My tips to improve the World Cup

So we will have a new World Cup winner on Sunday night – Spain or Holland – probably the best two nations never to have lifted the trophy.
There have been some real surprises in South Africa – Germany’s amazing goalscoring performances, rank outsiders New Zealand remaining unbeaten and Uruguay reaching the semi-finals. England were rubbish (no surprise there though), Brazil imploded in shocking fashion against the Dutch and world champions Italy looked like a pub team.
The tournament was not a classic however and I believe FIFA has to make some changes to the game if we are to see an improvement in Brazil 2014. These are my tips for Sepp Blatter:
1 SCRAP PENALTY SHOOT-OUTS – it is not a fair way of deciding a crucial match. It is a lottery which examines the psychological make-up of a player rather than his skill. Instead the referee should count the number of corners each team wins and if that is level it should be down to the number of shots on target. We must reward the team which attacks more.
2 AWARD A GOAL IF A DEFENDER HANDLES THE BALL ON THE GOAL LINE – this would prevent any repetition of Uruguay profiting from stopping a certain winning goal with a hand ball on the line against Ghana. A penalty was given and the offending player red-carded but the spot kick was missed and Uruguay went on to win on penalties. Referees should give the goal and yellow card the offender.
3 RETROSPECTIVE YELLOW CARDS FOR PLAYERS WHO FEIGN INJURY – FIFA should examine video footage of matches afterwards and look for players collapsing to the ground as though they have been shot before miraculously getting to their feet and playing on seconds later. It is pathetic, cowardly behaviour and is a worse offence, in my mind, than diving to win a penalty.
4 AWARD AN EXTRA POINT IN THE GROUP STAGES FOR TEAMS WINNING BY MORE THAN ONE GOAL – this would punish ultra-defensive teams from strangling matches once they have taken the lead. It should lead to more attacking play and reward the more offensive nations.
5 USE GOAL LINE TECHNOLOGY TO HELP REFEREES DECIDE IF A GOAL HAS BEEN SCORED – the old chestnut! There is no reason why FIFA should not set up cameras in the goal because it is almost impossible for referees and linesmen to clearly see if the ball is over the line. The argument that it would slow the game down is nonsense. The fourth official could have a small TV screen and signal to the referee seconds after it has happened. Millions of people around the world knew Frank Lampard had scored against Germany. The only people who didn’t were the officials. Fortunately Germany went on to score twice more to win 4-1 but if they hadn’t there would have been outrage.
So there you have it. My recipe for making the world’s greatest game even more enjoyable. I welcome your comments!

The First Social Media World Cup

With the excitement building for the 2010 World Cup, it has dawned on me just how much I rely on social media for news and information about the tournament.
Back in the 1970s, when I was a child thrilled by the skills of Pele, Cruyff and Kempes, the satellite pictures from Mexico and Argentina seemed like a technological miracle.
Not every game was covered live on television, though, and the only other information came via the newspapers or potted profiles in my Panini sticker album.
How different it is today. My Blackberry mobile phone is constantly signalling Twitter and Facebook messages about every aspect of the world’s biggest sporting event outside the Olympic Games.
The Football Association (@thefadotcom) send Twitter links to England press conferences and photographs of facilities in the team hotel.
A Facebook friend sends me a You Tube video of the spectacular new Nike World Cup advert featuring Ronaldo, Rooney and Drogba – an astounding 14 million people have now seen it on the video-sharing site.
Telegraph football writer Henry Winter (@henrywinter) tweets match updates from England’s last warm-up match while broadcaster Gabby Logan (@Gabby_Logan) says she is nervous before interviewing Fabio Capello for the first time.
There are all kinds of insights and titbits you can glean from a multitude of sources. Football magazine @FourFourTwo tweets about the Dutch squad being banned from using Twitter and they report regular disparaging comments from players about the quality of the new World Cup ball.
On his Facebook page, USA star man Landon Donovan counts down to his team’s opening match against England as American supporters urge him to ‘kick some English ass’ in their comments.
This truly is the first ever social media World Cup and what a wonderful thing it is.
Of course there are some football fans who still live in the dark ages – as befits the world’s most secret society North Korea apparently has not allowed any journalists to cover their own nation at the tournament!

