More kittens: Or how Sir Martin Sorrell can end the recession overnight.

Rory speaks sense « Golley Who - Blog

Rory speaks sense « Golley Who - Blog — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:47:28 GMT

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Roryn s??p??t kissanpennut « Tommilla on asiaa

Roryn s??p??t kissanpennut « Tommilla on asiaa — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:13:41 GMT

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Now here’s a thought! | The Best …

Now here’s a thought! | The Best … — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:38:11 GMT

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re: More kittens: Or how Sir Martin Sorrell can end the recession overnight.

Tina Bettison — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:57:21 GMT

I agree with you Rory! But we don't need fluffy kittens playing with wool; there are plenty of good news stories out there of companies bucking the trend and growing despite, or maybe because of, the recession; some small businesses are busier than ever; redundancy has been the best thing that happened for some people giving them a new lease of life and an opportunity to take a new direction that they love. Clouds and silver linings always go together, even if we got more balanced news coverage of both it would be something.

Perhaps we really should start that revolution. I'm in!

re: More kittens: Or how Sir Martin Sorrell can end the recession overnight.

CF — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:51:04 GMT

Might this be a reason why customer publishing continues to grow so rapidly? Brand control the message and editorial content as well as the advertising...

re: More kittens: Or how Sir Martin Sorrell can end the recession overnight.

gotnoteef — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:03:25 GMT

great posts both - love the idea of a Govt. agency of positive propaganda to counteract soom of the doom.

And mercilessly holding Murdoch and co to ransom for some good news is genius - makes me wish I had a budget to hold over them!

re: More kittens: Or how Sir Martin Sorrell can end the recession overnight.

Charles Frith — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:42:03 GMT

Here's a comment I left over at Dave Trott's blog. I've cut and paste for you but the original is here

http://is.gd/hyHq

"It was a wish of mine to take everything I’ve learned in planning and put it into a propaganda role. One that changed things for an arrogant and of course subjective better.

Just imagine if wasteful living became a target of social exclusion? Jesus you could knock out some decent propaganda to change people’s ways. I know it works because I remember the first time I saw that drinking and driving had become unnaceptable, and made people into social pariahs. It was the young ones who started to be vocal first. It really does work.

Propaganda done well can have a really wonderful role..

I salivate thinking about both the room for creativity and the potential gains.

When I was in Beijing I noticed that I quite enjoyed reading the daily paper. I liked it because even though negative news about China rarely made it into the pages. I found it mildly uplifting to hear on one dedicated page about the random stories of honest poor people handing money in, or the kindly farmer saving someones cat or whatever fantastically dull acts of goodness were used as examples.

I liked it because I used to be a news junkie until I realised that the news cycle HAS to produce something and that is invariably negative. I talked about this with a subeditor friend of mine. He’s a real news pro, checks facts, understands the background, well informed and hardworking, but when I catch up with him after work sometimes for a late night early morning coffee I can see his nerves are completely shredded. It takes him hours and hours to wind down and I’ve tried to tell him the news isn’t a good business if one doesn’t want to become cynical.

Anyway it’s another topic too big for a comment box but I really like a paper to tell me good news. I really enjoyed China Daily. It’s the only daily paper I’ve read for years. It got me thinking about good propaganda, constructive propaganda, and who gets to decide what is for the public good and all I can say is that if there is a ministry of propaganda and God knows we need one for what’s coming around the corner. Then I want in. It could be massively useful. My liberal friends would go nuts at me but then they go nuts when I say that people should need a licence to vote. We need to take a test for a car, why isn’t democracy held more important?

You’re the only person in the business I’ve heard talk about the subject. Most refreshing"

Posted by Charles Frith on December 11th, 2008 at 9:28 pm

re: More kittens: Or how Sir Martin Sorrell can end the recession overnight.

Charles Frith — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:30:56 GMT

The people who are losing their jobs know fully well how a capitalist model has finally revealed its flaws but it strikes me that if you want the newspapers to start devlivering news that sings well for the corporation that it can't be far removed from the sort of pap that the Communist media did so well.

Maybe you should start reading the North Korean rags Rory.

Oh but I forgot. You do already :)

http://is.gd/hyBL

p.s. I do have some interesting views on controling negative news that I think I've posted elsewere and will link to if I find.