Two Swedish Eyes on Media and Public Relations
Undercurrent reports that the German blog Bildblog, which serves as a watchdog by fact checking Bild-Zeitung has sent the paper an invoice of 2.088 euro. They claim that Bild’s online version correct mistakes directly after the bloggers have spotted them.
“So the bloggers claim that they have in effect become unpaid external fact-checkers and editors…”
U2 vocalist Bono continues his efforts to fight AIDS and poverty. He will now serve as guest editor of the UK daily The Independent on May 16. The initiative comes out of a co-operation between the daily and project RED in the struggle against AIDS in Africa. The goal is to convince more large corporations to donate money to the project. The Independent will give half of its revenues on this day to RED.
Simon Kelner, editor-in-chief of The Independent, said that “Bono has a unique insight into world affairs, and, as guest editor, will produce a newspaper that, in the best traditions of The Independent, will be challenging, ground-breaking and exciting.”
The paper continues:
Bono is already at work on items for many sections of the newspaper, inputting ideas and commissioning articles on the arts, sport, fashion, health, motoring and politics – as well as a number of special features on Africa. One of his staff said: “He is tickled to be let loose on such a great paper. He’s enjoying using the talents of its journalists to explore issues that are vital to him. He’s looking forward to having a lot of fun on the day and hopes the readers will too.”
Suspicions that GM would kill the Saab brand might have decreased lately since the car have seen a boost with the Aero X concept vehicle and a new advertising campaign “has raised its exposure and helped increase sales”, according to the Detroit News.
“Any questioning of Saab’s future is over,” Jay Spenchian, general manager of Saab USA, said.
Saab sold 10,847 cars worldwide in April, an increase by 2,5 percent compared to the same month in 2005. The US is the largest market, with 50 percent more sold cars than in Sweden.
Tags: Saab, GM, brand. [Via Agenda Inc.]
Here are a few interesting stories from around the PR blogosphere:
Niall Cook writes about how his insurance company is giving him, a loyal customer, a worse deal than new customers. Needless to say, he switched company.
Piaras Kelly notes that Irish companies start to get media coverage from their blogs.
Steve Rubel posts about an ad agency that has sued a blogger. Not necessarily good PR.
Columnist Linda Skugge promotes her new blog “Things that grow”, which costs 69 kronor to read, by sending out emails with the initial blog posts. Mickey J has the screenshots and he doesn’t seem excessively impressed. [Via Beta Alpha 2.0]
Update: Mickey claims he knows (how???) that Skugge has 111 paying subscribers, which equals 7.659 kronor for a couple of months of blogging.
William Swanson, chief executive of Raytheon, will not get a raise this year and will see his restricted stock get cut by 20 percent because he was caught with plagiarism of a book. Guess who discovered the story? A blogger, of course.