Kanye West: Crybaby or victim of the media?

In case you haven't heard, Kanye West is apparently feuding with Matt Lauer of the Today Show. Seriously Kanye? You can't feud with other rappers, you have to pick a morning talk show host? Was Fifty Cent not returning your texts?

Anyway, you all may remember five years ago when celebrities came together for a telethon to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Kanye famously spouted off "George Bush doesn't care about black people," as he stood next to a very stunned looking Mike Meyers. In an interview with Lauer early in the week, George W. Bush called that moment the most disgusting moment of his presidency. Nevermind the thousands of servicemen and women who died fighting two wars, a financial meltdown that nearly sent us into a new depression and a huge surplus left over from the Clinton administration that was completely blown. Kanye West was apparently more disgusting than all of those things. But hey-- that's neither here nor there.

So Kanye is being interviewed and gets incredibly pouty when being asked about the Taylor Swift mic-snatching moment at last year's VMAs on MTV. As he is being asked about that incident, the producers roll footage of it. If you want to see the actual moment, skip to about six minutes into the video below.

(continued below...)

So Kanye claims the Today Show set him up, and was so angry that he cancelled a concert that was set for Friday on Today, and in all his maturity, fired off some nasty tweets about Matt Lauer and Today.

But does he really have anything to be angry about? I know the media gets blamed for ambushing people and whatnot, but did this really cross the line? Would love to hear feedback from some viewers on this one!

The argument for NO

Today Oklahoma voters are deciding eleven state questions... questions that, if passed, would become amendments to the Oklahoma constitution. The proposed amendments range from banning Islamic law in Oklahoma courts, to funding education at the regional average, to forcing voters to show ID at the polls, to depositing more money into our rainy day fund.

Upon reviewing the plethora of proposed amendments, it occured to me that the United States was founded on only 10 amendments, and Oklahoma voters are being asked to decide eleven in one election?

What amendments to the constitution ultimately do is remove lawmaking from the hands of lawmakers, and put it in the hands of judges to interpret. So what are our lawmakers there for? I feel there are better ways to pass laws then amending our constitution. My reasons are:

• Many laws may become outdated and useless 20 or 30 years from now. It's much easier to repeal a law passed by the state legislature, rather than amend the constitution again... which leads me to my next point...

• A constitutional amendment should be something we, as voters, should be comfortable with for a lifetime. Are there really eleven things of this magnitude that need to be decided in one year alone?

• Oklahoma is one of the youngest states, with the longest constitution, and every new amendment makes the document less and less valuable. Passing several amendments every couple of years on a whim will eventually make our state constitution a very long, very useless document, filled with nonsense.

• I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but a few of the questions were even confusing to me. It was then I realized that if I have no clue what the state question is addressing, then it probably hasn't been impacting my life in a negative way, therefore, so why change anything? Again, it's more difficult to change the constitution than it is a law passed by House or Senate bill.

All in all, some of the state questions, particularly the one addressing education funding, were authored with good intent. Good intent doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be included in our state's governing document, however. We are basically asking average citizens to make complex legal decisions.

It was for all these reasons that I chose to vote no on every state question proposed. It may not have been the right thing for each individual question, but I felt I needed to stand on principal and reject the notion that new laws should be cemented by constitutional amendment.

I know many will not agree, and I welcome the differing opinions, because at least then I know people are practicing critical thinking.

Real social media stalker, or shameless self promotion in disguise?

So one of my co-workers alerted me to this Twitter account, run by a kid who claims to be OKC Thunder star Kevin Durant's neighbor. His name is Mathias Murphy and his Twitter handle is kd35sneighbor. This kid (if it really is the kid in the profile pic) uses Twitter and You Tube to spy on Kevin Durant from across the street and through his windows. There's video of him shooting hoops, taking out the trash, and even eating Fruit Loops in his kitchen! If this is real, uh.... CREEPY!!!!

But part of me wonders if this is just Kevin Durant (and/or his publicist) using fake accounts to self-promote? The Twitter account "kd35sneighbor" was opened on October 20th, just a few days before the NBA season opened. Apparently Durant even posted his phone number on his Twitter account recently. Sounds like a guy who really likes to get his name and info out if you ask me... not that there's anything wrong with that. :-)

But just today, KD himself tweeted: "Yo @kd35sneighbor quit snoopin around my house with ur camera!!! If you wanna chill, just come over...I’m around bruh bruh" Of course, @ replying to the alleged "neighbor" is just going to give the kid more followers. As of this writing, kd35sneighbor has 526 followers. Let's see how many he has after all of Durant's followers pick up on it.

