Here at AgencyNext it has been a horrendous February, so my apologies to anyone and everyone (especially out at Copywrite, Inc. in Nevada) who noticed I'd gone missing for most of this dreadful month. I'm back. Happily, as the weather is improving, so am I. The sun is up most days on my way to work and I don't have to turn on my headlights going home most days until half-way there. Still, it is about 13 degrees right now and tonight we're expecting five to eight inches of snow.

Starting Monday, I'll be back watching and ranting about the social media scene and talking about a new client or two. Now I have to run because I'm having a special event for two, with me and the last day of February as the guests of honor, so I can kiss this creep of a leap year February good riddance.

'til Monday then…

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Thanks to Heidi Dawley at Media Life Magazine for this article featuring her friend and longtime investigative reporter Nick Davies. Mr. Davies has just written a book. It's entitled, "Flat Earth News." In it, and in Ms. Dawley's article, he asserts……most journalists in much of the developed world are in the business of recycling stories fed to them by the public relations industry and the news wires.

Just his opinion? Not really. A University study of five British newspapers over a two week period showed that only 12 percent of 2,027 stories were original. I'm beggin' ya, 'Stop the Presses.'

Mr. Davies has coined the term 'churnalism.' Reporters are churning out stories to fill bigger news holes, but with less staff and no free time to do any original work. They don't fact check much either, for lack of time. They are fed stories by PR people and wire services. These get accepted as fact.

The reporters know better. We readers know better. Which is why every day when I come to work, all day, the newspapers left here in the morning at this small office complex remain in their wrappers on the walkway. At the end of the week the landlord, Doug, picks them up and trashes them.

At home, my 96-year-old father gets two papers every day. In each, he finds the crossword and puts the rest of everything else in a brown bag from the grocery store which goes out to the curb every Tuesday for recycling. You could say that he, like the reporters, is simply recycling the news.

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Here's the news release Microsoft issued Thursday — Valentine's Day — with this headline: Fourteen leaders promoted as company matches leadership talent to expanding business priorities. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

The headline gets paid off in the first sentence of the first paragraph: Microsoft Corp. today announced a series of executive promotions — seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents — reflective of the company's commitment to build and maintain a strong and dynamic management team across its unique portfolio of businesses. Now how can you argue with that, right?

Well, because it's a reorg, that's why. But you'd never know it from this news release. Instead, you'd have to figure that out on your own — which admittedly seems pretty easy — or you could rely on The New York Times. The headline on their piece calls it an Executive Shuffle, but writer Saul Hansell doesn't take very long to get to the point. He uses the dreaded "r" word right in the first paragraph:

If there was apprehension at Yahoo already about the prospect of a takeover by Microsoft, the fear will no doubt increase as those in Sunnyvale study the details of Microsoft’s reorganization announced Thursday.

This post isn't about Microsoft, per se. It's about traditional PR's ability to ignore the elephant in the room while thinking you're stupid enough to go along with that charade.

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