I know I’ve blogged in the past about companies buying reporters as a way of guaranteeting coverage, but at last weekend’s T in the Park, I saw an offering by Material PR (who, as always, played a blinder for most of the weekend) that was either out and out genius or the 21st Century Faustian bargain. In short, it was this: “unable to cover all the acts you need/want to cover? Tell us, the T in the Park PR company and we’ll arrange for words and pics for you.”
I spoke to a couple of people about it over the weekend and the reaction ranges from “great idea” to “What? sod off” because there’s a couple of ways to look at it –
THE PR OUTLOOK
Having a couple of people on hand to write reviews makes perfect sense because there’s less journalists about than before and more acts to cover than before. It’s a nice gesture to help the press out – and also means, from a PR angle, that the PR company controls the review, ensuring that it’s going to be positive (note, I’ve no idea what guidelines the PR ‘reviewers’ had, but what PR company would put out a negative review of their client’s product/event?) so that helps with the overall positive press – and minimising any negative press if an act says or does something controversial (for example, an act says “I’m glad Michael Jackson’s dead” – a reporter will put that in, will a reviewer there on behalf of the PR company?).
So, from a PR and media managing point of view, it’s sheer bloody genius. Top marks for thinking this one up.
THE JOURNALIST OUTLOOK
On the surface, it’s a great offer but there’s concerns over editorial integrity/independence for a start – would the reviewer mention the negative or something like fans of The Streets ripping down fencing to get into a packed tent to see an act?
Also, in these cash-strapped times, what’s to stop an editor thinking “well, instead of sending a team or eight or so reporters, two video guys and five photographers, I send a total team of four (or less) to get some celeb interviews and coverage and use the PR handouts for the actual band reviews”? And that begins the slippery slope of less and less people covering one of Scotland’s major events, which means less work for the considerable number of freelance writers and photographers who get some much-needed shifts for a few days (in fact, is this the sort of thing the NUJ and NUJ Scotland should be speaking out against?). Again, on the one hand, this let’s the PR team control the message but do you really want less press coming along – even with the risks that entails?
(or as Shaun Milne pointed out at one point, very few acts have actually ever had a bad review at T in the Park, so would it really make a difference?)
And yes, I know PA already file from the event, but they are journalists.
AND WHERE’S THE BLOGGERS?
One thing that did strike me as missing was there were few bloggers there. I’d have been tempted to hire two music loving bloggers per tent and got them to tweet/blog as acts played, putting something up more or less instantaneously. That might have been a middle ground for the above actually. (As it was, full credit to NME.com for blindingly fast uploads and coverage. The Scotsman did some as well, but the NME blew everyone away.)
PR GENIUS?
As I said above, when I put on my PR hat, this was an act of sheer bloody genius, fully deserving of praise, but when I think of it from a journalism point of view, it strikes me as a bad move, allowing companies to carry out their own reviews or PR companies to carry out reviews for clients because it’s not independent – but ultimately do the punters care?
9 responses to “Is T in the Park PR reporting offer PR genius, #prfail or journalism’s worst nightmare?”
“…ultimately do the punters care?”
That’s really the question, but it’s a wider one. Do the punters really care what other people think — regardless of whether they are journalists or PRs?
People attend these things, talk about them with their friends face-to-face, by text, by Facebook etc. When you now have countless ways of sharing your thoughts and experiences with the people near to you, does the opinion of an often indifferent stranger really matter any more? Did it ever matter as much as we thought?
The only thing this “punter” cares about is the astonishing amount of freeloading that goes on at T — all subsidised by the paying punters.
I actually heard an airhead on the radio spending his time describing the atmosphere in the media village! Meanwhile, beyond the walls, there was a festival taking place.
I’m not sure the punters see much of a difference between journalists and PRs when it comes to things like T. They are both groups of people who didn’t have to queue for expensive tickets, queue to get in, pay for their food and drink. They all owe T for patronage and are all compromised.
The only views I value are from people who paid their way and so can really judge whether it was worth all the expense and hassle.
The fluffy “T 2009 was the best ever!!!” that comes from the freeloaders is dull and predictable. Especially when you realise much of it is written in advance so the “professional” can make maximum use of the sponsors’ hospitality.
To be fair Peter, not many of the press get free drink or food now. Material do put on free soft drinks, tea and coffee over the weekend aloing with some snacks but the main food tent in hospitality is the same prices as the main area. It’s a change from five or so years ago when Orange used to hand out free cutting-edge handsets to reporters.
The main benefits from the hospitality area (which is next to the media area) is that you have smaller queues for toilets.
But yeah, you raise a good point: in the peer-to-peer age, do press reviews even really matter? What would punters want now from press at an event like T in the Park?
Peter: the questions you’ve raised have more to do with the current state of music journalism and its relevance to the record-buying and gig-going public than the specific issues Craig has raised. However, for what it’s worth, from my own interactions with festival-goers over the weekend, it’s clear that the press are very much regarded as taste-makers by a public are who are aware of the power of critical coverage and very keen to see their heroes portrayed in a positive light.
I was working at T in the Park for Scotsman.com over the weekend and I echo Craig’s concerns about certain aspects of performances being glossed over in PR reviews. Even in the Sunday papers, the coverage was quite insipid; not a single negative remark in the Mail’s three-page review spread, despite a third of the bored crowd departing after Katy Perry rolled out one of her two hits and the remainder politely (or not-so-politely, if the mutterings of the crowd around me were anything to go by) her inane banter until she delivered the second. On Sunday, the sound at the second stage was appalling all day, with Lily Allen barely audible from halfway back over the din of the crowd, and photographers reported being pelted with full cans of lager in the photo pit when Pete Doherty came on stage. Things also came close to getting ugly at the main stage on Sunday night when it was announced that Snow Patrol would go on late and there were doubts if Blur would play at all. Most of these events didn’t make it into mainstream press reviews; what chance, then, of them being covered by PR reviewers?
