended to produce a certain outcome. But that could as well come from 'we dont like this guy', we dont know the motivation.

edit: "In fact this was westminster elite trying to manipulate the public against the silent majority..." what kind of BS are you listening to here?

Again, while the first part might turn out to be factually true - what the heck is this good vs evil, elites against the 'silent majority' bullcrap? People stand with the guy that said out loud, that he didnt care about those rules all the way? Why? There is a reason why we don hear 'I speak for the silent majority on this' in daily life, because its a statement you cant in any way prove or disprove. Because as soon as people vote, they arent silent, and as soon as they speak out on an issue, because you ask them, they arent silent. This is the most BS phrasing I've heard in a long while.

From now on I'm speaking for the silent majority of people in this forum, in everything I say. Because I said (claimed) it?

The next sentence is what the media did here, would have made Hilter (change two letters) blush. No actually, thats what the guy in the video said. What crap are you posting here?

Then he pronounces a yes/no question a leading question. The question being, do you think that your behavior has caused the public to loose trust in the corona measures. Thats not a leading question.

Then he calls public commentators 'vile left wingers' that were invited to 'stack the deck'. Presenting a book one of them wrote on how migrants became scapegoats. (Which is factual. Cummings is on record saying that without that narrative he couldnt have pulled off brexit.)

What the heck are you posting here?

Next sentence - "then we had smurking leftist brat..." - ok, at this point I'm stoping to watch the video of a moronic angry white guy spewing hate on youtube, because one of his personal heroes got attacked, because the establishment doesnt like him. (And that includes the establishment in his own party.). And you are bringing that angry vitrial second hand? Why?

That said - I'm looking for that press conference/debate with Cummings tomorrow, because now I'm actually interested in what happened there.. 

edit: Dang it, I watched 30 seconds more of it. "Do you regret what you have done." According to hatefull white guy on youtube is a 'Kafka Trap'. What? A what? That question you hear every week on every press conference where someone is accused of not behaving valiantly. The way to get out of it rhetorically, is to f.e. say, I'm regretting this small small side part of it (by not saying the word regret if you want bonus points), but this is why you got the main aspect wrong, because of obviously this, that and the other thing.

Wow. what a difficult trap of a question to answer... The entire notion, that you cant get out of that rhetorical trap is utter BS. Politicians do it every day. That sort of question gets asked of politicians every day. Its a standard.

While Kafka Trap isnt even a thing, as far as I know. (edit: Googling indicates its an internet meme from 2010. Oh, that scientific?) What the heck?


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## Chary (May 28, 2020)

“The segments, first reported by Courier, a startup focused on local news and funded by left-leaning groups, used identical language that originated from promotional material Amazon released Thursday on Business Wire, a service for news shared by companies.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1215216

So it was just a craptacular press release they read word for word. If that’s to be believed. I didn’t try to look for it, but it didn’t appear in the first three results on Google. Just the NBC story. Still seems like a convenient excuse to fall back on to not have to disclose that it was paid advertisement, if it was—which it seems to be.


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## notimp (May 28, 2020)

Chary said:


> So it was just a craptacular press release they read word for word.


Small issue here, their material also contained those interviews, where Amazon employees spoke into camera, that they hope, that you can feel their passion. So the press release came with a video package.... So who produced that? For what purpose.

(Press releases usually dont come with preproduced video packages.)

Hm...


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## notimp (May 28, 2020)

@FAST6191 - just stumbled upon this:

Adam Curtis Collection Every Day Is Like Sunday


God I like Adam Curtis.. 

Somehow it seems to fit in here.. 

edit: Also, you could call whats directed at the public in relation to Cummings in this case, PR, I guess..


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## notimp (Jun 4, 2020)

Warehouse workers are suing Amazon for putting their families at risk of coronavirus
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/03/tech/amazon-lawsuit-coronavirus-warehouse/index.html


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## notimp (Jun 6, 2020)

Oh look that Saagar guy has got it.. 

(It's not just about branding anymore.)



Now, what do you do about it, in a society that -

a. doesnt want to grow in country anymore
b. is dominated by old folks politically
c. has all intellectual elites focused in on changing perception before they change policy (even because of a fair argument -- to benefit everyone in the world, rather than you, because they need it more (United Nations policy agenda currently also is the leading EU public policy)).
d. is all in on still selling you globalization which leads to cheap consumer goods, but is technical innovation - which comes for free, and not out of any of the efforts of your political or industrial leaders, and even more willingly, the sort of globalization, that wants you to live a little less, because you find more happyness in planting trees.

How you dont get cynical in the face of all this - I dont know. I certainly got cynical.

edit: Slight correction, cheap good prices in china actually mostly come from a restructuring of the resources and distribution ecosystems, nowadays, that has allowed them to operate for cents on the dollar. This actually was the result of a managerial effort to create new working structures. But everything in the western world? Are you kidding me? The US has an entire party dedicated to blocking progress and nothing else. The big five in tech destroy infrastructure in Europe, and are proud not to pay any taxes, while lowering the working wage (Amazon, digitalization, uberization..) and wanting to offset that with CSR efforts.

I mean f*ck this.


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## notimp (Jun 7, 2020)

What is CSR?



When you are hyping one (in numbers: 1) borderline personality for choosing some colors, on a 'punk' product, to fling a few more units of your old commercial sh*t.

CSR ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility ) - is done entirely as a PR exercise by multinationals at this point. Dont even bother seeing in it anything else.

(Even though blackrock is publicly encouraging investors, to produce more of those 'bs jobs'. For social stability. And therefore the share price.)

"Wow, she was so inspired, when she stepped into the CDPR lobby for the first time, with that filmcrew!" - no one said. I'll buy me a Microsoft product on me Amazon (the company) account right then and there!

Does it plant trees though? The aspiring CSR staffer might ask at this point, and the answer to that is - if you look at the Amazon (not the company) -- no.


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