Maybe I'm just cynical... But if you want to do your own detective work and come to your own conclusions, here are all the links to get you started:

http://twitter.com/kd35sneighbor
http://www.youtube.com/user/kd35sneighbor
http://twitter.com/KDthunderup

Okies once again...

We're all pretty familiar with the stories of how Okies went by the thousands along Route 66 to California during the Dust Bowl, and even up until the 1940s and 50s, to find work and a better way of life for their families. My dad's family was one of them, and my dad, the fourth of 11 children, was even born in Bakersfield, Calif. From what I can remember from family stories, my grandpa was a migrant worker, and the family lived in Bakersfield for just a couple of years. Here's a picture of my dad's family when he was a kid. Not sure if this was in Cali or Oklahoma, but it definitely paints a picture of the times.

For the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about a "reverse migration" though... A migration of Californians coming back to Oklahoma. Cost and quality of living are part of it, but some also cite a desire to get back to their roots. Heck, I even gained a next door neighbor from the trend! Here's the latest story from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-10-12-oklahoma12_CV_N.htm

Now I must admit... I do have reservations about this alleged trend. My grandpa on my mother's side always told me that when all the Okies moved to California, it raised the IQ of both states. Yeah, so maybe that was a Will Rogers quote, but so what. :-) Still sounds like solid info.

Voto si o no?

On November 2nd, Oklahomans head to the polls to vote on lots of local, state and national offices. We Okies also get to decide 11 state questions which may amend our state constitution. Yeah... ELEVEN possible amendments to our state constitution! That's more than the entire bill of rights this country started out with!

So what's so important that we could possibly amend our constitution 11 times? The highlights include:

• Whether to make English the official language of Oklahoma
• Whether Oklahoma should opt out of federal health care legislation
• Whether voters should have to present a government issued ID to vote
• And my personal favorite, whether Oklahoma should be prohibited from considering Sharia law when deciding court cases (HUH???)


And least we not forget, state question 744 asks whether Oklahoma should be required by law to fund education at the average levels of the states surrounding us; while state question 754 bans using neighboring states' averages to determine our own funding levels. (Double HUH???) Yes, you read that correctly. Passing both would nullify 744.

(If you want to feel dumber in only a matter of minutes, you can preview questions here: http://www.ok.gov/elections/documents/sq_gen10.pdf)

Not only is the state question ballot lengthy this year, but it's always wordy, difficult to understad, and some may say, the result of lawmakers' ineffectiveness or inability to pass laws that might be controversial, or a sneaky way to pass laws that would certainly get vetoed or challenged in court. (The latter option is still possible, FYI)

Should the public be deciding SO many state questions? Particularly those that may be extremely complex and have far reaching legal consequences? And are the actual questions at hand even necessary? Because if Sharia law allows for the speed on the BA Expressway to be raised to 65 from 55, you can bet that I'll be voting NO on SQ 755!

Democrats (not) for Boren?

Happy Monday! We're in the homestretch of the midterm elections, which are now just four weeks away! Of course, that means political ads ranging from the negative to the nonsensical are beginning to dominate your TV's. Luckily, in House District 1 Republican John Sullivan went uncontested by Democrats, so in this media market we're being subjected to one less political campaign than usual.

In District 2, however, Dan Boren is in a race against... well... I'm not sure who he's in a race against, because I haven't seen any of his opponent's ads. But what I did find interesting is that none of Congressman Boren's ads mention the fact that he is a Democrat. Now keep in mind that district 2 covers the eastern portion of Oklahoma, which has historically voted Democrat. In fact, Tom Coburn's election to the House in 1994 made him the first Republican to serve eastern Oklahoma since 1921, and no Republican has served that district since.

We all know that Oklahoma is the reddest of red states, but is our political climate really so polarizing that Congresssman Boren can't state the fact that he's a Democrat? As a communications person, of course I find this fascinating.

I'll let you check out his ads for yourselves!

http://www.borenforcongress.com/

Over the shoulder graphic... Fair or not?

So I'm watching the local news tonight, and one of the stories was about a guy who went to his girlfriend's place of employment (a local fast food restaurant), held a gun to her head, then shot her in the shoulder area. She's in the hospital, expected to recover and he's in jail.

http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=13232314

My question: The over the shoulder graphic (or OTS to my old news producer bretheren) behind the anchor showed the logo of the fast food chain. Proper or not, to identify the restaurant chain?

