Shaping Opinion

TV news industry veteran and consultant John Altenbern joins Tim to talk about the business of TV news. John runs a consulting firm named Crawford Johnson & Northcott, Inc., that specializes in helping TV news operations get better ratings and grow their audiences. John tells what it takes for TV news operations to compete against each other for your time and attention. He gives a glimpse of some of the methods and strategies those news directors, producers and reporters use to keep us tuned in. This Encore Episode was originally released on May 11, 2020.

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In 2016, the Pew research organization published a report that told us that more Americans get their news from local TV stations than any other place.

Pew reported that back in 2007, that 29.3 million people watched their local evening newscasts, but by 2015, the total was roughly 22.8 million. A big drop of over 6 million, but still the most sizable audience for news consumption.

In this episode, we explore some of the reasons why the change, and also why local TV news remains so dominant in the media landscape.

In 1965, Westinghouse Broadcasting, known as Group W, owned a TV station in Philadelphia, KYW-TV. The station was a CBS network affiliate.

Until this time, the stereotypical newscast looked like this. A curmudgeonly man sat at a desk delivering headlines as though it was ripped right off of a wire service ticker tape machine. He’d deliver the news with all the seriousness of Walter Cronkite. In many cases, the producers would even pipe in background audio of the tickety tap of typewriters and wire machines as the anchor man delivered the day’s news.

But news director Al Primo had a different idea. He hired field reporters and sent them out into the city to get the news, and then film their reports from the field. (Yes, they used film cameras, not video cameras).

He diversified the news team, adding women and minorities, and he instructed his team to engage in more relaxed conversation in between the delivery of those serious news stories. He called it Happy Talk.

If you tuned into KYW back then, you’d see the news anchors walking into their places on the set in a hurry, scripts in hand, as though they were working right up until air time to bring you the latest news.

He even gave his approach to news a brand. He called it Eyewitness News.

On the other side of town, WPVI-TV responded to the challenge. News director Mel Kampmann gave his viewers a different brand. Rather than happy talk, he focused on short news clips, and nothing but hard, fast news. The pace of the stories was relentless, giving viewers the idea that if they changed the channel, or even left the room, they might miss something.

Mel branded his approach to the news as well. He called his style Action News.

In this episode, John gets into detail on just how the business of TV news works and why.

Links

* Crawford Johnson & Northcott

* How COVID-19 Has Impacted Media Consumption, by Generation, Visual Capitalist

* Oy, the Traffic. And it’s Pouring! Do I hear sirens?, Columbia Journalism Review

* State of the News Media, Pew Research Center

* Reinventing Local TV News, Nieman Reports

About this Episode’s Guest John Altenbern

John Altenbern is President of Crawford Johnson &...

In this episode we introduce something new to our schedule. It’s in addition to our regular Monday interview episodes, which will not be changing. Every Monday, we’ll continue to serve up interesting interviews with interesting guests.  But during the week, we’re going to add something new to our schedule. We’re calling these episodes “Shaping Opinion Unplugged.”

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We’re going to talk podcasting and other communications topics. We’ll call these bonus episodes Shaping Opinion Unplugged. More often than not, we won’t have a guest. But these episodes will give us a chance to talk to you about things we’ve been hearing from you.

Today’s episode is in response to some of the questions we get.  You may have noticed in all of our episodes we ask listeners to get in touch. A good number of listeners to do get in touch, and most often these days, they have questions about podcasting. We’ll answer some of those questions here.

So, today, we’re going to talk about what it will take to launch a good podcast, or how to take your existing podcast to the next level – all through content.

For background, I started my career as a TV and radio producer. Since then, I spent an entire career advising clients of all sizes on all things communication. I’ve worked across all media for decades. Since 2018, we’ve produced over 230 weekly episodes of this award-winning Shaping Opinion Podcast. During that time, I’ve had the chance to help other podcasters take their podcasts to the Next Level.