Writing for PR and writing for the media

Writing stories as a PR professional should be a doddle for an experienced journalist like me. Or so I thought, as I prepared for a short internship in the communications office at Cambridge University.
Having completed three weeks promoting and publicising the goings on at this 800-year-old centre of educational excellence I have a very different idea of what goes into the perfect press release and corporate web story.
While many of the traditional journalistic ideals hold true – news releases have to be accurate, free from libel or defamation and basically tell us something new and interesting – there are some key differences:

1 The angle of the story
I wrote a web piece at Cambridge about a professor who was given a science and technology award by a women’s lifestyle publication called Glamour Magazine.
It was a straight report about the woman being honoured with background about her academic achievements and the work of her university department. In short, a promotional piece highlighting the impressive research at Cambridge.
Now had I been writing for, say, the Cambridge Evening News, I might have angled the story more on the absurdity of this highly intellectual professor being given an award by a magazine which is mainly concerned with Cheryl Cole’s fashion sense and the latest scandal involving a Hollywood starlet.
The professor also told me she was unhappy the magazine had not directly contacted her because she would have liked to have used the award to help inspire more young women to study science at higher education level. Another great newspaper angle.

2 Allegiances
The journalist is supposed to be neutral. Whatever political, environmental or cultural views and opinions they might harbour they must not be introduced into stories.
They have a professional duty to write or broadcast the most interesting story.
Because PR professionals are concerned with portraying a company or organisation in the best possible light they can never be neutral.
There are obviously ethical considerations in terms of behaving legally and honestly but the basic aim is to protect and enhance reputation.
While I worked at Cambridge there was enormous media interest in unusual plans by the university to raise money for capital projects with a bond issue.
Dealings with journalists were limited to a straight press release containing basic details and quotes from the director of finance.
Newspapers and broadcasters were all looking for a different angle – to re-frame the story. In the end most outlets cited the current financial climate as the reason for considering a bond issue when in the past the university might have taken out a bank loan. The limiting of information from the communication office clearly helped frame the story the way Cambridge wanted.

3 Editorial control
A free press is essential in any democracy. And newspapers thrive on retaining editorial control. Occasionally a company or organisation which advertises in a newspaper might object to a news story which portrays it in a negative light. They may threaten to withdraw their adverts. But editors will always stand their ground and insist on retaining control of content.
Journalists will only be concerned that their story is accurate, that it does not offend the sensitivity of readers and that is not legally suspect.
In contrast, the communications officer has only limited editorial control. He or she must satisfy a number of other people before uploading it to the company website.
At Cambridge I wrote a piece about the Arts Society at the all-female Newnham College holding a special night to mark the 80th anniversary of a visit by acclaimed novelist Virginia Woolf.
I had to run my story past representatives of the Arts Society, who were keen to raise seemingly unnewsworthy items higher up the story and who insisted I use capital letters for job titles and nouns. I was essentially writing for them, however, so I had to forget the journalistic principles I used to live my life by in favour of following their wishes.

4 Balanced argument
All trainee newspaper reporters have it drummed into them that they must represent both sides of an argument.
If an old lady has tripped over a loose paving stone and injured herself, you must include quotes from the council as well as the unfortunate pensioner.
It is all part of appearing neutral – someone with no bias who can be trusted to report the news as it happens.
In public relations you cannot be neutral. As a result website stories and press releases will be distinctly one-sided.
When 30 employees are made redundant by a factory the corporate release will state that the company is being streamlined, as though those losing their jobs were surplus to requirements. Newspapers, of course, will focus on the fact that the business is struggling and the human cost of those people who are now unemployed.
My web stories and press releases for Cambridge University were all skewed in favour of the university’s interests. As they should have been. The institution has a strong brand throughout the world and the PR professionals I worked with are doing an important job to ensure it stays that way.