✅ Monday briefing: WaddsCon, media plurality, carbon as a metric, fake spokesperson, internet life, reframe videos, tech trends, Cannes Condensed and more...

Media, industry, good and bad practise, research and insight, tools, social media and platforms and events

George Coleman, Tom Rouse, Sarah Waddington CBE and Martin Agunwa will join WaddsCon on Friday, 1-2pm. They’ll discuss the importance of creating accessible communications, why PR has become so dull and worthy, tackling socio-economic diversity and how to make PR attractive to young people. Book yourself a ticket.

Media

🛒 MEDIA INTELLIGENCE DEAL: Access Intelligence, owner of Pulsar and Vulio, is set to acquire Australian based media intelligence and insights firm iSentia Group. The acquisition increases Access Intelligence’s scale, product set and geographic coverage in Asia and Australia. Spotted Stuart Bruce.

🗣️ MEDIA PLURALITY CONSULTATION: Ofcom has launched a consultation to inform its next steps on media plurality in the UK. It is seeking input from stakeholders on specific features of the current news media landscape, as well as consulting on proposed changes to the media ownership rules. Spotted Andy Barr. 

Industry

📏 CARBON AS A METRIC: PR practitioners must measure carbon in the rush to address ESG concerns as a report suggests that the UK is woefully unprepared for climate risk. The PR industry congratulates itself for banishing AVE from awards. It must now recognise that carbon is the single most important metric for sustainability. Source Stephen Waddington.

Good and bad practice

😱 AIRBNB CLEAN-UP CREW: Airbnb’s so-called safety team helps clean up when things go badly wrong in order to protect its reputation. An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek exposes hefty payouts to silence Airbnb guests that were victims of crime including murder and rape. Spotted Andy Oliver.

👻 FAKE SPOKESPERSON: Blade Air Mobility, think Uber for helicopters, allegedly created a fake, non-existent corporate spokesperson to field media calls. The PRCA’s Francis Ingham said the incident was  “bizarre.” Spotted Stuart Bruce.

Research and insight

😴 REMOTE PRODUCTIVITY: A study of 10,000 employees found that people work longer hours at home but not more efficiently. The study used software installed on employees’ computers that tracked which applications or websites were active, and whether the employee was using the keyboard or a mouse. Spotted Andrew Smith.

🤥 HANDLING MISINFORMATION: A Nieman Lab paper examines how platforms are handling misinformation. Strategies include downranking, editorial panels, labelling and removal. The paper seeks crowdsourced solutions and is the first step towards building an intervention database. Spotted David Gallagher.

🌐 INTERNET LIFE: Ofcom’s Online Nation 2021 Report covers every aspect of adoption and behaviour on the internet in the UK. It is an incredible planning resource. We’ve pulled out trends from the 185 page report across eight areas. Source Stephen Waddington.

📊 MEDIA OPERATIONS: The Government Communication Service has published a best practice guide on Modern Media Operation. The guide covers proactive media handling, reactive media handling, relationship management, content creation and evaluation.  It identifies benchmarks for the skills and capabilities. Spotted Stuart Bruce.

🔬 BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE: Lynn PR’s BS Monitor is the first dedicated pulse-check of literacy, skills and adoption of behavioural science in the public relations and communications industry. Take the survey here. (Disclaimer: Lynn PR is a Wadds Inc. client). Source Shayoni Lynn.

📈 TECH TRENDS: Automation, connectivity, distributed infrastructure, next-generation computing and applied AI are all among McKinsey's technology trends. A new report identifies critical trends for organisations and plots their application and maturity. Spotted David Gallagher.

Tools

📹 REFRAME VIDEOS: Smart Crop is a tool within Facebook’s Creator Studio that will reframe and resize the aspect ratios of videos to 1:1 or 4:5 for the newsfeed. It optimises for the main subject in the content, keeping the main subjects centered and in-frame. Spotted Alan Morrison.

🎣 FACEBOOK AUTO MODERATION: Facebook is launching a suite of tools that will help group admins manage Facebook communities by identifying unhealthy conversations. The tool is called Conflict Alerts and it will let admins create custom alerts for when commenters use certain words and phrases. Spotted Andrew Smith.

Social media and platforms

👎 SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS: ASA and CAP has released a list of social media influencers who have breached their rules for routinely failing to clearly disclose paid activity. It includes Chloe Ferry, Chloe Khan, Jodie Marsh and Lucy Mecklenburgh. Spotted Neil Patterson.

🔊 LIVE AUDIO: Spotify has launched a live audio app called Spotify Greenroom The Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces close allows users to join or host live audio rooms and turn conversations into podcasts. Spotted David Gallagher.

Events

📅 CANNES CONDENSED: I've a long term campaign along with Darryl Sparey to bring the Cannes Festival of Creativity to Sunderland. It's getting closer. Maja Pawinska Sims will bring industry speakers and panelists from Brighton on Thursday. The event is free to join. Source Maja Pawinska Sims.