Her recent unfortunate bout of Malaria incited national coverage of not only her but follow up features on the disease itself, the risks and stats, and of course, commentary on the issue of Malaria from many a health source, keen to bask in the Tweedy limelight.

Reams of public support make it clear that Cheryl is the UK’s sweetheart. Yes, it seems she can do no wrong but the pressure must be mounting to maintain an image which will soon become her – luckily for Cheryl, it’s a pretty positive image to boot.

The public have been made privy to minute details her life played out in the media, she’s appeared in every newspaper and glossy possible – we must be close to bursting point? The only problem is, by gaining such exposure Cheryl is just that – exposed. She has given up any ounce of mystery, something which she may find damaging in the future… á la Agyness Deyn.

A couple of years ago Burberry dropped Agyness as the face of their brand for being ‘too famous’ following her explosion onto the fashion scene and immense popularity to boot. The Metro quoted Mario Testino declaring he was ‘sick of seeing her face’. Less is most definitely more then?

Another example of this phenomenon is George Clooney who was branded ‘too famous to date’ by ex-girlfriend Lisa Snowdon – that’ll go down well! Too famous to date. Astonishing. His profile is clearly so stratospheric that even other celebrities find him out of reach – Clooney has become a caricature of himself.

It seems that ‘celebrity’ itself can engulf a person until they become untouchable, or at the other end of the spectrum, have been around the block a few too many times. Yes, publicity and raising a person’s profile will do wonders for their career, but it needs to be relevant exposure and the intended career path must be considered before firing off appearances every which way for instant fame.

Picture source: www.timeslive.co.za

The Times’ paywall has sparked fierce debate into the very fundamentals of what it means to be a newspaper. It all feels so aggressive. Newspapers are supposed to be for the people, sharing information that matters and is in the public interest, accessible to all!

Forgive me for playing devil’s advocate here, but what’s the big problem with paying for a product? Are we so used to free online content at the cost of being bombarded with advertisements? And anyway, we’ve all been paying for BBC content for years!

 However, the reports are in and we hear that just 15,000 people signed up to pay for access. A meagre circulation considering the opening offer of £1 for 30 days – cheaper than a month of print papers, but it seems people simply do not like to pay for online content.

However, a little birdie tells me that print subscribers get free access to the online site – hmmm, perhaps it’s a clever ploy to boost print subscriptions is at play?

The Times is known for quality reporting with good sourcing, but the proof, they say, will be in the pudding when readers make the trade off between clean reporting and a plethora of free online sources.

But sharing is having a moment and let’s face it, asking for payment is not in the spirit of sharing. With so many alternative, perfectly effective sources available, the success of the Times paywall may be entirely dependant on whether other publications impose a paywall too – it could become an all or nothing scenario.

Image by Just.Luc at www.flickr.com

There is a certain guilty pleasure in reading about the exploits of high profile individuals, and mud flinging between the big characters at Ryanair and Easyjet are no different.

Take the advertising space purchased by Sir Stelios of Easyjet in this weekend’s papers. That  doesn’t come cheap, but instead of using it wisely, the public were treated to cartoons depicting Ryanair’s chief exec, O’Leary, at confession captioned “arrogant” and “the ugly face of capitalism”. Yet another in a long line of digs between the pair.

O’Leary and Stelios as the faces of their respective brands clearly don’t have company image at the forefront of their minds. Slanderous retorts and jibes do nothing to protect, enhance or strengthen the image of their respective companies – which leads us to believe this is nothing more than a case of media narcissism…

Both companies have always struggled with a lack of trust from the public following various attacks on their practice, so acting-out with such a lack of dignity and self-control does nothing to counter the negative image. Where did it all go wrong? Stelios and O’Leary got personal, for a start.

Both have always hounded the limelight and it smacks of a desire for personal celebrity, rather than developing celebrity to enhance company image. Egotistical shows such as this do not appear to ‘put their best foot forward’. After all, we are no longer listening to their key messages, more rubbing our hands together for the next juicy scandal they send our way and the entertaining barrage of insults delivered via the press. Yes, publicity flows whenever the two are at loggerheads but the attention is all so negative. Have you ever heard of the most negative person at work also being the most popular? Me neither. At a very basic level, surely Ryanair’s 200% rise in profits would have been more appropriate for release to the press.

Best keep the battle of egos between two highly successful men behind closed doors because the fact is, the company becomes them.

