The September edition of Glen Frost’s PR report was just released and in it features the latest news from CPR and Hotwire. 

Top news:

Nathalie Sevim has been appointed to the CPR Sydney team (profile)
CPR Melbourne attributed to the ProtectTheAstor campaign
Suzanne Hewitt has been appointed Director of HotwirePR Australia (profile)

See below for the edited version of the PR report.

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This blog is dedicated to Gore Vidal who once said:

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

Springsteen and the battle of ideas

Before you are next tempted to lament the lack of conviction of modern politicians, consider taking this challenge for a day. Go through the major daily newspapers, watch the television news and listen to the radio and find one – just one – article that begins with an idea.

There will be plenty of articles that describe conflicts between individuals – real or invented. You’ll find plenty of “color” stories, and a lot that are glorified race calls based on polls or someone’s assessment of “the numbers” in one party or another.

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The best CPR federal politicos analyse and review the federal budget papers to bring you the experts overview.

This year we had former Federal Member of Parliament and our General Manager of Eastern Australia, Garrie Gibson, former founding executive director of the Competitive Carriers’ Coalition, former journalist and former Vice President of Government Relations with Redfern Photonics, David Forman, as well as our Chief Executive Officer, Jayne Dullard.

The result, as always, is a great and unique wrap-up of what is in the budget, and what it all means for you.

We hope you find it useful and are happy to receive your feedback.

2012 – 13 CPR FEDERAL BUDGET OVERVIEW

Click here to download the PDF.

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CPR Victorian State 2012-13 Budget Overview

Please click the link above for the 2012-13 CPR Victorian Budget Overview prepared by 5-time lock-up veteran, Brendan Rowswell, and former Liberal MP and Leader of the Upper House, the Hon. Bill Forwood. 

For more information or discussion contact Bill Forwood or Brendan Rowswell at CPR Melbourne on (03) 9654 4799.

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As an exercise in raising awareness, the Kony 2012 campaign has been a spectacular, stratospheric success.

Yesterday, Kony could have been a brand of ice cream for almost all the first world would have known or cared.

Today, Google Kony 2012 and you get more than 37 million returns. Across the world, people’s Facebook news feeds and Twitter feeds are jammed with Kony content; and internationally the mainstream media is jumping on board with coverage.

The campaign video – all 30 gruelling minutes of it – has been viewed close to 12 million times on YouTube and 10 million views on Vimeo. If this was a commercial movie there would be backslapping aplenty among the backers.

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There are some journalists in Canberra who have some very, very big decisions to make in the next three or four days.

At stake is nothing less than the immediate future of the Australian Government and potentially the basis on which newsmakers – politicians and business people chief among them – deal with the fourth estate.

This is because there are two irreconcilable narratives from the deeply divided leadership group in the Australian Government.

The basis of Kevin Rudd’s campaign is his moral indignation at the relentless attacks on his reputation by “faceless men”, determined to destroy him for reasons that are unclear. He is a man twice wronged, betrayed as leader and who since has done nothing but his job until declarations from colleagues of their lack of support forced him to stand aside.

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After almost 12 months of a Claytons Campaign, the Queensland election is officially under-way.

The election between Anna Bligh’s Queensland Labor Government and Campbell Newman’s Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) is being fought on a number of fronts. For instance, as a Government that’s been in power in Queensland for 14 years, Labor has the albatross of longevity hanging around their necks.

But the biggest story that will drive the 2012 campaign – leaving Federal leadership issues aside – is the competition in the leafy Brisbane inner western suburbs seat of Ashgrove. 

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It is hardly surprising that the reporting of the recent Federal Court decision in the legality of the Optus TV Now service has been big on fury and outrage, light on sensible discussion and calm reflection.

All the ingredients for outrage and high dudgeon are there. Here sitting on one side are the richest communications company and the biggest sporting leagues, with a multimillion dollar deal delivering a mutual back scratch. On the other side, a suspicious-looking new technology no one quite gets and that the deal-makers never quite saw coming when they agreed their terms, delivered by the number two telco that was locked out of their contract.

The result for most of the media has been a pleasingly simplistic villain versus good guys story, spiced up with an element of tut-tutting about crazy courts.

Unsurprisingly, there is a little more to it.

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