Media People

Longtime CBS News exec Kevin Tedesco has been promoted to Executive Director, Communications. Tedesco, who has been with CBS News for 14 years, has worked mainly on 60 Minutes.

In an internal memo CBS News Senior Vice President of Communications Jeff Ballabon said, "Kevin has had plenty to brag about recently as America's number-one news program had its best season in many years and was duly recognized by the press, thanks in no small part to Kevin's efforts."

Click continued to read the full memo.

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The New York Times Managing Editor John Geddes is interviewed by readers in this week's "Talk to the Newsroom" feature on NYTimes.com. One of the questions that came up:

With journalists stretched thinner than ever, how is the relationship between P.R. reps and journalists changing? Specifically, is there a general sense among busy journalists that public relations people are becoming a greater nuisance, or a more invaluable source to produce stories more quickly?

How did Geddes respond? Click here to find out.

Earlier this week we asked the question, "Do Former Journalists Make Good PR Pros?" which generated a healthy debate in the comments section of that post.

At least one media company owner believes "traditional media" journalists don't make for good online reporters. At I Want Media's The Future of Media: 2009 panel yesterday, Gawker Media's Nick Denton told attendees:

"It's very, very tempting right now to say, 'Ok, let's go out and let's hire 50 of the best people from newspapers and magazines..." but went on to say, "they don't adjust well to working online."

FishbowlNY's Amanda Earnst attended the panel, which also featured former Star magazine editor Bonnie Fuller, The Wall Street Journal's deputy managing editor Alan Murray, Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Read her take here.

[image cred]

Manhattan is cheap again. And The New York Times' Michael Grynbaum spoke with AdAge's Matthew Creamer and former PRWeek EIC turned Attention PR exec Keith O'Brien to prove it!

Both were quoted in Grynbaum's story on outer-borough folk moving back into Manhattan now that landlords are forced to fill apartments at much cheaper rents. Said O'Brien, "There's a part of me that feels like I'm cheating on Brooklyn...but this was a unique moment in real estate history where renters have the upper hand, which seemed unbelievable a couple of years ago. I realized that it would have been foolish not to start looking at places."

Grynbaum wrote that "For an extra $100 a month, Mr. O'Brien - a seven-year Brooklyn stalwart - is now enjoying a trendy location and a six-minute commute, in exchange for losing half of his living space." We emailed O'Brien, who confirmed the "trendy" neighborhood is indeed the Lower East Side. Although O'Brien also confirmed that he rolls his eyes and deploys air quotes when using the word "trendy."

[Panelists Josh Rushing, Ari Fleischer, and Tina Brown, with moderator Gideon Yago. Photo by Diane Bondareff/IFC via VanityFair.com]

President Georg Bush #43's Press Secretary #1 (of 4) Ari Fleisher continued to toe his Administration's line yesterday during a panel discussion to promote the IFC Media Project at the Paley Center for Media.

He was baited in to defending the steps taken that led to the rebranding of torture--i.e. extreme interrogation--by a "daydreaming" Peggy Noonan. Stating the obvious that no one likes to receive a subpoena, Fleisher said "I'll be proud to testify if I get a subpoena. I'm proud of what we did to protect this country."

Hamilton Nolan from Gawker held no love for Fleisher or Noonan, and noted the irony of the former Press Sec's grade of "C" given to the Obama administration for transparency.

Attention reps both Tina Brown's Daily Beast, and the IFC.

Related: Ari Fleischer's Bizarre Revisionist History on Hardball

[McNicol with Matt Cooper, via HuffingtonPost by way of the New York Observer]

Our colleague Glynnis MacNicol, editor of mediabistro's FishbowlNY blog is jumping ship to join Dan Abrams in his new consulting venture, Abrams research. McNichol joins Rachel Sklar and 'Daily Show with Jon Stewart' producer Colby Hall as editors of Mediaite.com, the media news and aggregation blog site Abrams is launching as a "calling card". Abrams and Sklar have been talking to a number of media writers about the venture.

If you haven't been swimming in the New York media fishbowl lately, you may not know that BusinessWeek's Jon Fine raised questions about Abrams' approach to PR consulting, to which he shot back on Mediabistro's daily podcast. Fine incidentally, is married to mediabistro founder Laurel Touby.

Related: Former MSNBC Exec Launches "Media Strategy" Firm

Today at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, TX, PRNewser spoke with Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, "one of the largest tech blogs on the web...with a staff of 12 people," according to Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick said that ReadWriteWeb is big on RSS and recommended that all PR people send them an OPML file with all of their client company feeds. "We look at those company RSS feeds first thing in the morning, every day," he said. RWW is also big on instant messaging, but Marshall said to email tips@readwriteweb.com to get information on any individual writer's IM.

Also, Kirkpatrick told PR pros their embargoed news is safe with ReadWriteWeb."We're very comfortable working under embargo...We think that embargoes play an important role in facilitating well developed coverage of announcements. We race our competitors on breaking news all day long, but we like it when we have the opportunity to take some time and compete on quality," he said.

PRNewser caught up with Peter Kafka, Senior Editor and MediaMemo blogger at Dow Jones' All Things Digital at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX.

Here are some of Peter's tips to PR pros about his beat and how to best work with him:

> "If it's something that fits on a screen, somewhere, I can cover it. [I'm interested in] Who's going to pay for new media, who's going to consume it, what's it going to look like."

> On pitching: "Seek me out when you're not pitching something. Introduce yourself, tell me who you work with, maybe with you work with a client I want to know more about and we'll start a relationship that way. It's slow, it's difficult, it's not going to get you instant results."

> "The best thing to do is have your CEO call or email me. I know you guys [PR] don't want to do that, because you want to be in the middle of that process, but really your CEO is a smart person and they talk to vendors, competitors, advertisers, investors - all this really difficult stuff, so talking to me isn't that difficult. So if you guys want to make your money and do this well, help them connect to me, and then clear out of the way."

Like his boss, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has a smooth way of diffusing attacks from detractors, while throwing a sly punch or two.

Last week it was the rantings of CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli prompting a Gibbs response. Santelli, it turned out, was not connected to a movement of "Tea parties".

This week Gibbs responded to criticism from Mad Money host and former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer, saying his audience doesn't really represent the broader population, and that his predictions have been a bit off, "if every loan in 2006 that was subprime blew up…we would still not notice."

As pundits continue to pile on Obama, it'll be interesting to see if the response strategy is as cohesive and smooth as it was during the campaign.

[via Jake Tapper's Political Punch blog]

Financial news and information services company Bloomberg LP announced its first ever layoffs last week. Among those laid off was Fred Fishkin, producer of the well known Bootcamp, "a report on computers and technology."

Click continued for the complete list of layoffs. Hat tip: Chaim Haas.

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