Tag Archives: Ohio

Reno NBC News Station Runs Another Conservative-Laced Story

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in About Reno, Branding, Business, Communication, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Ethics, Government, Government Regulation, Information Technology, Management Practices, Opinion, Politics, Pride, Public Image, Public Relations, Technology, Traditional Media

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Image b Paul Kiser

Is KRNV a Fox or NBC affiliate?

On April 1, Reno’s NBC affiliate, KRNV, has ran another biased ‘A’ Block (headline news) story attacking the Affordable Care Act (ACA) featuring a reporter from the Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI) network. This is at least the third incident of Fox News-type reporting on KRNV in less than a week. This report suggested that the most of the seven million people who signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act already had insurance.  

As in the other biased news stories on KRNV, a non-local reporter presents an anti-government tirade. Chris Vanocur of the ABC affiliate, WSYX in Columbus, Ohio, one of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s 167 stations, starts out by saying:

“Seven million Obamacare new enrollees sounds like a lot, but…”

Image by Paul Kiser taken from video of KRNV newscast 1 April 2014

Grace-Marie Turner, crusader against healthcare reform

Vanocur then introduces Grace-Marie Turner, who has only one mission: oppose any change to healthcare’s broken free-market system. She founded the Galen Institute in 1995 to combat healthcare reform. According to her website, one of the key goals is to:

“Educate policymakers about the dangers that government control over the health sector pose to our economy and our society”

Turner clearly is dedicated to maligning anything regarding the Affordable Care Act. Despite her anti-ACA crusade, Vanocur refers to her as an ‘expert.’ Turner doesn’t hesitate to bear witness against the seven million new enrollees in Obamacare:

“Many of these, if fact, the great majority, are not newly insured people..”

Vanocur continues to say:

“Turner says only one-quarter to one-third of those who signed up didn’t have health insurance before.”

Turner claims to know that 25% to 33% of the seven million had insurance before and switched to Obamacare. She cites no study, nor does Vanocur offer any evidence of the source and/or reliability of the data. Rather, Vanocur offers another ‘expert’:

“…and she’s not the only one questioning the seven million number” 

Vanocur is referring to Joe Antos, his next ‘expert,’ of the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research (AEI.) Antos also claims to have reliable data on the new enrollees:

“It’s very likely that it’s no more than 1.5 million people who are actually new customers who were not already insured.”

Antos testifies that only 21% of the total enrollees had no insurance. Again, no source is presented for the ever dwindling number of previously uninsured. The only thing that kept this new story from becoming a Jon Lovitz sketch was Antos saying, “Yeah, yeah, 21%, That’s the ticket!”

Like other Sinclair generated anti-government ‘news’ stories (See articles on KRNV news stories of March 26 and March 28,) only one-side of the topic is presented and no data supports the claims made by the reporter, nor his sources. The irony is that on the same day, KRNV’s sister NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, KSNV, ran a locally produced news story on the ACA enrollment that discussed sign up issues, but kept a more balanced perspective.

NEXT:  How Sinclair Broadcast Group is using a FCC loophole to control multiple stations in one market. (Read article) 

The Blazek Syndrome

01 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by in Branding, Business, Communication, Crisis Management, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Education, Ethics, Generational, Honor, Human Resources, Internet, Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Opinion, Public Image, Public Relations, Respect, Social Media Relations, Women

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Kelly Blazek - Armed with a keyboard and dangerous

Kelly Blazek – Armed with a keyboard and dangerous

You may not recognize the name Kelly Blazek, but she is the poster child for public image disaster. When people wonder how bad personal embarrassment can be, we now have Blazek as our code word for really, really bad. 

Kelly Blazek is probably a decent human being, but what she will be remembered for is her moments of ‘Ms. Hyde’ behavior. She founded a job bank listing for marketing and public relations positions in the Cleveland, Ohio area. She had a WordPress blog and Twitter, LinkedIn accounts. Head hunter Blazek was also recognized as “Communicator of the Year.” by a local business group.

Within a matter of days she went from a leader in her field to a ghost. There is no blog site, no Twitter account, nor any trace of her other than a growing number of postmortems in blogs and news articles of her epic nasty responses to people who reached out to her.

The Blazek Syndrome
Her story is a step-by-step, what-not-to-do in business.

STEP ONE:  Don’t let frustrations with the job spill over into your communications and interactions.

Among the most notorious of her responses, Blazek reacted to a college graduate seeking to connect with her as part of her job search. Her manner that can best be described as vile. Among the barrage of hateful statements were the following:

“I love the sense of entitlement in your generation. And therefore I enjoy Denying (sic) your invite…. (to connect on LinkedIn.)”

“I suggest you join the other Job Bank in town. Oh wait — there isn’t one.”

“You’re welcome for your humility lesson for the year.”

Everyone has a bad day, but any business person should know that what you write is what will save you or hang you. There is no excuse Blazek could offer for her verbal abuse of this job seeker.

STEP TWO:  Making a mistake, even as massive as this one, does not mean it’s the final chapter. Life is not over and running and hiding will not help.

Blazek has compounded the crisis by trying to disappear. When sharks smell blood of a wounded fish they go into a frenzy. By disengaging from social media, people may lose interest, but what will remain is the public shame. The best time to do damage repair is while people are still paying attention

STEP THREE:  Apologize over and over.

Instead of deleting social media accounts, use them. In a public image crisis people need to hear every possible sincere apology, but do NOT attempt to offer excuses. 

STEP FOUR:  Listen to what is being said and respond with humility.

Remember BP’s  Tony Hayward remark, “I want my life back.” The public image crisis is over when people say its over, not when the disgraced person wants it to be over. Read what other people are saying and respond in a kind and humble way to as many people as you can. Make the story about the lesson learned. 

Hey Stupid, Privacy is Dead and Your Face is the Reason

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Communication, Crime, Crisis Management, Customer Relations, Ethics, Generational, Government, Honor, Information Technology, Internet, Lessons of Life, parenting, Photography, Public Relations, Relationships, Respect, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Social Media Relations, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Facial recognition software is the final nail in Internet privacy

Facial recognition software is the final nail in Internet privacy

Go ahead, just try to protect your privacy. Give up Facebook. Scoff at Twitter. Swear you’re going to never sign on the computer again. It is all useless.

Stick a fork in privacy on the Internet. There no such thing as privacy on the Internet, nor is there privacy off the Internet.

A girl decides to check up on her boyfriend. She happens to be an attorney in Ohio and has access to the State’s facial recognition software. She uses it to snoop on her boyfriend and other people her friends were dating. This was in 2008. Five years ago and she was using (well, misusing) facial recognition software that was meant for finding criminals.

It doesn’t matter whether you take the picture or post it. It doesn’t even matter if you knew you were in the picture. New Years Eve? Good luck in keeping your face out of every picture that people around you take. If your face shows up in a posted picture, it can be found and matched. 

Not only law enforcement is using facial recognition software. Casinos are using it. Some suggest that Disney is using it in their parks. Retailers are using it. Your significant other can buy it and download it today. If you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, watch this TED Talk on facial recognition software.

Anthony Weiner: Too bad it wasn't his face that got him in trouble

Anthony Weiner: Too bad it wasn’t his face that got him in trouble

There is no such thing as privacy. One more time. There is no such thing as privacy.

THE ANSWER
Behave. That’s it. Or at least know that if you don’t behave everyone will find out and it will be at the worst possible moment for you. People learn how to behave when they go out in public. The Internet is public. There is no difference.