A weekly roundup of media news and talking points, sans effort
 

Thought for the Week

“Journalism is not a crime and these three activists should be released immediately… … Their detention shows the disturbing lengths the authorities are willing to go to control the message during the National People’s Congress.” William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, in a statement quoted in The Guardian, commenting on the arrest of three Chinese citizen journalists who reported on recent events in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, where protests are said to have included one case of self-immolation.
 

Weekly High

Whilst sometimes the softly softly approach to marketing charities is the best option. At other times, such as this new video from Save The Children designed to raise awareness for the plight of kids in Syria, you need to grab the subject, and your audience, by the nether regions and hit home a message with real ferocity. 24,347,210 views later, not to mention more than 300,000 shares via Facebook and Twitter, and clearly the public agrees with our opinion.

 

Weekly Low

Samsung may currently be winning the smartphone wars but with spokesmen like American pro-basketballer Lebron James on the brand’s side its days at the top may be numbered. The very public advocate of the company behind the impossibly popular Galaxy series of phones sent a tweet this week complaining about how his device had experienced a ‘meltdown’ and deleted everything from its memory. Apparently the lost data was later recovered, and a follow up, peace-making message was later issued, but realistically this really isn’t good news from a marketing perspective.

 

Stories to keep an eye on

*In the ongoing News of the World phone hacking legal case the newspaper’s former Royal Editor, Clive Goodman, has claimed the late Diana, Princess of Wales, gave him a confidential royal telephone directory and later called him to try and secure an ally for herself in the publicity battle against husband Prince Charles. 
*During the filming of a BBC debating show in Birmingham, Free Speech, the programme’s producer refused to allow the panel to answer one audience member’s question because representatives from a mosque were ‘deeply concerned’ with what the potential ramifications of the resulting discussion. The question was “when will it be accepted to be gay and muslim?” – leaving critics with a few quandaries of their own and the BBC in hot water. Again. 

*Trinity Mirror, the UK’s largest publishing house responsible for titles including Daily Mail, Scotland’s Daily Record, Manchester Evening News and a host of other newspapers and magazines, has a pre-tax loss of £161million for 2013, compared with £9.7million profit for 2012. 

Just in case you missed it…

This week (Wednesday) saw the open world wide web as we know it reach the grand old age of 25. A lot has changed between then and now, not least the death of dial up, smoother graphics and a lot more variety of colours- take a look at The Guardian’s ode to the most significant invention of the last quarter century here. 
If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!