Can Public Relations Pros Prevent Blogs from “Brand Hijacking”?

The purpose of a personal blog is to provide a forum where its writer can complain, praise, and pontificate. A lone personal blog is one of perhaps millions out there, but like everything else out there on the internet, what’s written on even a personal blog has a sense of permanence. As anyone with a website knows, drawing traffic to a new property is a difficult proposition. Most people who read my personal blog seem to be one-time visitors. (Read more…)

Disturbing News Cycle Has Its Lessons

The news cycle over the past week or so has been disturbing, to say the least.

The unraveling of Don Imus’ career showed the power of advocacy groups, the 24/7 media and the free markets. The dismissal of charges against three Duke University student-athletes proved how people can manipulate the media and how the media can rush judgment. Meanwhile, the senseless mass murder at Virginia Tech University has brought up questions about insensitive over-coverage and the role of citizen journalists. These events have many things in common – race, class and age being the most obvious. These events also have the worst common denominator — victims. (Read more…)