Happy Tuesday! It’s already been a heavy media week, with impeachment hearings and the royal family drama, and we’re already almost halfway through January.
In this week’s news roundup we’re taking a look at media coverage of the Royals, the value of PR in the restaurant industry, and the rise of the nurse-influencer. Grab your salad—it’s still resolution season—and read through for some of the week’s most interesting stories.
Meghan vs. Kate: Media Coverage Comparison
One of the reasons Meghan Markle has given for pulling back from the royal family is unfair and biased coverage from the UK media. Buzzfeed looked into this, putting together a list of 20 stories from the royal rota, Britain’s royal correspondents, demonstrating the alarming double standard between press coverage of Meghan and Kate.
Think bridal bouquets could be a source of shame? Well, for Meghan Markle the Daily Express ran the headline “Royal wedding: How Meghan Markle’s flowers may have put Princess Charlotte’s life at risk” in 2019; but in 2011 when Kate was wed, the headline they ran was “Why you can always say it with flowers.” Read 19 more similar situations and then re-think Meghan’s decision to step back from the crown.
Viral TikTok Video Spurs Conversations About Bias in Medicine
Last week, an 18-second TikTok video went viral, showing a young nurse smiling, dancing and saying “The best way to prevent STDs is waiting for sex until marriage. Just the truth.” Her video received a lot of negative feedback, some towards nurses using videos to shame patients or doctors, but it also struck a chord regarding the larger prejudice in the medicine industry.
A Business Insider piece discusses how this supposed lighthearted video received such a strong backlash and started a conversation within a young audience on prejudice and biases in the medical industry. We may be in a time of the nurse influencer, with TikTok, Twitter and Instagram becoming tools for doctors to educate viewers on public health issues like sexual education.
Do Restaurants Need PR?
Hiring a PR firm is expensive, and for a new restaurant that is already battling high costs, a difficult choice to make. Do they need a publicist to get attention, and will it increase their business sales? The answer was a definite yes 15 years ago, but a recent Eater NY piece shows that traditional media outreach may not be enough anymore.
New platforms, like Yelp and Instagram, have opened up conversations between restaurants and potential customers. The creation of these new spaces enables dishes to go viral and restaurants to become the “hot” place to be, all before a mainstream publication even writes a review.
Has the power of food media diminished or just refocused? Restaurants are turning to publicists to do more than media relations. Publicists are helping them secure book deals, TV segments, and coordinate influencer outreach.
Another feat for publicists: major awards and “best of” lists. Publicists stage campaigns for restaurants to get them on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, a list voted by a group of people who can accept comped meals, travel and more. Publicists can help restaurants bring in the right people and build a strategy to move up on these lists. But to get a good review in the New York Times? Perhaps start with a good dish.
