✅ Monday briefing: BBC link standards, Sky data journalism, corporate crime, brand vandals, PR capitalism, voice transcription, WaddsCon July, Socially Mobile launch, and more…

Media, best and bad practice, industry, tools, social media and platforms, and events

This newsletter is crowdsourced each week from my blog and community of practice for people studying and working in marketing, media and PR. It’s a hive mind, newsroom and source of information, help and support.

Media

🔗 BBC LINK STANDARDS: Links to external websites from BBC News must be editorially justifiable and should not be influenced by political or commercial pressures or personal interests. Editors must follow strict editorial guidelines when selecting and managing suitable external links and pulling third-party content onto BBC Online pages. Spotted Andrew Smith.

📰 SKY DATA JOURNALISM: Trust in journalism has increased during the pandemic. Consumers have relied on news outlets for information and interpretation of data. It has led to Sky News putting data journalism at the heart of its reporting according to John Ryley, Head of Sky News. Spotted Stephen Waddington.

Best and bad practice

🌊 CORPORATE CRIME: ESG may be rising up the corporate agenda but not at Southern Water. It has been fined £90m for deliberately pouring sewage into the sea. The utility dumped between 16bn and 21bn litres of raw sewage off north Kent and Hampshire coasts over a period of six years to avoid costs and penalties. Spotted Jon Clements.

⚽ LETTER IN LEADERSHIP: England football manager Gareth Southgate wrote about his journey to manager of the national team in a letter to the nation. Only around 1,200 players have ever represented England at senior men’s level. It’s a profound privilege particularly after such an extremely difficult year. Spotted James Whatley.

🍺 SOCIAL AD STORM: Heineken riled anti-vaxxers with an advert celebrating people that have had the COVID-19 vaccine. It led to calls for consumers to boycott the beer on Twitter and YouTube showing yet again that social media isn’t a medium for informed debate. Spotted Dave Barrowcliff.

❤️‍ BRAND VANDALS: A TikTok of a walkout by McDonalds employees in California went viral. It alleged poor working conditions, low salaries, and incompetent management. The situation was subsequently deemed to be false by Newsweek fact checkers. Nonetheless it serves as a case study of social media employee activism. Spotted Elena Summer.

📵 AD BAN: The UK advertising watchdog has banned an advert by Brewdog for misleading claims about the health benefits of one of its products. It follows complaints over a previous misleading ad and employees’ complaints about the controversial brewer. Spotted Sharon Wheeler.

Industry

📖 PR CAPITALISM: Anne M. Cronin challenges the role of public relations in society and its contribution to organisational purpose in her book Public Relations Capitalism: Promotional Culture, Publics and Commercial Democracy. Cronin is highly sceptical of the value promised by the commercial public relations industry and does not hold back in her criticism. Source Stephen Waddington.

Tools

🗣️ VOICE TRANSCRIPTION: Otter.ai is frequently recommended by my community for audio transcription. It will turn live speech and recorded video and audio into a text file. Subscribers can use this link for a free one-month PRO trial. Spotted Gavin Harris.

🔍 AD FREE SEARCH: A team of ex-Google execs is building an ad free search engine that does not track personal data. Neeva will charge users $5 per month. Sign up for early access. Spotted Stephen Waddington.

📨 REVERSE MEDIA DATABASE: Vetted is a reverse media database that is used by journalists and experts as a way to contact each other. It uses a payment by results model and helps journalists find specific experts for their stories. It is currently US focussed but has aspirations for international expansion. Spotted Stephen Waddington.  

Social media and platforms

👨‍⚖️ TRUMP VS SOCIAL: Former US President, Donald Trump, has filed a law suit against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube claiming he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored. Legal experts say the suits are likely doomed to fail, given existing precedent and legal protections. Spotted David Gallagher. 

Events

📆 WADDSCON JULY: Paul Clarke, Shayoni Lynn, Naomi Jones and Nigel Sarbutts will join WaddsCon at the end of July to discuss the value of an image, the opportunity for behavioural science in PR, what ESG means in practice and a rough guide to freelancing. Book yourself a ticket.

🗓️ SOCIALLY MOBILE: This is the last call to join Sarah Waddington CBE and I on 21 July for the fundraising launch at the House of St Barnabas in London to find out more about Socially Mobile. It’s our new community interest company that aims to improve socio-economic diversity in PR. Spaces are limited. Source Stephen Waddington.