Wed
Jan 21 2009
04:41 pm
MEDIC Issues Emergency Appeal: Regional Blood Center is out of O-Positive, Critically Low on Other Types
By: MoxleyCarmichael

MEDIC Regional Blood Center today issued an emergency appeal for donations of all blood types.

MEDIC is currently back-ordered on O-positive blood, the most common blood type, and area hospitals have a below-minimum supply. If hospitals deplete their inventories, MEDIC has nothing to send them.

MEDIC officials say it is critical to replenish the blood center’s supply.

“We urge all eligible blood donors to come out and give,” said Jim Decker, chief executive officer of MEDIC Regional Blood Center. “This is also a great time for first-time donors to really make an impact on the community.”

While the need for O-positive is most critical, MEDIC is seeking donations of all blood types. O-negative blood is always needed because it is the universal blood type and most often used during emergency situations when blood type is not known.

In Knox County, MEDIC is accepting donations at its downtown location at 1601 Ailor Avenue or in Farragut at 11000 Kingston Pike. For blood drives in other counties, call 865-524-3074 or visit (link...).

Donors must have positive identification, be at least 17 years old and weigh at least 110 pounds. There is no upper age limit for donating blood.

Full details here - (link...)

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Nelle's picture

Why r u shouting?

Submitted by Nelle on Wed, 2009/01/21 - 6:01pm.

I hear there's also a local shortage of CAPITAL LETTERS. Sheesh.

MoxleyCarmichael's picture

Sorry

Submitted by MoxleyCarmichael on Thu, 2009/01/22 - 1:34pm.

Copy-Paste bit me that time. My apologies for the caps. Edits made.

Stick Thrower's picture

stuffing the internets with spam

Submitted by Stick Thrower on Thu, 2009/01/22 - 5:08pm.

We have "astroturfing," "greenwashing," "viral marketing" and a few other terms to describe phony or deceptive corporate shillery, but has anyone yet coined a term for the practice of blatantly posting press releases on blogs?

If not, I'd like to propose the term "progging" for PR-blogging. The existing definition is somewhat appropriate.

I'm astounded that a public relations firm is openly posting this stuff. Press releases work very efficiently for the lazy, traditional media--which chews on them a little then spits them right back out adding a thin film of journalistic credibility for their audience--but they seem jarringly poseur as blog posts. The links directly to the firm's website and posting under the firm's name could be, I suppose, an effort for transparency, but it actually comes across as a little bit of stealthy, bonus self-promotion, IMHO. Then there's the obvious spinning for Pilot, KUB, U.S. Cellular...

Mostly I'm just disappointed at the lack of creativity. For the not-for-profit PSA's, if there was at least a shred of effort expended to appear as if they were written by an interested, connected, concerned (i.e., "real") citizen, instead of... well, instead of being copied and pasted directly from press releases by the P.R. firm that generated them, they'd be more believable and effective. (Harder to quantify and invoice though, I suppose.) For what it's worth, there was actually an excellent example of how the blood drive appeal ought to be "faked" *right here*, over at BlountViews a while back.

Maybe it's not a big deal, and perhaps it's more ingenuous to just get the information straight from a public relations firm, but it sure seems like cheating trying to mainline right into a blog. In the example above, assuming Forrest_Erickson from BlountViews.com is a "real" person who happened to hear about the blood drive on NPR and felt compelled to post about it, I'd consider that some legitimately successful public relations, since it's quite likely that MoxleyCarmichael sent out a press release that day and WUOT picked it up and aired it. But, the copy/paste technique just taints the message and makes people suspicious, so you might as well just leave the "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" on the top.

R. Neal's picture

Thanks for the comments and

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2009/01/22 - 7:45pm.

Thanks for the comments and feedback. Others have mentioned similar concerns in email. The PR blogging, which was allowed as a courtesy, will be discontinued.

Pam Strickland's picture

Yeah, let them keep their

Submitted by Pam Strickland on Thu, 2009/01/22 - 10:21pm.

Yeah, let them keep their own blog if that's what they want. On the other hand, things such as the blood supply needs are something that it's nice to know about -- it got me over there after much too long away.

But most of that other stuff, nope, don't need it.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

Bird_dog's picture

Does anyone know how Medic really works?

Submitted by Bird_dog on Fri, 2009/01/23 - 8:40pm.

I'm O- and have given blood for years, but I've heard about very high exec salaries and perks at Medic. So I'm wondering if they are allowed to sell blood outside their region, what's to keep them from manufacturing a crisis? Sorry to be so cynical about a good organization....

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