So, let’s get to that question. How do you take your podcast to the next level through better content?

In this episode we spend a few minutes talking about just that. And we use Joe Rogan as a good case study. If there is a lesson to be learned it’s that if you want to take your podcast to the next level, focus on making you and your podcast better.

You’re not in this alone. If you want to talk, I may be able to help. I’ve been conducting media training for decades. I’ve helped others with their podcasts, and I have now released over 230 episodes of this Shaping Opinion podcast every week since 2018. The process for improvement is just that – a process.  If this is something you’d like to talk about, I’m all ears. I love to talk about podcasting. Just get in touch.

And thank you for listening to the Shaping Opinion Podcast. You’re our podcast family, and the reason we do this.

Links

* OBrienCommunications.com

* Next Level Podcast Coaching

Brian Rosenwald joins Tim to talk about the rise of Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio. Brian is the co-editor of a daily Washington Post history blog called “Made by History.” He’s a Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s also the author of a new book called: “Talk Radio’s America: how an industry took over a political party that took over the United States.” This Encore Episode was first released February 10, 2020.

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Talk radio didn’t begin in the late 1980s. The earliest radio talk shows that had an impact were hosted by broadcasters named Joe Pyne, Bob Grant and Larry King.

But the talk radio we know today, the one that has created a sea change in the nation’s political dialogue, can trace its roots back to the 1980s when a number of factors came to a head at about the same time.

The 1980s marked a resurgence of the Republican Party in Washington with the wave of national support that swept Ronald Reagan into the White House.

During those same years, the AM radio format started to decline, losing music listeners to the clean and clear signals of FM stations.

To carve out a niche and compete with FM, AM radio discovered that talk radio didn’t require the same sound quality to attract an audience. Increasingly, AM radio programmed talk and news content on their schedules.

In 1987, the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine was repealed. The Fairness Doctrine had put restrictive guidelines on how radio stations could air political speech. With the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, radio stations were free to air news and talk programming that catered to specific audiences and specific points of view, regardless of political leanings.

During this same period came the advent of less expensive satellite technology and cell phones.

All of this opened the door to innovators who would figure out how to make political speech entertaining enough to attract an audience, and more importantly, to attract advertising revenue to those failing AM radio stations. One innovator, Rush Lumbaugh, in particular would lead the way.

In the end, both the media and the political landscapes would be transformed.

Links

* Talk Radio’s America: how an industry took over a political party that took over the United States, by Brian Rosenwald (Harvard University Press)

* Brian Rosenwald, Website

* Rush Limbaugh (official site)

* Fairness Doctrine, Britannica

About this Episode’s Guest Brian Rosenwald

Brian Rosenwald is the Coeditor-in-Chief of “Made by History,” a daily Washington Post history blog, and a historical consultant for the Slate podcast Whistlestop. He has written for the Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, and The Week, among others. He has discussed contemporary politics on CNN, NPR and the Sirius XM Radio channel POTUS: Politics of the United States.

Rosenwald is Scholar in Residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Administration and Leadership (PEPAL) program at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Jay Baer, the author of the book, “Talk Triggers: The complete guide to creating customers with word of mouth,” joins Tim to talk about the power of word of mouth to sell products or services, increase awareness, educate the public and create a brand. Jay is a very popular keynote speaker, an inductee into the Word of Mouth Marketing Hall of Fame and the author of several books. This Encore Episode was first released in April 2019.

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It’s a term you may hear every day. It’s just assumed you know what it means. Word of Mouth.  Webster’s dictionary describes it as “oral, often inadvertent publicity.”

What’s interesting about that definition is how the people at Webster saw fit to include the word “inadvertent” in the definition.

When it comes to Word of Mouth dynamics, it’s just assumed that it’s inadvertent or unintentional.

Many times, this is true but I’ve been in the PR business for decades and I’ve seen quite often how something that was spread through Word of Mouth was anything but inadvertent or unintentional.

