Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Truersound on October 5, 2009 at 4:27pm

Robert, I think the problem lies in the fact that anyone and their mother can start a blog. The only way a blog can get press accredited is by achieving a certain number of hits or stature. Think about the blog Aquarium Drunkard, he now has a radio show because of the level of success his blog has attained.

So I guess what I mean is famous blogs like Stereogum or Daytrotter probably have no problem getting their accreditations.

Permalink Reply by Robert Dene on October 7, 2009 at 7:24pm

Do you think it's just fame or hits?...What if you have a valid point to make?...I feel like a lot of people in public relations are behind the curve...I feel the same way about videotaping policies...it is my belief that there should be no restrictions on videotaping...to begin with they're never going to be able to completely stop it so why not make it legitimate and bring the standards up? The larger point I am trying to make is about the flow of information and who gets access to it and by what means?

Permalink Reply by hyperbolium.com on November 20, 2009 at 8:57pm

Traffic to your site or references from other media are two ways that you can impress upon someone the value of your blog. But a consistent track record of responsiveness and excellence is another. If you refer a publicist to your blog and they see a history of well-written pieces, they're likely to help you help them out. If you follow through on reviews or other reporting (and send them links they can easily follow back to our blog), they're likely to continue working with you. As Truersound pointed out, anyone who can type "blogger.com" can start a blog, and so publicists are necessarily wary. But you can gain their trust and be of value to them (and thus, them to you) without having hordes of surfers parading through your site.

Permalink Reply by Robert Dene on November 21, 2009 at 10:06am

Those are very good points...lately I've been doing well getting press accreditded...I found especially if the publicists are under 30 and have a grown up in the culture of blogging...they are familiar with new media and understand it's value which is what I think you are getting at...the idea of adding value to the publicists....as I am sure you are familiar with a blog with its multimedia capabilities and its open endedness can go a lot further in reporting quite often than traditional media...there is also he passion of he blogger which usually exudes more energy than aa bea reporter who has no passion for the subject and who is just there to do a job...

Thank you so much for responding.

Permalink Reply by Jim Moulton on December 30, 2009 at 11:02pm

When I first started reviewing music in 01, blogs were not yet popular, It was websites, I have a blog that I use mostly to share artist news that my publicist friends send me, It was finding where I could get good music to review that was the conquest, at first ,I thought it was thru record labels, but when I met some publicists of artists I liked on the web, that is the hard part, because artists are always changing publicists, publicists are changing jobs. I remember e-mailing someone I did not know and asking for a CD to review , because I loved that artist and finally had some success, it actually got to be too much, a few years ago, Honestly , I was getting 20 -35 CDs a month, did not have time for that and lots of them were good.
Some things I learned early on is, if I was going to write a negative review, DON"T, there are plenty of good reviews to be written. One gal really like my stuff and she got me set up with Welk Media, now defunct, also called Klew media(spelled backwards) went back to Lawrence Welk. ANOTHER thing, write honest reviews, A writer once told me that He would write anything a publicist wanted, if they paid him, I would never do that. He is lots more well known than me, but I have a good conscience.
Always be thankful for what you get and don't review music from mp3s, they just do not have the same quality as a CD.