Sunday, September 5, 2021

🤫 New PR ploy

Plus: "The biggest story of our lives" | Sunday, September 05, 2021
 
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Axios Sneak Peek
By the Axios Politics team ·Sep 05, 2021

Welcome back to an abbreviated Sneak. We hope you're having a great holiday weekend. And Shanah Tovah to our friends celebrating Rosh Hashanah!

Smart Brevity™ count: 999 words ... 4 minutes. Edited by Glen Johnson.

 
 
1 big thing: New PR ploy
Illustration of a piece of cloth covering a handshake between two people.

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

 

The head of a prominent centrist advocacy group quietly seeded a news outlet that provides a steady stream of positive coverage for her organization and its board members' lobbying clients, Axios' Lachlan Markay has learned.

Why it matters: The fragmentation of digital media means virtually anyone can be a publisher. When public affairs intersects with political coverage, it can blur the lines between news and advocacy.

The big picture: The Well News says it "reaches more than 5 million Americans" through its website, videos and social media channels.

  • It was founded in 2018 by Cori Kramer, the executive director of Center Forward, and Kristen Hawn, a PR consultant who's worked with the group. Internal communications reviewed by Axios show they've had direct input on TWN's editorial product.
  • "Our founders wanted a news outlet that highlights practical policy-making, good governance and brings a voice to people and events that are often overlooked in the current news climate," its website says.
  • TWN has written positively about Center Forward without disclosing its co-founder's dual roles. It's also promoted "leading bipartisan public affairs firm ROKK Solutions" without mentioning that Hawn is a partner at that firm.

Between the lines: Like most news outlets, TWN relies on advertising revenue. Its website is frank about the opportunity that it provides its financial backers.

  • "[W]e serve as an extension of your marketing team, so contact us below and put us to work building a strategic, holistic, cross-channel marketing plan that makes you look like a hero," TWN says.
  • Among those advertisers is tobacco giant Philip Morris, which has paid to place content on the site praising its smokeless products and its efforts to root out PPE fraud.
  • Archived versions of both those ads show them initially appearing as standard TWN stories without any sponsored-content disclaimers.
  • TWN would not speak on the record about those ads in response to multiple Axios inquiries. A person familiar with the site's operations insisted they were properly disclosed at the time, and that internet archives omit website elements that included the disclaimers.

Keep reading.

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2. First photos
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are seen inside the White House.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris discuss notes from a meeting in March about COVID-19. Official White House Photo: Adam Schultz

 

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have their own "Pete Souzas," and they're working to create a visual archive of the new administration, Axios' Glen Johnson reports.

Why it matters: Photographers Adam Schultz, Lawrence Jackson and their colleagues have a number of social media sites that give a look at the president and vice president when the news media isn't present.

  • Souza did the same for President Obama, creating a huge social media following for him and the White House.
  • His legacy has continued with books and an MSNBC special, "The Way I See It."

Schultz photographed Joe Biden throughout the 2020 campaign and now serves as the president's official photographer.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are seen together inside the presidential limousine. Official White House Photo: Adam Schultz
  • Jackson fills the same role for the vice president, after photographing Harris during the general election campaign. He previously was a deputy under Souza during the Obama administration.
Vice President Kamala Harris is seen looking out the window of Marine Two. Official White House Photo: Lawrence Jackson
  • Schultz and Jackson are supported now by fellow official photographers Cameron Smith and Erin Scott.
First Lady Jill Biden is seen looking in the door of the Oval Office. Official White House Photo: Cameron Smith
First lady Jill Biden is seen waving during a July Fourth trip to New England. Official White House Photo: Erin Scott

You can follow their work on the following Instagram accounts:

Their photos also can be found on Flickr at the official White House site. The photographers use these personal accounts too:

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3. First person: A 9/11 memory
Reporter Anthony Shadid is seen in Najaf, Iraq, in 2003.

Anthony Shadid reports from Najaf, Iraq, in December 2003. Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

 

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed the trajectory of many lives, from the people who died to the heroes who responded, to everyone who watched — including one journalist for whom it marked a career-defining moment.

Why it matters: As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches this Saturday, Glen recalls the conversation he had that crisp Tuesday morning with his then-colleague, reporter Anthony Shadid.

What they're saying: "I covered the Massachusetts congressional delegation for the Boston Globe, and when I arrived at the Washington bureau on Connecticut Avenue, I saw our assistant, Cindy Taylor, watching the TV behind her desk.

  • "'A plane hit the World Trade Center,' she told me.
  • "As a former aviation reporter, I was trying to digest the news when a second plane hit the second tower.
  • "Both Cindy and I knew we were no longer looking at a possible accident.

"A short time later, Anthony walked in, his ever-present work bag slung diagonally from one shoulder to the other hip.

  • "When he asked what we were watching, I said, 'Two planes just hit the World Trade Center. It looks like a terrorist attack.'
  • "Without missing a beat, Anthony replied, 'Holy sh-t. This is the biggest story of our lives.'
  • "His instant analysis proved prescient."

In that moment, Anthony was delivered from an ill-fitting assignment — covering New England business interests in the capital — to one for which the native Arabic speaker was bred: reporting about terrorism and Islamic news.

News organizations realized the depth and endurance of the story, and soon Anthony was inundated with offers from an array of papers.

  • He took one offered by the Washington Post, serving as the paper's pan-Islamic correspondent.
  • He was in Afghanistan as President George W. Bush avenged the attack, and convinced his editors to let him stay in Baghdad as the U.S. later bombarded Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
  • Anthony won a Pulitzer for the Post before winning another at the New York Times.

His transformative work as a foreign correspondent came to a sudden and sad end in February 2012. The 43-year-old suffered a fatal asthma attack while covering the Arab Spring uprising in Syria.

In January 2018, his daughter, Laila, wrote about her memory of her father — including her own recollection of him from 9/11.

  • "When smoke poured from the Twin Towers on September 11th, it drifted through our TV and soiled the clean air around us, suffocating our suburban home," wrote Laila Shadid. "My father knew what this meant, he had to go. He was the only one who could tell the real story.
  • "'There's only one place that this will lead back to,' he prophesized to my mother, their eyes glued to the TV."
  • "Unsurprisingly, he was right," Laila wrote. "Off he went to the Middle East."
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A message from AT&T

AT&T unveils 3-year commitment to narrowing the digital divide
 
 

AT&T is continuing to take on the digital divide.

Here's how: The company is helping make affordable internet access a reality for families across the nation with a 3-year, $2 billion investment in broadband expansion.

See how AT&T is bringing connectivity to more Americans.

 

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