I thought this might benefit from a thread on its own, because people keep asking why things appear in the local papers or their websites rather than the club's own channels.
I think the answer to this is quite straightforward and not the product of any deliberate plan. People like Rich Cawley at the SLP will drive the relationship because that is their job. They will seek out comment from Katrien Meire and others, some off the record, because that's what they do.
Henry has pointed to the lack of a head of communications for two years, which must in part be down to the desire to save the salary, and to some extent he is right. I mean no disrespect to the current comms people, none of whom I know, in saying that they are not in a position and do not have the seniority within the organisation to drive the comms agenda. In addition, they are clearly being asked to do way more than is reasonable, again for financial reasons.
Katrien Meire is in effect her own head of communications. Indeed, I understand she is frustrated that the football side of the club makes things about the team public without her authority, which is a wildly unrealistic aspiration on her part in football, but I do understand where she is coming from because message control is what you would expect as chief executive of any other kind of small or medium-sized business.
Leaving aside any other judgement about her, Meire will struggle to drive a comms agenda for the club and she is not going to be asked searching questions by her own junior staff. Hence the interesting stuff comes via the people able to ask those questions, as and when she decides to respond to them.
My point is not to dig anyone out, but to say that the issue is structural (or if you like accidental) rather than strategic.
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The point remains that the club doesn't have a comms agenda to drive, doesn't drive it and is left exposed to what external journalists want to write. The SLP and NS will be more sympathetic. Articles such as the one in l'echo less so and so far more damaging.
Genuine question, as from what i can remember stories like that involving big clubs usually come through the UK media or press conferences.
But more often it is the club making statements or as you say having their own press conferences.
It was something that RD did a bit of when he first took over. The video's on the OS of RD, KM and RM but those have really tried up.
It doesn't have to be either/or and the bigger the club the easier to get a big media outlet to interview you.
It just seems we get next to nothing from KM on important issues on the OS and yet a lot from the SLP or other sources.
I suspect the only strategy of CAFC's clearly-overstretched comms team is to survive until the end of the day, which means it's very easy for the SLP's Richard Cawley to set the agenda, which he does very well.
I think in the recent past 'print journalism' has had a low priority, and a focus has been made of other social media.
I tend to go for a more mixed blend of 'media output', and come from a print background. So I guess I am biased.
Having come from an internal comms background, I was aghast that on RD and KM coming to CAFC there were no 'photo call'....
I am sure I would not have been the only person that would have been interested? . Certainly not the industry standard,
I do remember having quite a conversation with Jimmy Stone down at the Valley about that.
I think the comms team have had a hell of a time of it, over the past few years, under resourced, and lacking direction.
Ironic really I was complaining at my last job that they wanted to 'micro manage' even the most mundane PR event.
I remember the 'launch of the Academy', and I phoned Bradshaw, Varney, and others as well as the press office, they had not even covered it.
To me it was 'good news all round'..... a few days later in went on the site!
Matt and the team at the time were very supportive, I just went down to advise about the programme as a designer.
Ask Matt he emailed me and thanked me, as the other members of the team did. It was obvious then that it was a very difficult situation.
He even asked for a copy of it!..... Perhaps he was going to use it, but left a couple of weeks later.
I designed a mock up magazine that could have saved the club some money, next thing I know is that they replaced the printers!
Now, the print quality was not the issue, at least in my opinion, but it was a wasteful production, the other clubs printed a marginally smaller issue magazine,
not only did they have wastage of paper but the production was more costly. Bishops were not even allowed to match the price, for operational reasons'
Not sure what that means.
I think they have missed a valuable supplier that had supported them, and produced among many others the Arsenal, and the excellent Brighton magazine.
Frankly I found it irrational, but entirely consistent with the management of that department at the time........ Bradshaw.
When Matt Wright and then Gary Haines left the communications team we were promised a replacement Head of Comms as none of us were really ready for or indeed wanted that level of seniority.
We did our best, and improved certain aspects but, as you would expect, when key members of staff who are good at their jobs are lost and not replaced our output suffered.
I'd argue the same is happening now.
For those not aware, these talented three have left for great jobs and, despite a number of promises by different people, have never been replaced:
Matt Wright - Now Head of Content at International Institute for Environment and Development
Gary Haines - Now Sports PR Manager at Prostate Cancer UK
Iain Liddle - Now Partnerships Manager (News & Sport) at Twitter
Just on the Steve Bradshaw point - whether he acknowledged comms or not, he ripped up that team, made the place incredibly unpleasant to work all while making minimal improvement.
I still think it's more than possible he was brought in by TJ to cut the wage bill by systematically targeting people and making their working life incredibly unpleasant.
I still think it's more than possible he was brought in by TJ to cut the wage bill by systematically targeting people and making their working life incredibly unpleasant.
Yep my view Jimmy, which is why I declined to get involved with the website and other things at the club.
Summed up by Bradshaw's outburst in reception at barnie when the bbc were down at the Valley to give a comment about RD taking over CAFC with Ian Wallace. Not sure the BBC were too impressed as well, seeing that they had invited him!