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And in this Corner, Wearing Blue Trunks...
Some bosses are convinced that journalists are out to get them. Good flacks educate those bosses that journalists are instead usually just out to get a good conflict. After all, without a conflict, there ain't no story, at least one that anybody would want to read. And no reporter ever wants to have a story returned to them with an editor's note saying, "Where's the tension?"
There are several conflict archetypes in business news including:
Troubled Company vs. The Odds
Successful Company vs. No More Low-Hanging Fruit
Turn-Around Artist vs. The Old Guard
Renegade vs. The Stodgy Industry
Capitalism vs. Government
Management vs. Labor
That Crook vs. The Rest of Us
But the real workhorse when it comes to conflict is:
Competitor vs. Competitor.
In fact, the October 1 issue of Fortune rides that horse hard, often using sports metaphors as the saddle.
A short piece entitled "Fortune 500 Pennant Race" notes that traditional rivalries are reheating: Pepsico vs. Coca-Cola, McDonald's vs. Burger King, P&G vs. Unilever, and VISA vs. MasterCard.
David Kirkpatrick's "MySpace Strikes Back" story ledes with "Facebook, Schmacebook," and is visualized with a Facebook computer screen arm-wrestling a MySpace computer screen.Shridan Prasso's "India's Pizza Wars" story grabs at us with "Two American fast-good giants, Pizza Hut and Dominoes are duking it out...."
Even the "CheatSheet" feature can't resist handicapping "Sun Valley vs. Burning Man."
Most companies hate being tethered to another, wanting -- like a celebrity's teenager -- to be seen just for who they are. The larger or more-established of the two foes will particularly resist such binary stories, sneering that they will never "manage the business by looking in the rear-view mirror." If the rival is much smaller or newer, it will often embrace the conflict, seeking to use the comparison to raise its competitive profile.
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