I have been blogging for almost seven years. I remember when journalist (real journalists) hated on bloggers.  Bloggers were naive, they didn’t fact-check, they were sloppy, they had typos, the were amateurs, etc.

Bloggers would never amount to anything compared to a real journalist.

As my business grew I tried to get any notice from journalists so they could write about the amazing JibberJobber.  Really, I think JibberJobber revolutionized the job search.  I think JibberJobber changed the landscape and empowered job seekers in a way that was never done before. I think JibberJobber responded to the need of a professional transitioning regularly (ever few years), which was a new thing.

No journalist would touch it.  Well, a few touched it. I was delighted to get some air time on the NBC news in NYC.  That was awesome.  Oh yeah, US News and World report did a full page article on me, which was probably triggered from my LinkedIn book. Here and there someone picked up something, but in general no one would touch it.

I learned that journalists:

1. Care about sensational stuff, which is what sells papers,

2. Play to PR professionals. I didn’t have a 10k/month PR team behind me making those calls and tapping into their networks, which meant no journalist would spend time on me.

This week there has been a dramatic soap opera playing out where a journalist from the New York Times test drove a Tesla car, and then slaughtered the experience in the newspaper.

I didn’t pay any attention to it.  My only thought on briefly hearing about it was “maybe electric isn’t quite ready yet?  I know Elon is hustling to fix stuff… ”

No big deal.

Then, I saw a post on LinkedIn about how Tesla, with its blog, went head-to-head with the NYT.  This would have been unheard of seven years ago.

But Tesla SLAUGHTERED the credibility of the reporter, and the NYT (journalistic integrity?  Whatever).

How did they do it?

1. They had a platform.  They had a blog where they could write posts.  And they used this platform, with a built-in audience to respond to the horrible journalism of NYT. Do you have a platform?
2. They stayed calm.  If you read their response you know they were disappointed, and mad, but this was not an emotional gloves-off name-calling unprofessional post.  They took the higher road and kept the tone reasonable.  Otherwise people would have thought they were too emotional, trying to hide stuff, etc.
3. They used data. I think it’s brilliant how they could take every data point the journalist used and say “well actually, according to the data here’s what really happened.”  And they backed it up with charts/images.  Comparing the claims to the hard data (who knows if it was real data, but it sure looks good!).

It’s so good to see bloggers really stand up to what I call yellow journalism, which is my term to say “You really trust media?  Are you serious? Do you think for yourself?  The media has an AGENDA, folks, and they are bought!”

Here’s my question to you: if the NYT or whoever were to write about YOU or your company, do you have a platform where you can respond?  A blog, with a history and maybe even some readers, is a great platform.

Are you ready for that day?