A brief aside as regards the bloggers you mentioned Craig. I was live-tweeting for Scotsman.com and I’m happy to announce that we broke the Blur story by Twitter a good five minutes before NME got copy up! However, tweeting was hampered by all sorts of difficulties, not least patchy mobile network coverage over the course of the weekend. Three of our bloggers, myself included, had no mobile internet for the duration of the weekend and trying to update by text proved unreliable and made interacting with other users almost impossible. I think a more concerted effort to get bloggers into the tents could work well and would certainly give a welcome alternative to the main stage-heavy coverage from the BBC and newspapers (for most of Sunday, NME’s was the only mainstream review of Nine Inch Nails available). However, without improvements to infrastructure at Balado I don’t see it being feasible on a large scale.
Jodi, I’m with you on the signal coverage. I’m posting up tonight a review of the iPhone 3GS which I took up to use as my machine over the weekend – last year I had great results with a Nokia N95 – but the poor signal/reception made the iPhone little more than a pretty brick.
But what I will say is well done to you guys for giving it a go. You’re the only paper I’m aware of doing so (confession: haven’t had a chance to look at the Daily Record site yet) but when doing live google searches over the weekend it was you guys and NME who were coming in the top rankings.
I can’t believe though that here we are in 2009 and the vast majority of newspapers weren’t using items like the web and twitter for constant updates. Events like T were made for it.
Craig – in terms of bloggers, I met plenty in the T media village! I was actually surprised how many there were. The likes of NME obviously went just about round the clock with full on reviews, as did Scotsman. STV also had a pretty full-on web team there – not doing so much reviews but putting a lot of colour from the festival up on their site. Good job done by all.
The big problem, as mentioned above, is the mobile phone coverage. I was covering for the Daily Express/Star – and when the whole Blur thing blew up it was virtually impossible to call the newsdesk with updates. Also, I believe there might have been some internet issues in the media tent on Saturday (I wasn’t there – just what I’m told.) They do a fantastic job putting the whole thing on and do a great service for reporters/snappers/bloggers, although I think it does need to be slightly bigger. The big problem I had was that certain groups of snappers/others had plonked them down in the media tent and “reserved” space in what was supposed to be a free-for-all. At one stage on Sunday I sat down on an emtpy chair at an empty bit of table, with tons of clear space elsewhere – only for a fierce looking woman to come in and tell me I was in here seat. I gave her a “get to fuck” look – but she was insistent, and to be honest pretty terrifying – so I moved on.
The mobile phone thing is probably impossible to resolve – they’re not going to put up an extra transmitter or whatever for the three days a year that it is required. And the internet thing is probably just one of these things that happens from time to time with it going down and coming back again. With the amount of people using it and the bandwidth being taken up it held up pretty well.
As for the positive reviews – that is mostly down to the fact that it WAS a good festival – and the vast majority of people only had good things to say. There were some problems (sound at NME stage, Blur) – but nothing major. The weather was great, the booze queues didn’t seem that long and there was generally a good atmosphere. As for freeloading – press were very kindly given free water/coke/irn-bru, and some very welcome finger food – but the beer in the hospitality area was actually 10p MORE expensive than out on the festival site itself!
Agree with what you say on the signal. Steve Lamb does wonders up there as is, but you would think some mobile company would try something to get themselves a little better PR and set up a small mast or something.
If I had one of the houses across the road I’d use it as an excuse to get a shit-hot hardwired connection in and hire it out for a few days for those needing to send video and other high-bandwidth items back.
The thing is that even those houses aren’t that close! I was staying at a friend’s house literally just inside Kinross – you could drive to/from it to the site in about two minutes max – but because of the way the whole thing is laid out it was a 40 minute walk!
Jamie: We had the same experience in the media tent with regards ‘reserved’ signs popping up and arrived early on Sunday to get ourselves set up ahead of the rush. It annoys me greatly since, as you say, it’s a free-for-all but I’m still on the bottom rung of the ladder and perhaps somewhat naive in that sense, while my more experienced colleagues just shrugged it off as an inevitable, if unsavoury, part of the media circus.
Wireless in the media tent was iffy on Saturday morning and early afternoon but they pulled out all the stops to get it up and running, throwing up a second network which proved much more reliable. Really pretty impressive considering the amount of large image and video files that were being sent back and forth, hammering the bandwidth. I also agree that the fridge of coke, juice, water and a constant supply of coffee were very welcome indeed although the finger food was a bit of a disaster for a vegetarian such as myself! Two of our team ended up splashing out fairly hefty sums at Healthy T to keep going.
Craig: exactly the same issue for us with iPhones, though I’m still on a 1.0 and the others were 3Gs (not 3G S)! Most of our crew are fairly heavy Twitter users anyway so it seemed like a natural thing to do and a good way of instantly getting updates online rather than having to trudge back across the festival ground every time we wanted to post. With better reception we would have been able to do more liveblogging but sadly it wasn’t to be. I was also quite shocked to see so few embracing Twitter and blogging though, but I suppose there are those in the profession who are just too set in their ways.
Jodi/Jamie – potential tips for next year:
1) The tent is always a scrum for space and the snappers always reserve seats. But in fairness to them, they are normally fairly cool and not too territorial. I’ve always been able to get a plug point anyway. If someone is dedicated enough to turn up at 9 in the morning I’m not going to grudge them the seat. And a lot of the writers did hotseat anyway.
2) I actually got better wifi outside the media tent, sitting next to the Material PR office.
And Jodi, the 3GS was as useless as the 3G as my review shows in a few hours.