Knut: How do I explain this to my clients?

Germany is a funny country. Actually, this is the wrong word, but German readers will understand. What I meant is “curious”. And due to this fact, an icepolar bear saved from death, named Knut, has been occupying the headlines for a week now. True, after five days it is mostly the boulevard covering the daily steps of the oh-so-cute bear, but last weekend he was all over the news. Primetime  evening news, frontpage picture of almost every newspaper, live coverage of his first steps in “freedom” on n-tv and N24, Germany’s equivalents to CNN.
While, thanks to whoever responsible, it did not happen to me this time around, I cannot imagine how I would explain this to my clients. Naturally, in the planning of an event/press conference you explain to them, “well, if something unexpected happens, your news could not get covered” (assuming you actually have “news”). However, one usually has the surprising outsourcing of 10000 workers at a stock-noted company in mind, international crises, or natural disasters.
So how do you explain to your clients that their news was not covered because a saved icepolar bear looks cuter on TV? And what does it say about the German news landscape? Is old media already so close to death that infotainment is the only way to go?

Technorati Tags: knut, pr, crisis

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