Khe Sanh

A little-noted passage in President Obama’s Inaugural Address perhaps served to close an important chapter in our nation’s history.

Citing American battlefield victories to highlight the bravery and define the sacrifices made on our behalf by previous generations, the President said, “For us, they fought and died in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.”

The first three battles are well known to Americans, but the inclusion of Khe Sanh may well have been the first time that a Vietnam-era battle was included with the others – certainly in such a high-profile setting.

Forty-one years ago today the Marines at Khe Sanh stood their ground and won a savage 10-week battle there. Like Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the Chosin Reservoir, every Marine knows the story of Khe Sanh. It is another example of why the Marines are the Marines.

Khe Sanh was a base, with a dirt airstrip, in the northernmost reaches of South Vietnam. In January 1968, a few days before the Tet Offensive, the Marines at Khe Sanh were surrounded and attacked by tens of thousands of communist troops. The base was subject to an artillery barrage that hit the ammo dump and made the airfield – which the Marines relied on for resupply – completely unusable.

Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese advanced towards the perimeter of Khe Sanh, crawling through tunnels and trenches covered by jungle, drawing the noose tighter around the base. Finally, after two months, with the Marines still holding on and a relief force making slow progress, the communist troops retreated into the jungle under a blistering air and artillery bombardment. On April 8, the Marines and the relief force linked up near Khe Sanh.

President Obama’s inclusion of Khe Sanh with these other hallowed examples reflects his generational outlook that perhaps now is a good time to bring down the curtain on the proxy fights left over from the 1960s – battles that have overshadowed the last 30 years of American politics, and still echo in today’s debates about Iraq and Afghanistan. Looming over it all, the question: “Where did you stand on Vietnam?”

To his credit, the President moves beyond the political to a higher level of basic truth – that the bravery and sacrifices made in Vietnam are part of an American tradition that began at Concord, was confirmed at Gettysburg and reaffirmed at Normandy.

President Obama‘s careful, thoughtful style reflects a deep understanding of the power of words. He deliberately included Khe Sanh in the Inaugural to deliver the same message he sent by visiting Baghdad yesterday: The politics and noise that come with our democracy should never obscure the noble character of those who serve to protect it. And further, that the Marines at Khe Sanh, and everyone who served in Vietnam, should take their rightful, historic place alongside those who came before – and after.


Posted by David Preston

Coverage of Coverage

We’ve always said that landing good stories on behalf of our clients is just the beginning of good PR. Once the piece appears, we immediately seek an even wider audience by creating “ripples in the pond.” One way to do that is to push for “coverage of coverage.”

You may remember Juliet Vongphoumy, who calls our client, the Button Hole golf center, her “home club.” Last summer, the (then) high school freshman beat all the boys to win the state high school golf championship. We pitched Juliet’s story to Sports Illustrated, and she was recently highlighted in SI’s kids edition. Good coverage.

Then we let the Providence Journal know that Juliet had been in SI Kids, and there it is – coverage of coverage.

You might even say that with this blog, we’ve created coverage of coverage of coverage. And that’s the whole idea –to initiate not just a story, but a conversation.

If a good news item about you, your company or your organization is published, here are some easy ways to create ripples on your own:

• Post it on your website.
• Link to it (either the original source or its mention on your website) from your social networking sites.
• Create an e-mail vehicle to friends, clients and prospects with the link included.

Then get the conversation going.


Posted by David Preston

The Fate of Newspapers

For hundreds of years, newspapers have traditionally been a favorite medium for getting out important public information, advertising or news about local business. So we never take it lightly here at New Harbor Group when a paper folds or makes major cutbacks. Unfortunately, we’re seeing more and more of that these days.

For example:

- The Providence Journal recently announced its employees can expect 74 layoffs.

- Next door in Connecticut, the Hartford Courant said it will be letting go approximately 100 employees.