In this episode we talk with Jay Baer about the dynamics behind word of mouth publicity, hear some stories of some organizations doing it right, and how to harness it for yourself.

Debt Collections Case Study

Americollect is in the debt collection industry. At present there are roughly 8,000 collections firms in the U.S.

The common practice is for debt collections agencies to call a debtor, cajole, threaten, coerce until they get money or not In 2017, consumers filed 84,500 complaints against collections agencies.

Kenlyn Gretz worked for a debt collector making $4.25 per hour collecting unpaid medical debts. He worked his way up and bought the firm. Then he changed everything.

He now has more than 250 employees because they embraced their tagline – “Ridiculously Nice.” Being ridiculously nice is a part of their culture.

The theory – Just because they are a nonpayer today doesn’t mean they will be a nonpayer tomorrow. They can call a debtor one to four months later and they take the phone calls because Americollect was nice to them.

Jay tells the story of Americollect’s win rate in the competitive marketplace and of one key statistic; and why 60 percent of Americollect’s employees were once debtors who Americollect was assigned to recover a debt and was so nice that the people decided to go work for the company.

In this episode Jay talks about companies like The Cheesecake Factory and Air New Zealand which have their own means for creating buzz around their brand. And a unique and simple story of a California restaurant called Skip’s Kitchen.  What they all have in common is they have their own “talk triggers” to generate word of mouth publicity.

About Talk Triggers

Word of mouth is directly responsible for 19% of all purchases, and influences as much as 90%. Every human on earth relies on word of mouth to make buying decisions. Yet even today, fewer than 1% of companies have an actual strategy for generating these crucial customer conversations.

Talk Triggers provides that strategy in a compelling, relevant, timely book that can be put into practice immediately, by any business.

The book includes: proprietary research into why and how customers talk; more than 30 detailed case studies of extraordinary results from Doubletree Hotels by Hilton, The Cheesecake Factory, Penn & Teller and dozens of delightful small and medium-sized businesses; and the 4-5-6 learning system for creating and activating talk triggers in your business.

Links

* About Jay Baer

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Richard Rhodes won a Pulitzer Prize for his definitive book on the development of nuclear weapons called “The Making of the Atomic Bomb.” It’s one of 26 books he’s written, several of them focused on the world in the nuclear age. He joins Tim to talk about the wartime effort that changed everything, The Manhattan Project. This Encore Episode was first released November 4, 2019.

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In 1938, nuclear fission was discovered in Nazi Germany just in time for Christmas. News of the scientific breakthrough was published in Germany, and later in a British scientific journal in 1939.

At that same time, many Jewish scientists had escaped or were in the process of escaping from Nazi Germany. They would continue their lives and work in places like Canada and the United States. The persecution of the Jews was quickly brewing as the imminent threat of war loomed.

These scientists knew the Nazis personally. They also knew that Germany still had many good scientists working on nuclear fission.

This fact worried a group of Hungarian Jewish scientists who came to the United States from Germany. They wondered if the Nazis were developing an atomic bomb. They knew that it was possible, if not probable. How much progress have the Nazi scientists made? No one knew. Once Hitler had a bomb, would he use it? Everyone knew the answer to that question.

Something else they knew, they had to help the United States develop the bomb before the Germans, and to do that, they had to get the attention of the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The same thing was true in Great Britain.

They enlisted the support of Albert Einstein, who together with scientist Leo Szilard, signed a letter to the president informing him of the grave threat. It worked. Winston Churchill also made a persuasive argument of his own.

That was the formal beginning of America’s commitment to the nuclear age.

The actual beginning was on Monday, August 6th 1945 when the United States would drop a bomb called “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima that would forever change the threat of war in the world.

Colonel Paul Tibbets piloted a B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay that dropped the bomb that would kill at least 70,000 people, and through radiation poisoning that total would rise to somewhere between 90,000 and 160,000 within a year.

