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In our last podcast, we spoke about the rise of fake news. Turns out we have more to say on the topic, which has ballooned across mainstream media in the past couple of weeks. Paul talks about building brand loyalty and trust from research that he did from an earlier book on social media influencers. David mentions this article in Teen Vogue of all places, where the reporter brings up the movie/play Gaslight and how our future president is using similar tactics to setup problems and then offer “solutions.” Gaslighting is just one aspect of fake news, and one issue is that reporters have to take the time to be skeptical and do more research to explore the “news” item and explain why it is false.

Also in this week’s episode we remark about a column that appeared in Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey: for a limited time you can read the article even if you aren’t a subscriber to Whitmore’s site. journalist Christina Farr (shown here) talks about how PR reps need to stop inserting themselves in the conversation when not requested or needed. “There are still (PR) agencies that would rather lose coverage than lose control,” she says. Those execs that she can directly communicate with get more ink. She also talks about the downsides of news embargoes, and we discuss how we respond when the drop date has to be pushed: then the item is fair game to be posted.

About David Strom

David Strom is a former editor-in-chief of Network Computing and Tom's Hardware who has written two computer networking books and thousands of articles about B2B IT.

About Paul Gillin

Paul Gillin, host of FIR B2B, is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. Full bio