Congressional Republicans have made a habit of ”snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” With their current game of chicken with the White House and Senate, they are doing it again. One must ask why politicians can be deaf to the public will. One also must ask why they are still being elected. Republicans claim […]
Posted on September 30th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 179 Comments »
Amazon.com is putting live video of its technicians on screen for users of its Kindle Fire HDX. This is a great PR idea if… if it works. The hardware part of the challenge is simple. The people part of the equation is where Amazon’s challenge lies. How long will a frustrated user have to wait […]
Posted on September 27th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 185 Comments »
The hardest thing for politicians to do is to say no to constituents. It hurts them at the ballot box and can end their careers. Yet, that is what is happening in cities across the US where excessive debt is forcing mayors to cut where they can. Some cuts are in pensions and benefits that […]
Posted on September 25th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 197 Comments »
To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. To a supporter of guns, every tragedy could have been averted had there been more guns. Such overly focused and unbalanced thinking lives in the National Rifle Association. The answer to every question is guns, more guns and more after that. The Association deserves credit […]
Posted on September 24th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 180 Comments »
It is hard to remember that civility is a veneer on the psyche of humans, an accepted and acceptable body of rules we voluntarily follow. It takes only one terrorist invasion of a fancy shopping mall in Nairobi to drive the truth home. PR depends on civility for efficacy. Its assumption is that one can […]
Posted on September 23rd, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 191 Comments »
American bridges need an estimated $3 trillion in repairs, according to a recent study, and in 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave America’s roads a D- rating. How do you convince citizens to budget for infrastructure repairs? It is a PR challenge that municipalities, counties, states and the Federal government will undertake for […]
Posted on September 20th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 46 Comments »
Discrimination on the basis of race can lurk anywhere and create a PR problem. Consider sororities at the University of Alabama. They are and have been whites only, either because they haven’t tried to recruit minorities or they don’t want them. Either way, it is a black eye for the university, which has taken a […]
Posted on September 19th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 46 Comments »
The media have a PR problem of their own — getting breaking stories wrong. The latest case was the misreporting of the Washington shooting incident where reporters couldn’t settle on either the number of shooters (only one), the weapon used (shotgun and pistol) and the number wounded or killed (13, including the shooter). This joins a line […]
Posted on September 18th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 184 Comments »
The Department of Defense is saying that it can’t fulfill Freedom of Information requests because its fax machine is broken and they can’t afford a new one for months to come. There are several questionable points to this excuse. 1) With the billions that the Defense Department spends, it is impossible to buy another fax […]
Posted on September 17th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 180 Comments »
When principal publics are against you, there isn’t much you can do except disappear. That is what happened to the supposed front-running candidate for the chair of the Federal Reserve. Liberal senators were opposed to Larry Summers and Wall Street wasn’t enthusiastic. Liberals held him in contempt for remarks about women made at Harvard. Wall […]
Posted on September 16th, 2013 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 191 Comments »
