Obama is Blowing the Health Care PR Battle
I’m stunned by the amateur approach of Obama and his White House team to the PR aspects of health care insurance reform. While the opponents of the plan have done a masterful job of ginning up opposition to change, the White House has been caught napping and clueless. I kept waiting to see if the [...]
Teens Don't Twitter, Do They?
Twitter is all the rage now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the CB radio of the Internet era. CB radio was all the rage in the early 70s and for a year or two, it seemed like it would be with us forever. Besides truckers, how many people do [...]
Rachel Maddow Deftly Injects Anti-Racism Into the National Mainstream
Racism has been one of the greatest stains on the American experiment and remains an insidious and destructive force in today’s society. The election of Barack Obama has done two things: 1) it has shown that a majority of the electorate is now ready and willing to trust a non-white as the nation’s President and [...]
Pitching Business Media Is Getting Tougher and Tougher
One of the untold stories of PR over the last quarter century has been the great rise in business journalism, from a media backwater to a front-and-center element of the media. It just so happens that I had a front-row seat for this transformation, as I entered business journalism in 1981 as part of the [...]
Yahoo's CEO Shows the Big Boys How It's Done
Nice to see some refreshing candor from Yahoo’s newish CEO, Carol Bartz. At the hipper-than-thou D Conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, Bartz stage-whispered the f-bomb at media high priestess Kara Swisher, not a direct shot but definitely a signal that she was to be taken seriously. Then, at the same conference, she interrupted [...]
Go Ahead – Coin That New Word
In the PR game, words really matter. The well chosen or well-coined word can really change the discussion, raise awareness and influence decision-making. Too often, we in PR fall back on old words, and as a result, we send the signal that we only have old things to say. Not good. So go ahead and [...]
New York Times Bloggers Dish With PR Pros
Three New York Times writers/bloggers sat down for a lively panel discussion on the second day of the Media Relations Summit in NYC: Andrew Ross Sorkin of DealBook, Saul Hansell of Bits, and Tara Parker-Pope of Well. Following are notes from each: Hansell: Interested in: spot news, little things, debates, interactive features, news analysis and [...]
Dan Abrams Update: My "Journalists" Are Really Freelancers And the Like
As previously discussed here, I’ve been quite skeptical about whether MSNBC’s Dan Abrams had a viable business plan when he created his Abrams Research, a new PR shop that claims to use working journalists as corporate communications consultants. Dan is speaking this morning at the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit, so I’ve got some fresh [...]