Tim Bell

Well it was certainly a gripping read. From being arrested for lewd conduct to his cocaine addiction to his relationship with Margaret Thatcher - it was hard to put the book down and I would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in political communication and public affairs.

The book begins with Tim's family history and it was personally relevant to me as they are from the Hornsey area of London which is where I live now. It then chronologically progresses through Tim's middle class schooling and family life highlighting how blessed he was with the gift of the gab. His relationship with the Saatchi brothers is fascinating as it was certainly volatile by the time Tim came to leave. Mrs Thatcher certainly seemed to hold him in some esteem and he played a big part in the successes - and then failures - of the Conservative Party.

What was interesting to me is that the book focuses mainly on his advertising career which was incredibly successful and then when it considers his PR career as an adviser it seems to only highlight his failures, for example, with the BBC and British Gas. However it didn't seem to matter about these failures as it was people's perception of his role that meant that he remained in demand as an adviser. Tim says himself "I can fall into a sewer and come up smelling of roses". And the book certainly backs this statement up.

The fact that the author states that it is an unauthorised biography and that Tim Bell refused to comment leads to a certain intrigue as to either how much of the book is true, or how much of the truth has been omitted because people refused to talk. Either way it was a compelling read about a charming, successful man.

I have now started reading another Mark Hollingsworth book "MPs for Hire: the secret world of political lobbying" and will again review it in another post.

Changing trends

Well, although new media and PR is a very interesting topic I have decided to shift the focus of my blog to Public Affairs.

The reason for this is because Public Affairs is my main focus at the moment as I have just started a module in the same topic and also because it is one of the fasting growing areas of PR. I will be looking at the ethics involved in PA and will also examine some case studies.

I am mid-way through reading "The Ultimate Spin Doctor - The Life and Fast Times of Tim Bell" by Mark Hollingsworth which is very interesting so far although as it is written chronologically it is mainly about his early career in advertising and his relationship with Saatchi and Saatchi rather than his later career in political PR advising.

I will return to review the book at a later date.

Convergence

Another PR trend that happens to be directly related to my field of work is convergence.

I first started working in the communications industry about 4.5 years ago when there was a clear divide between TV, radio and telecommunications.

Now, however, we have BT offering TV and BSkyB offering broadband. All of these changes mean that PR practioners will have to alter the way in which they work to communicate with their public.

We have numerous 24 hour news channels, websites such as You Tube, newspapers, magazines etc constantly bombarding us with information so PR people will have to focus on designing the best message and using the most appropriate method of distribution. Messages will need to become more targeted to reach the desired audience and evaluation of what works will become more important in public relations.

Saddam Hussein

I managed to miss the media frenzy surrounding the hanging of Saddam Hussein (the joys of being in Thailand with infrequent internet and newspaper access) but returned to work to find out that the office was inundated with journalist calls (which I would have normally handled) about the coverage on UK television.

This well-written, informative article by Ray Snoddy highlights the difficulties that broadcasters face when using citizen journalism http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2132898.ece and calls into question whether there should be different rules for different types of media. I look forward to seeing how this argument develops, particularly in light of the AVMS Directive in Europe regarding the regulation of TV on the internet. http://www.out-law.com/page-7608