HISD PR debacle fallout: Examiner News to beef up HISD coverage
The Examiner newspapers have added their voice to the criticism of the decision by HISD's inexperienced new PR staffer Jason Spencer to release an important audit to his old buddies at the Chronicle (and brief them on it) a half day before HISD briefed other local reporters at a press conference.
Indeed, the Examiner reports that the Chron got their *ahem* special report before it was actually seen by principals at the affected magnet schools, and apparently some or all members of the HISD Board.
To make matters worse, when the Examiner confirmed (via public information request and questioning) Spencer's selective release of the public's information to the newspaper that previously employed him, Spencer dug the hole even deeper:
Spencer demeaned both the Examiner and Houston Press as not having a high enough circulation for HISD to consider seriously, also making the point that the Chronicle has a full-time education reporter.
We suspect many more folks are getting their news from television, so even that flimsy rationale falls flat (where was their special briefing? Not that HISD should be in the business of playing media favorites at all). And Spencer's clumsy followup to his rookie mistake (it's a tough job for a pro, let alone a newbie) has produced the predictable backlash:
Starting this week, Examiner news editor Michael Reed is being assigned full time to cover HISD — not education in general, just HISD. Mike is an award-winning journalist with nearly three decades in the business. You probably recognize his byline from his reporting on Metro, which is widely credited for helping transform that troubled agency.
The assignment is especially fitting because Metro’s practices (since dismantled) included its virtual exclusion of all local media but the Chronicle to keep the public in the dark about what was going on at that agency. That strategy eventually contributed to the downfall of virtually every executive at Metro.
HISD might want to study those lessons. We intend to help tutor them.
Smooth move, HISD! As we hinted in the previous post, it's probably time for Terry Grier and/or the HISD Board to step in and give Mr. Spencer some guidance in handling the people's information in a more straightforward manner moving forward. Every inexperienced PR hand needs to learn the art of "walking back" a debacle at some point!
As the perfect footnote to all this, the Chronicle's Mike Snyder tweeted the following earlier, in response to some links to the Examiner news story:
@trentseibert whining about this is getting tiresome. U think press or examiner would have turned down same deal?
Did he just call the Press and Examiner whiners? Wow! It's not like we really needed further confirmation that the pro-establishment Chron (or pro-METRO Snyder) too often likes to be first in line to offer uncritical, PR coverage of local institutions, but there it is.
As news consumers (and taxpayers), we're very much looking forward to the unintended fallout from Jason Spencer's new "media strategery" -- more news coverage of HISD is good for the community.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/11/11 09:37 PM | Print |
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