- On the other side of the country, The Rocky Mountain News just closed, much to the distress of many regular readers. And that is surely an indicator of what’s to come.

(Combined age of these newspapers? 575 years. Lesson? Adapt, or else.)

From Philadelphia to San Francisco, presses across the country are in danger of grinding to a halt, forcing PR companies like us to reassess how to adapt to the changing news media landscape.

While we’ll always have a soft spot for print, and will continue to give newspapers a chance as long as they stick around, we are telling all our clients that they have no other choice but to join us in exploring other mediums.

Internet. Online video. Blogs. Social networking. Virtual news feeds. Mobile devices. These are not going away, and are probably only in their infancy in terms of potential for reaching audiences and disseminating information to the public quickly and effectively.

If anything, the downfall of newspapers has shown us the not-so-surprising destiny of any industry that’s not willing to take chances and embrace new technology. The Rocky Mountain News was an outstanding news product with many loyal readers in its community and beyond, but something about its culture or business model resisted the changes required to adapt to new readership habits and refused to meet the needs and the wants of the customer.

Sure, some newspapers have been trying to establish a reputable online presence, and many have succeeded quite well. But is it too little, too late? And how does a newspaper make money on-line? Whatever the answer, we‘re watching and learning from the struggles of the news business, and are poised to pass them on to our clients .

We are committed to perfecting new tools and communicate to the public in a way that works best for our clients. More and more, that means stressing to our clients the vital importance of reaching their audience with the most cutting-edge techniques.

Will your ad go further on page D-12 of the local paper, or on the Facebook pages of everyone who lives in the target community? Do you want to print your news release … or Twitter it? Maybe both.


Posted by David Preston

Advice for Captain Sully

“Sully” is now a household name, but what about the man behind the moniker?

The pilot who so gracefully brought down an engineless plane into the Hudson River on a frigid January afternoon without a single passenger casualty now has to grapple with an avalanche of book offers, interview requests, media pitches and fan mail. The hardest part (safely crashing a plane onto the river) might be over, but surviving all the attention will be its own type of challenge.

We’re not too worried about whether the oh-so-calm Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger can maintain his cool in the spotlight, but we do have some advice. (While we wouldn’t know the first thing about safely evacuating a waterlogged plane, dealing with public attention is what we do.)

America’s favorite pilot should take some time to think about his own personal and career goals, and take advantage of this newfound opportunity to pursue them. Is he thinking about retirement? A book deal could be a good money-making project to keep him busy after a lifetime of flying. Sully is a brand now, a brand that represents integrity and heroism. He can use that to pursue his goals, whether that means writing a book, growing his consulting company or holding himself out as a public speaker. Maybe he wants to raise money for a favorite charity, in which case the now-trusted Sully face could certainly go far.

Whatever he puts his mind to, we would strongly recommend that he maintain that apparently well-developed sense of dignity and humility above all else. That’s what’s appealed to folks so far, after all, and nobody likes to see a nice guy get full of himself once the cameras roll. In a country dealing with an epic financial crisis, eight years of diminished stature on the world stage, Bernie Madoff and a heaping daily dose of lurid celebrity news, people are thirsting for somebody they can trust. Even Obama can’t claim that he’s saved 155 lives.

Unlike many celebs or CEOs who make headlines, Sully actually has a pretty darn good approval rating in the public’s eye, so he can use that to his advantage. A true “Captain of the Ship,” he walked the aisle twice as the plane was taking in water and everybody else was out on the wings, just to make sure nobody got left behind. The Sully brand epitomizes a cool professionalism, modesty, ethics and class. The most important thing now is to guard that brand at all costs. Think carefully about who you give interviews to, Cap’n. Don’t let your story get over-hyped or slide out of your control. And don’t worry about saying enough is enough to the media after giving a few interviews. Leave them wanting more.

That way they’ll go out to buy the book or hear you speak or sign up for your consulting services or come to your fundraiser.

Posted by Hillary Rhodes