In this article in BizReport by Helen Leggatt entitled, "Marketing agencies lack social media know-how," there is this quote by Jim Nail, chief marketing and strategy officer at TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony: "You get the sense that agencies talk a good game… They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns, the day-to-day management skills are not meeting the marketers' expectations."

You can say that again. I owned an establishment firm once. I know how to talk a good game. As long as the agency has that skill, it can keep talking the good game to bring new clients in through the front door at a rate more or less equal to the the count of disgruntled clients exiting out the back.

A more important concern or question — and one I've been trying to figure out for some time now– is why are the traditionalists so slow to the fair? My leading theory so far: for a traditional agency to master social media is akin to a pharma company inventing an over the counter remedy to their own, leading, expensive, perscription drug. Much of social  media can be DIY (or DWA, as in, Do Without Agencies).

The article is actually about the risk of having an agency faking it on your behalf. Summarizing the feeling of a range of corporate types, Ms. Leggatt writes: "…by applying old models to social media, traditional agencies could do more harm than good."  In my experience, that happens to be very, very true!

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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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