Arrington Gets Spat On, Gets Death Threats

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington reports that media relations has gone to a whole new level of bad: he was spat upon this week and was the subject of a death threat last summer.
Serious stuff, and seriously out-of-bounds, it goes without saying. Arrington writes a blog, for godsakes. Yes, it is influential, but no company’s life or [...]

How to Get Book Authors on NPR

Here’s a first-rate tip from the recent Bulldog Reporter webinar I moderated on building relationships with journalists:
The question was this: how can unknown authors, and their publicists, get on prime NPR shows like “All Things Considered”? Answer: create a relationship with NPR Senior Producer Ellen Silva, who produces the “You Must Read This” segment and [...]

Blagojevich PR Blitz is a Laughable Farce

With imbeciles like Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich using media relations tactics to try to influence the outcome of his impeachment trial, PR gets another black eye.
Yes, there are many times when you should go on the offensive, make yourself available to the press, and try to sway public opinion
to your cause. In fact, it’s really [...]

SEC Looking into Apple's Comms

Update on my earlier post about the lame job being done by Apple and its board regarding Steve Jobs’ illness: according to Bloomberg, the SEC is looking into Apple’s recent disclosures “to insure investors weren’t misled.”

Pitching wire services is always a key media relations tactic

News wire services are still alive and reasonably well: AP, Reuters, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and so on. They were never directly reliant on advertising revenue for survival (though their customers were/are), and they have found new life on the Internet, where their 24/7 service dovetails perfectly with the web’s insatiable need for news.
The care and [...]

Apple's Board Must Take Charge of Communications NOW

Enough is enough. Steve Jobs may be a legend, Steve Jobs may be personally responsible for virtually all the value that has ever been created by Apple, and Steve Jobs may run the company with an iron fist.
But enough is enough. If the men and women who are the independent directors of Apple Inc. do [...]

Show a little love to build blogger relations

News bloggers who are competing on a minute-by-minute basis with other blogs — such as the feverish competition among technology gadget blogs — are always hungry for an exclusive, or at least to the get the news about a new product a few minutes before the competition.
So the next time you have a story such [...]

Is PR Being Infested With Ex-Journalists?

Every day, it seems, there are fresh reports of journalists hungrily moving over into PR for the paycheck. Still, the attitude about PR from the media never changes. Even as their friends go into PR, know-nothing journalists continue to lambast the profession. I know why, of course: because we have almost no professional standards of [...]

Sweet Publicity Stunt by Ben & Jerry

Leave it to the Vermont hippie ice cream company to nail the ultimate PR publicity stunt playing off Obama’s inauguration: for the month of January, good ‘ol butter pecan ice cream will be known as “Yes Pecan” ice cream.
I love it.

The lesson here [assuming there is one] is that for a publicity stunt to work, [...]

Pitch perfect media interview by Hyundai CEO

For an example of a corporate spokesman giving a great media interview, check out the interview of Hyundai CEO John Krafcik on All Things Considered last week. Krafcik was on NPR to tout Hyundai’s Assurance Plan, under which consumers can return the car during the first year if they lose their job.
The write-up doesn’t do [...]

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