That bomb was the first time in history that an atomic bomb would be used in warfare, bringing about a swift end to the Allies’ war with Japan and that country’s unconditional surrender.

Just as the bomb sent shockwaves in its wake, so, too did the emergence of the nuclear age.

For the first time, one bomb could eliminate entire cities, leaving immediate and residual devastation. This in the context of the burgeoning Cold War, where the United States stood up against its geopolitical rival the Soviet Union, which was on its way to becoming the world’s other nuclear power.

In the ensuing decades as tensions between the super powers ebbed and flowed, no one ever felt as safe as they once did before the nuclear age.

Richard Rhodes has authored 26 books, and has studied the nuclear age like few others. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT and Stanford. He is an emeritus member of the Atomic Heritage Foundation’s Board of Directors, and has interviewed several of the Manhattan Project’s scientists in his work.

Links

* Richard Rhodes (website)

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Country music star Larry Gatlin joins Tim to talk about a life in country music, as a songwriter, as a performer and as a member of one of the most famous vocal groups in the history of country music. Larry is the oldest of the three Gatlin Brothers who hale from West Texas. He is an award-winner, a chart-topper and a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This Encore episode was first released May 25, 2020.

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Larry Gatlin was born in Seminole, Texas, the son of a driller in the oil field. He’s the oldest of three musical brothers – Larry, Steve and Rudy would later become known to millions simply as The Gatlin Brothers.

The three brothers started singing young. Larry was only seven when he and his younger brothers would sing at family and church events.

Larry played football on scholarship at the University of Houston, where he didn’t study music, but instead, he majored in English. He said that at college he developed a love affair with the English language, a passion that would serve him well as a songwriter.

After college, Larry started to make a name for himself as a songwriter and performer in Nashville. His brothers would join him later and by 1976, the group had arrived on the national stage.

They toured the United States and around the world. They saw their songs rise in the charts and have enjoyed a career that anyone who aspires to be a country music star would want.

Larry wrote every Gatlin Brothers hit and more. He wrote songs that were recorded by others, like Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash and many others.

He’s written an autobiography called “All the Gold in California,” a nod to the title of one of his hit songs. He’s won numerous awards and has seen success on and off of the stage.

Last October, Larry was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Special Thanks to…

* Larry Gatlin for his time and for the use of some of his music in this episode.

* Kay Waggoner of Absolute Publicity in Nashville, Tennessee for arranging this interview.

* Bonnie Brozik Teague, Larry’s assistant who made sure the interview went off without a hitch.

Links

* The Gatlin Brothers, Grand Ole Opry

* The Gatlin Brothers website

* Larry Gatlin Bio, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

* All the Gold in California, by Larry Gatlin (autobiography at Amazon)

* Dottie West, Country Music Hall of Fame

* Mickey Newbury was Country Music Royalty, CMT

About this Episode’s Guest Larry Gatlin

Country star Larry Gatlin was born in 1948 in Seminole, Texas, the son of a driller in the oil field. The oldest of the three Gatlin brothers, by age six, he was already accompanying younger brothers, Steve and Rudy in singing at family and church events.

After high school, Larry went to the University of Houston on a football scholarship. Larry majored in English and developed “a love affair with the English Language” that later served him well in his songwriting.

FBI-trained hostage negotiator Scott Tillema joins Tim to talk about how to negotiate when the stakes are high, even when lives are on the line. Scott teaches organizations how to use the power of life-saving negotiation principles to get results.

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Scott Tillema was trained by the FBI in hostage negotiating. He spent over seven years as a negotiator with the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System Emergency Services Team. This one of the largest municipal SWAT teams in the United States.

Scott is known across the country as a speaker in the field of police negotiations. He’s presented to audiences of all sizes, including a very popular TEDx Talk where he covered, “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators.”

That’s what we talked about when we sat down with him recently.