MUST READ article in The Strategist magazine: The Tony Hayward Effect

If any of you found the summer issue of PRSA's The Public Relations Strategist on your desk like I did last week, you've got to pick it up and take a peek inside. Almost the entire issue was dedicated to critiquing BP's crisis response to the Gulf oil spill. There was an article I loved, called "The Tony Hayward Effect." I know a lot of us automatically use our CEO as our official spokesperson during a crisis, but should we?

The author of this article didn't necessarily think so. His rationale?

• If the CEO doesn't have strong verbal skills, then he or she shouldn't be the spokesperson (seems like a common sense decision to make!)
• The CEO should be in the crisis command center, actually managing the crisis team and the company (another, duh!)
• If the CEO mispeaks, there is no higher ranking official to come behind him or her to rectify the situation. At least if a lower ranking official mispeaks, a CEO can come from behind and help make amends.

So what do all of you think? Are we taking the wrong approach to crises, by automatically putting our CEOs out front every time? Is it doing more harm than good? The author of this article believes a well-trained PR person should take the lead while the crisis managment team moves into place. After the team is in place, then a subject matter expert should take the spokesperson role, allowing the CEO and other executives to effectively manage the crisis. They say to let a CEO take the lead in a short lived crisis, but he or she should only pop up when truly needed in a longer crisis. A higher priority should be for the CEO to oversee the crisis team and manage the parts of the company that are still up and running.

I have to admit, it would be tough to expect someone to manage a crisis the size of BP's this past summer, while also giving constant updates to media. No doubt, that's what probably led to Hayward's very public blunders, such as the infamous "I'd like my life back" comment.

The magazine also offered some worthwhile tips to give any executive who is acting as a spokesperson in a crisis... hopefully these are all practices we knowledgable and wise PR already employ.... hopefully! lol...

1. Don't talk to the media... talk to the media's audience! Remember, the press is just a vehicle to get your message to the actual public. Drop the industry jargon, speak simply and be inclusive to your audience.
2. Think about the bottome line. (I love this one!) If you could attach a dollar to every word you say, would you make money or lose money? Hmmm... touche!
3. Talk the way reporters write. Start with the headline, follow with a great quote, then add facts sparingly. It's worthwhile to remind everyone that a full TV package is only a minute-twenty seconds and VOs and VO/SOTs are much, much shorter.
4. Know your personality types. Analytical types give too many figures and stats, introverts may be too shy, and emotional types might get off topic. Adjust accordingly for each situation.
5. Practice, practice, practice! Even if you only get a few minutes before the interview.
   

And lucky for us... A spokesperson from BP will be appearing at the PRSA Tulsa Chapter's annual professional development conference, coming up Oct. 14th at OU-Tulsa. To check out the agenda, or to register, just click here: http://bit.ly/b04KEy

Be sure to think up some really good questions for our speaker! Hope to see you all there!

Gearing up for Tulsa PRSA's professional development seminar Oct. 14th!

In only THREE weeks, our local PRSA chapter will hold its annual professional development seminar!

Lots of exciting changes this year. For the first time we're holding the event at OU-Tulsa! Tracy Kennedy, Glenda Silvey and Karen Mulkey in OU-Tulsa's communications department are all faithful PRSA members, so a HUGE thanks to them for helping us get the event moved to Founder's Hall on their campus.

In fact, fellow PRSA board member Aimee Mehl and I did a site visit with Tracy today and the facility is just gorgeous. Not only is it beautiful, it's so high tech! I was blown away! There is wireless Internet in the Perkins Auditorium and in all the breakout rooms, as well as outlets at each desk, so you can fire up your laptop and plug in other devices during the conference.

Check out the picture Aimee took of Founder's Hall!

If you're interested in our agenda and all the fabulous speakers we have, you can do so at http://www.prsatulsa.com/. Register for the event there too!

I just hit the 10,000 mark in my email inbox!

Wow... can we hire someone to just come in and clean up my inbox? I've been getting messages for approximately four years now telling me my inbox is full. Uh, then cut me off, IT gods!

Ahhh... my first post

I wish I had something really witty, creative and cool to say here, since it is my first post after all... but who am I kidding? It took me so long to figure out this blog business that I'm just going to go pour myself a glass of wine and watch a re-run of Jersey Shore. Nothing like Jersey Shore to make me feel intellectually superior. Looking forward to many witty, creative and cool posts in the future! G'nite!