Twitter Courts Journalists, Dialogue on LinkedIn and Stop Apologizing!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t work the phrase “those pernicious PR people” into this grab bag post.

Still, here are three bursts related to communications, albeit each longer than 140 characters.

Twitter Looks to Accelerate News Traction

Much has been written on whether Twitter falls under the social media or news media category.

The debate misses the point.

One way or another, Twitter intends to be a channel for news stories, particularly breaking news. With this in mind, Twitter is raking the talent sand for someone to fill the newly created role of “Media – Head of News and Journalism Partnerships.”

The following objective in the job spec captures the thrust of the gig:

It’s very similar to what Facebook did a couple years ago, poaching Vadim Larusik from Mashable to cultivate relationships with journalists.

Deciding to Bring Dialogue on LinkedIn to a Screeching Halt

It’s not every day that the Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei  sits down for a media interview (try roughly 9,100 days = 26 years X 365 days).

Conventional thinking would have had Zhengfei making his debut with a global media power like The Economist or The Wall Street Journal or Reuters.

Instead, he met with journalists in New Zealand, a clever move that meant Huawei gained the best of both worlds: “friendly” journalists with a news hook that would trigger worldwide syndication.

The global head of media relations for Huawei, Scott Sykes, posted the news on LinkedIn where I weighed in.

You can see Teresa Leung, a journalist from Computerworld Hong Kong, twice asked on Syke’s LinkedIn feed if  Mr. Zhengfei plans to meet with HK-based journalists.

I think we can interpret the lack of response as a no.

Refusing to Apologize Can Have Psychological Benefits

Given the increasing use of the apology, this contrarian view in a study by Australian academics caught my attention:

Despite an understanding of the perception and consequences of apologies for their recipients, little is known about the consequences of interpersonal apologies, or their denial, for the offending actor. In two empirical studies, we examined the unexplored psychological consequences that follow from a harm-doer’s explicit refusal to apologize. Results showed that the act of refusing to apologize resulted in greater self-esteem than not refusing to apologize. Moreover, apology refusal also resulted in increased feelings of power/control and value integrity, both of which mediated the effect of refusal on self-esteem. These findings point to potential barriers to victim-offender reconciliation after an interpersonal harm, highlighting the need to better understand the psychology of harm-doers and their defensive behavior for self-focused motives.

There’s something amusing in there somewhere.