Mediaboss Marketing

Andrew Selby insists the pressure of heading into the London Games as one of Great Britains brightest boxing medal prospects is nothing compared to the torture being endured by his mother Frances on the sidelines.

Selby, from Barry, was crowned European champion last year and followed it up by winning a silver medal at the World Championships in Baku where he was beaten by a single point by Russias world number one Misha Aloian.

But Selby revealed his mother could not bear to watch any of it because she is terrified of seeing her two boys Selbys brother Lee is a professional and the reigning Commonwealth featherweight champion in action.

Selby told Press Association Sport: My mum watched me once years ago, but apart from that shes only ever seen me on TV. Ive persuaded her to come to London for the Olympics, and theres no doubt shell be under more pressure than me.

She did go and watch my brothers last fight and she survived, but she was really nervous.

Its really difficult for her to watch us box so Ive just got to make sure I win in a way that will keep her as calm as possible.

Selby battled weight-making issues for years and threatened to slide away from the British elite scene entirely after a hugely disappointing defeat to Amir Khans brother Haroon who was representing Pakistan in the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.

Selbys amazing turnaround has not come without its issues and the Welshman admits he is no stranger to nerves of his own particularly when his new-found profile means he become the inevitable subject of media scrutiny.

Selby added: Ive started to get used to the interviews now. Usually I would collapse if I saw a camera.

I still think getting in the ring is the easy part. Ive got experience of the big occasion and the fact its in London is not going to get to me at all.

Go here to read the rest:
Boxing: Mum's the word for Olympic hopeful Andrew Selby

This morning, however, there came a T-shirt U-turn. First, Jacques Rogge, the chairman of the International Olympic Committee, and then Hugh Robertson, the Olympics minister, said Pepsi T-shirts were fine. Mr Rogge was speaking on the Today programme; Mr Robertson was speaking at a press conference in the Olympic Park itself. Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi. All this free publicity was making me thirsty.

But in any case, both the minister and Lord Coe can surely afford to relax. As regular viewers of televised sport will know, cameramen are interested in only two types of spectator: i) obese Newcastle United fans in tears, and ii) fruity young women. Anyone outside those two categories can turn up with the Pepsi logo tattooed on their forehead, for all your average cameraman cares they wont make it on screen.

Mr Robertson, incidentally, is the last person youd expect to see in a Pepsi T-shirt. Formerly an officer in the Life Guards, he is smart but ruddy-cheeked, and looks the sort of man who is never entirely happy in anything other than an Army uniform or a Barbour jacket.

Pepsi aside, his message was that the Olympics will inspire people to take up sport something theyll certainly need to do after the Games, what with all the McDonalds, Coca-Cola etc that theyll have guzzled at the behest of the sponsors.

Bradley Wigginss triumph in the Tour de France, the minister said, should prove similarly inspirational. I absolutely think it can lead to an increase in participation. You know, more middle-aged men in Lycra. And, hopefully, some younger females as well

Mr Robertson was speaking on behalf of his boss, Jeremy Hunt, who was otherwise engaged at a meeting about Games security. Mr Hunt did find time, however, to appear on The World at One, where he informed listeners that, for Bradley Wiggins, no honour is too little. He must have meant it, because he said it twice.

I wonder what Britains littlest honour is. After all that Mr Hunt has done, it may well be the job of Culture Secretary.

Follow this link:
Olympics sketch: 'And now, a very rude word from our sponsors...'

Annie Dalton confirms that her great-niece, Veronica Moser, 6, was among those killed Friday's Colorado movie theater shootings.

By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

Updated at 3:39 p.m. ET: As victims and relatives began to return Saturday to the theater where a gunman killed 12 people in Aurora, Colo., a 6-year-old girl was confirmed to have been among the victims.

Veronica Moser, 6, died in the shooting rampage Friday morning, her great-aunt, Annie Dalton, told NBC News.

Fifty-eight other people were injured in the shootings. Twenty-eight remained in area hospitals Saturday afternoon, seven of them in critical condition. James Eagan Holmes, 24, a graduate student at the University of Colorado-Denver, was arrested outside the theater, clad in black body armor and armed with three weapons.

Veronica's mother, Ashley Moser, 25, was shot in the throat and the abdomen. She remains paralyzed in critical condition and hasn't been told of her daughter's death, Dalton said.

"This is just a nightmare right now," Dalton said. "It's a nightmare.

"Eveything's surreal. It's just surreal."

People who attended the midnight screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" were allowed to return to the theater Saturday to retrieve their automobiles, which were left behind during the evacuation and subsequent investigation. Some of them left flowers and flags as tributes.

Victims of Colo. shooting include sailor, aspiring sportscaster

View post:
Anxious for word of missing moviegoers, some families get the worst news

Is New Mexico a swing state again? Well, probably not.

Public Policy Polling released the presidential results of its poll in New Mexico. It showed that Barack Obama's lead over Mitt Romney is just five percent. This is closer to the razor-thin margins of Bush/Gore and Bush/Kerry than the blowout of Obama/McCain.

As with any poll in any race, you have to caution that it is just one poll. Looking at the average of all polls in a race will always be more accurate than relying on any one poll. If other polls start to show Romney closing the gap, then maybe New Mexico will move towards swing state status. But also expect it to mean those devastating ads tying Romney to Bain capital that have been helping Obama in other states will start showing up on news broadcasts in New Mexico.

One interesting thing to note about the poll -- it was of all New Mexico voters, not likely voters as other recent polls have been.

However, the fake document was dated Dec. 10, 2011, five days before the state auditors Dec. 15 deadline for the document.

Continued here:
Morning Word, 07-19-12

Its a diffuse target, but the campaign press corps writ large earns a dart this week for acquiescing to the scenario that Jeremy Peters describes in his much-discussed New York Times article, headlined Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back:

On the off chance you havent seen it yet, heres Peterss lead:

They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.

Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the presidents top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review.

The verdict from the campaignan operation that prides itself on staying consistently on scriptis often no, Barack Obama does not approve this message.

As Peterss story makes clear, this isnt strictly an issue with campaign coverage: similar practices are common in the Obama administration, as traditional background briefings become more encumbered by restrictions. (See Curtis Brainards story in the Sept/Oct 2011 CJR for more on that.) Nor is it just an issue with Obama: Peters reports that the Romney campaign routinely demands quote approval, too. But the fact that the practice is widespread makes it more frustrating, not less.

Before we get too high up on our horse: this isnt the greatest of journalistic sins, and its unlikely that any great journalistic pearls are being lost here. With or without quote approval, campaign insiders are generally disciplined pros who know how to push the candidates message. (Peters writes that reporters told him the editing never changed the meaning of a quote, and while we have to take their word for it, that seems plausible.) And as the excellent Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty noted in a Poynter chat, quote approval doesnt mean that reporters have to use the altered quotes, and it doesnt mean that reporters cant find other ways to report what they know. Meanwhile, when the media does get unscripted access to public officials, unenlightening gaffe-oriented coverage is often the result.

But the very pettiness of the changes is part of what makes the practice galling. One way to understand campaign coverage is as a contest over message control: campaigns trying to tell a particular story; news organizations trying to challenge, evaluate, and scrutinize it. Routine quote approval through the press office is basically the institutional expression of the campaigns exerting controloften, it seems, control for its own sake. Its worth pushing back on those grounds alone.

Read more:
A dart to the campaign press corps