Image by caribb at www.flikr.com

Facebook pages entitled ‘RIP Raoul Moat You Legend’, thousands of followers branding him a hero and shrines flooded with sympathetic messages of support for his ‘plight’ suggest something just isn’t right with the public’s perception. It simply must be a case of misinformation.

For a man with a colourful criminal record and whose final actions included killing a person and leaving two others with serious gunshot wounds, this show of support seems inappropriate, surely?

That information, straight from the mouths of the media – who were pushed to provide a new angle every day to satisfy the public interest it created – covered Moat until he became a caricature. Branding him ‘Rambo-like’, publicising sensationalist interviews with friends and family and inadvertently drumming up support from others just like him. People who saw Moat as some sort of crusader and ignored the facts of his actions.

You may remember the police enforced media blackout after Moat announced he would kill a member of the public for every inaccurate piece of information reported, what a powerful man he became!

So what did the public then have to go on? Scores of features on possible motivations – justifications, if you will. Seeing somebody’s human side is eternally appealing to us. We read how the police ‘took everything from him’ and it resonated with others who felt they had been cheated in the same way Moat supposedly had.  And this is where it all becomes a bit odd, he gained sympathy and became a source of jokes, all of which softened our perception of him – the lovable gunman, quite. It’s easy to see how such opinions were formed because once the blackout was lifted and we had hindsight on our side, readers had reached conclusions already and it was too late to alter them.

The power of the media to shape opinion is not a new concept, but we have to ask in a situation like Moat’s, which is more important: freedom of information or an agreement not to cover this kind of crime? Yes, there is an obligation to inform the public, but should it be splashed across the front pages everyday to create such celebrity?

photograph by Tony Webster

The Twilight Saga has developed a rabid global fan base and an audience which, quite rightly, may not be forgiving of such neglect. Note to celebrities; if your fans turn up to see the premier of your film, you probably should too.

Reports of fans protesting and cold-shouldering the film, is the obvious result of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner not giving enough back to their fan base. 

And the actors’ responses? Pre-recorded apologies broadcast to the crowd. The only problem with this was that their feeble explanations were not a strong enough compensation for the snub which fans had experienced. Further to this, said apologies were noticeably read from cue cards – if an apology is what’s needed, genuine regret is what the people want to see!

A terrible faux pas indeed, who in the world told these three rising stars that it would be OK to stay at home with a cuppa? At the very least, if something negative will happen indefinitely, pre-warning those who could be affected can often soften the blow. Especially in this case, a straight forward press release beforehand would have prevented the unexpected insult on the day.

Fresh fame and such arrogance only serve to intensify the other – even the most beloved star would have difficulty pulling off such a stunt whilst maintaining popularity with the fans who put them where they are.

Today another cabinet minister, this time Health Minister Andrew Lansley managed to direct a comprehensive shot to his own foot when he informed the BMA conference in Brighton that Jamie Oliver had got it wrong about school meals. We can imagine his press team’s delight that the Minister was giving a bold and controversial policy statement “yes Minister…a very, er brave decision”.

But the Naked Chef knows a thing or two about soundbites, and his immediate response (he could be anywhere in the world, but he will make sure the press gets their quote) was “I’m not encouraged by the news that the new health minister has summed up 8 years of hard work in a few lines for the sake of a headline.” Ouch. Swiftly followed up by support from the UK Faculty of Public Health who describes Mr Lansley’s speech as “deeply distressing” and there you have it. An object lesson in how to take an inexperienced Government Minister and give him a roasting. With a nice bit of stuffing on the side.

Take French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example – he took it upon himself to exercise damage control following the French team’s disastrous campaign as he knew that the World Cup would be the perfect platform to show what a reliable and reasonable guy he really is. The French team’s 12 days in South Africa included a player being sent home, the team refusing to train and outbursts against the coach – lapped up by the media and the public alike. 

Yesterday, Sarkozy met with recently returned Thierry Henry, ambassador of French football and Gillette razors, to instigate an investigation into the team’s meltdown – who knew ‘football management’ was a requirement of running the country.

France’s spectacular exit from the World Cup meant that players will now miss out on performance bonuses and sponsorship payments. Meanwhile, Sarkozy aligns himself with the French Football Federation to look for a way to rebuild a sporting reputation which has been destroyed by the team’s actions – and no doubt expose his own attributes in the process.