Please Thank Our Sponsors

Please remember to thank our sponsors, without whom the Shaping Opinion podcast would not exist.  If you have the need, please support these organizations that have the same taste in podcasts that you do:

* BlueHost Premium Web Hosting

Links

* Scott Tillema Website

* Negotiations Collective, Scott Tillema Page

* How to Use the FBI's Behavioral Change Stairway Model to Influence Like a Pro, EMS1

* Active Listening Skills, Psychology Today

* Kwame Christian: On Compassionate Curiosity, Behavioral Grooves

* Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change, by Robert Cialdini (Amazon)

About this Episode’s Guest Scott Tillema

Scott Tillema is an FBI-trained hostage negotiator. He teaches police, law enforcement agencies and others how to use the power of life-saving techniques and principles to enhance their work. He is a nationally recognized leader in the field of crisis and hostage negotiations, passionately training thousands of police negotiators across the country in verbal influence. He has developed a powerful model for safely resolving crisis situations, which is now being recognized and adapted by the private sector for use in sales, communication, influence, and leadership.

 

Financial literacy expert Adam Carroll joins Tim to talk about all things money, from financial freedom, managing your own finances, and the current trend towards a cashless society.  Adam is the author of “Winning The Money Game,” “30 Days To $1K,” and “Mastery of Money for Students.”  He is a two-time TED talk speaker, with one of his talks surpassing 4 million views.

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Money. You either have a little or a lot, but it seems for most people, you never have enough. And for as critical as it is, it’s amazing how little most of us actually understand it.

In ancient times, if human beings wanted something from someone else, they bartered. I’ll give you a cow if you give me salt or tobacco.

Somewhere around 5,000 BC, metal objects were used as money.  And then around 700 BC, a group called the Lydians were the first in the Western world to make coins that were used as money.

Not long after that, countries started to make their own coins and give them certain values. That way people could compare the cost of items or services that people wanted.

China was the first country to introduce paper money. Paper money became more common by 960 AD.

We still rely on paper money and coins for much of our day-to-day spending and purchasing. But we also rely heavily on a cashless society.

Credit cards, loans, and now thanks to our digital world – Venmo, online spending using passwords that access our financial accounts without anything physical changing hands. And, of course, crypto.

We’re fast moving into an almost totally cashless world.  And it seems to be happening at the speed of light.

Adam Carroll is an author and a speaker on the subject of personal finance. He has spent the better part of his career and life helping people better understand money, how it fits in their lives, how to manage it, and how to be financially free.

Links

* Adam Carroll's Website, AdamSpeaks.com

* The Build a Bigger Life Manifesto, by Adam Carroll (Amazon)

* Winning the Money Game, by Adam Carroll and Chad Carden (Amazon)

* The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Franklin/Covey

* The Fifth Discipline, by Peter Senge (Amazon)

* Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki (Amazon)

* Cashflow Quadrant, by Robert Kiyosaki (Amazon)

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Advocate, author and attorney Charles H. Rose, III, joins Tim to talk about the art of cross-examination in the court of law. Charles is a successful lawyer, a trial advocate, an author, and currently, he’s the Dean of the Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University. In this episode, he talks about one of the most dramatic features of any courtroom, the cross-examination of a witness at trial. Cross-examination is often where cases are won or lost in the court of law.

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Watch just about any movie or TV show where the drama revolves around a court case and sooner or later the climax of the plot will revolve around a particular witness or testimony.

The trial lawyers question their own witnesses in litigation, and their opposing attorneys have the chance to cross-examine those same witnesses. They get to challenge claims and statements that were made. They go back over previous testimony and look for gaps or contradictions in statements, all to win the case.

In many court cases, cross-examinations are usually tense. A case can be won or lost with every witness who takes the stand.

Our guest today, Charles Rose is regarded as one of the better attorneys at cross-examination. While he’s now law school dean at Ohio Northern University, and he’s served on the faculty at other law schools, he’s had a decorated career in the U.S. Army. He served as a judge advocate where he’s focused on persuasion techniques. He teaches and researches in the areas of advocacy, criminal procedure, evidence and professional ethics.

