The insurance industry has been plunged into crisis in the last two days on the strength of one newspaper article. Investigations have already begun into how the companies handle death benefits for the families of deceased soldiers. Did the insurance industry see this coming? Should they have seen it coming? The industry is absent from early reports, […]
Posted on July 30th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 209 Comments »
As more and more studies indicate, one should never underestimate the extent to which we can deceive ourselves. In this case, those who fake mental illness come to believe that they are ill. Self-deception has no limit. We can believe just about anything. This is why in PR work we need to rely on facts, […]
Posted on July 29th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 162 Comments »
News that the US military has been paying journalists in Afghanistan to write positive stories about America has been dismissed as PR. Actually it is propaganda, but the reporter who wrote the story cannot tell the difference. It is a reminder to PR practitioners that few understand what we do even yet. It is true […]
Posted on July 28th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 187 Comments »
This story is instructive. It is a report of the aftermath of a public affairs program that has stalled and might have failed. The utility industry spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress for a cap-and-trade system to handle climate change. Then last week, the Senate balked because the Democrats realized they don’t have […]
Posted on July 27th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 195 Comments »
In a none-too-subtle way, the board of BP has let it be known that it will throw over its CEO tonight and choose an American to run the company. This is a delayed response to a disaster that will define the company for the next 10 to 20 years or even longer. It has been […]
Posted on July 26th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 177 Comments »
At first glance it might appear that Shirley Sherrod, Old Spice, and Uniball have little in common. However, they do. Each have fallen foul to knee jerk commentary from people who haven’t taken the time to analyze, contemplate or find out the facts before casting “informed” judgment. It’s something we’ll all have to get used […]
Posted on July 23rd, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 28 Comments »
These long, insightful and brilliant comments from Google to the Federal Trade Commission on the future of news are essential reading for PR practitioners. Google recites the history of technological change and newspapers, points out what it is doing to help find new economic models for news gathering and dissemination and calls for reasonable business […]
Posted on July 23rd, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 161 Comments »
Will bloggers never learn? Tweet This Post
Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 226 Comments »
What is PR doing to take advantage of the e-book, now that it has entered the mainstream? It is a natural point of information distribution for PR. It can handle new information in just a few seconds of download. The information can be updated frequently. I can see consumer uses for PR materials related to […]
Posted on July 21st, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 189 Comments »
This story about media exhaustion and burnout in online journalism doesn’t mention PR. It should. A key job, of course, for PR practitioners is to make life easier for journalists when they report stories. We do the legwork that they don’t have time or access to do and in the process we win a place for […]
Posted on July 20th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 187 Comments »