Sarkozy perhaps had further interests at heart.  Following France’s 1998 World Cup win, the country’s president and prime minister experienced a double-digit rise in opinion ratings – safe to say it is undoubtedly in their best interests to exploit any chances of World Cup publicity – look! A man of the people! 

Wednesday even saw former US president Bill Clinton in the stands supporting the USA in their final group match. Unsurprisingly this gained a whole hoard of coverage – Clinton’s public appearance and subsequent congratulations won him a spot in public consciousness once more.

Clinton was recently appointed head of the US bid to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022.  We saw him sat alongside FIFA president Sepp Blatter, an unlikely pair indeed.

Have Sarkozy and Clinton finally twigged how to play the media game after years of scandal? The lesson they appear to have learned: If your own ‘brand’ is one of adultery and alcohol abuse, simply align yourself with an alternative, internationally popular brand such as the World Cup, then bask in the limelight.

photo by Warrenski

The promise of the forthcoming England vs. Germany match has ensured that the victory over Slovenia and the draws in the earlier group games are nothing but a hazy memory as the English press fill the public with promises – The Daily Express’ headline was ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.  Forget the team’s inability to ease to the top of their group, the media – and therefore much of the public too – have a distinct tunnel vision for the final on July 11^th.

With a single victory in the opening stage of the tournament, this confidence couldn’t possibly be generated by the results.  Rather, it is a product of the media, who have the ability to incite a crowd mentality of support and patriotism.

Yes, there are hyperboles aplenty and an exaggerated historical context to the match (the wounds of English defeat to Germany at Euro ’96 and the 1990 World Cup will never heal) but this illustrates the ability of the media to control our perception of a situation, rather than draw our own logical conclusions.

The power of what we see in the media is that it can either raise or crush our spirits, dependent on the angle it chooses to take. The question now is which came first, the support or the fans?

Photo by Stephen Depolo

A few ill chosen remarks to Rolling Stone magazine (who ever thought it had such power today?) and he was hustled back to Washington and relieved of his command faster than you can say “I was quoted out of context”! For that is the clue to successful handling of the media. Always be aware of the context – in this case the need for a clear, consistent message which re-inforces that the military operation is at one with the political will of the nation. No matter what the frustrations, insulting your President and the US Ambassador does give the enemy ammunition.

His sacking was because, as President Obama said, his conduct “undermines the civilian control of the military that’s at the core of our democratic system”. McChrystal is not alone. Anyone in a senior position in any organisation needs to be aware of the immense strength that comes from a united front. And how quickly the axe can fall on a lonely head after a clever remark to a journalist.

Picture: www.laprogressive.com

Wayne Rooney highlighted the frustration with both his and the team’s performance with an outburst against the England supporters who had proceeded to boo the team after their match against Algeria.  It was understandable for him to feel betrayed by his fans – the very people he was there to represent – but a derogatory outburst was not the way to vent those frustrations.

The players have ample opportunity for media coverage and the potential blunders which accompany it. Instead of waiting for the post-game adrenaline to settle, allowing a calmer and more considered response, Rooney opted to denounce the supporters on live television, shouting to the camera as he left the field.  In taking such a disorderly approach to his media coverage, Rooney caused a public backlash, alienating the fans, who had travelled to South Africa, television viewers, media consumers and essentially anyone who heard about it. We can see here how a long standing reputation can be ruined in seconds.

Following this, John Terry took note of Rooney’s misfortune and waited for a press conference to speak of the situation.  Terry did not fare much better.  Publicly questioning manager Fabio Capello’s team selection was not the best option – it certainly did not show a united front.  In another media mishap John Terry also criticised the teams performance.

Of course, management of such a situation is unique to each company, body or individual and the background issues must be taken into account. In this particular case, Terry in fact enforced rumours of discord in the team. Even worse, Capello then incited Terry to apologise for his statements; a true show of a failure to handle their media opportunities.

So who managed it well? Current England captain Steven Gerrard took it upon himself to manage the situation with sufficient consideration.  He admitted the onus was on no one but themselves and that this only fuelled the team’s preserved determination to succeed.  He accepted the blame and emitted positivity. Top marks.

The potential for media success or failure is the same for all players, but when comparing media blunders committed by Wayne Rooney and John Terry with the awareness and understanding shown by Steven Gerrard, it is clear that the ability to deal with and present oneself to the media appropriately will have a long term effect on image. The fans never forget!

Photo by Whatleydude