Please Thank Our Sponsors

Please remember to thank our sponsors, without whom the Shaping Opinion podcast would not exist.  If you have the need, please support these organizations that have the same taste in podcasts that you do:

* BlueHost Premium Web Hosting

* Dell Outlet Overstock Computer Center

Links

* Charles H. Rose, III (Ohio Northen University)

* Charles H. Rose, III, The Trial Advocate (TrialAdvocate.com)

* Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (Amazon.com)

About this Episode's Guest Charles H. Rose, III

Charles H. Rose III, dean of the Pettit College of Law, previously served as professor of law and director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy at Stetson University’s College of Law in Gulfport, Fla. Prior to joining the Stetson faculty in 2005, Rose spent 20 years on active duty in the Army. He served as a linguist, intelligence officer and judge advocate.

His primary scholarly interest focuses on advocacy persuasion techniques, and he teaches and researches in the areas of advocacy, criminal procedure, military law, evidence and professional ethics. Rose earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University at South Bend and his JD from Notre Dame Law School. He also earned an LLM from the Judge Advocate General’s School, United States Army.

Laila Mickelwait joins Tim to talk about her work and a movement she founded to fight child sex trafficking.  She’s the founder of the Justice Defense Fund and the founder of a global movement called #Traffickinghub. That movement is supported by millions around the world. Laila talks about the role “Big Porn” websites play, and her work to hold sex traffickers and their enablers around the world to account.

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We’ve talked a lot on the Shaping Opinion podcast about big issues where statistics are involved. Sometimes when we use statistics, we inadvertently distance ourselves from what we’re really talking about – what’s really going on.

That could happen with today’s episode. I have to share some statistics with you, but as you’ll hear from our guest, it’s not about the statistics. It’s about the people, mostly female, mostly young, and all too often children who are victims of the worst kind of predators. They’re victims of sex traffickers.

Child sex trafficking is the most notorious form of human trafficking. The most common victims are homeless children, runaways, and young people in the child welfare system.

You would think the traffickers make their money from selling the children into sex with strangers, and they do. But that’s not where they make the big money.

The big money is right in front of you. It’s on your phone, on your computer. The Internet.

Pornography is one of the biggest businesses on the Internet.  But just calling this “pornography” may be too nice.  Website and porn sites and porn site users engage in an economy that often features child abuse.

Victims of child sex trafficking are depicted in photos, videos and other images that feature actual rape, real violent attacks and abuse. People pay to watch the live abuse of children on video streaming services.

Porn sites attract over 100 million visits to their sites each day. They generate 47 billion visit per year.

If you were to try to watch all of the content in one year of a major porn site, it would take you 169 years just to watch it.

One of the most vocal activists in the war on sex trafficking, and more specifically child sex trafficking, is Laila Mickelwait.

Links

* Laila Mickelwait (website)

* TraffickingHub.com

* JusticeDefenseFund.org

* The Children of PornHub, New York Times

About this Episode’s Guest Laila Mickelwait

Laila Mickelwait is the Founder and CEO of the Justice Defense Fund and the Founder of the global #Traffickinghub movement supported by millions around the world. She has been combating the injustice of sex trafficking for over a decade and is a leading expert in the field.

The #Traffickinghub movement that Laila continues to lead, is a non-religious, non-partisan, decentralized global effort to hold Pornhub, the 10th most visited website in the world, and the largest pornography website in the world, accountable for enabling and profiting from the sex trafficking and criminal sexual exploitation of countless victims. The Traffickinghub petition has been signed by over 2.2 million people from 192 countries. The effort is endorsed by over 300 organizations and the impact of the movement has been covered in thousands of media pieces globally.

Laila received her Master of Public Diplomacy degree from the Annenberg School of Communications and the Dornsife School of International Relat...