Public Relations Basics: Do Your Research

As a journalist, it wasn’t often that I listened to a public relations pitch. But then there were times when I was three hours from deadline and I still didn’t have a story. During one of those crunch times, I checked my voicemail and there was a new message from a public relations rep named Alyssa Shelasky, pitching me on a story that I would normally ignore. But Alyssa got me interested in a very easy way: she did her research. (Read more…)

A Matter of Trust for the Public Relations Industry

I cannot imagine what Nina Devlin is going through right now. Last week, her husband Matthew Devlin, a former broker at Lehman Brothers, was charged by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission with violating insider trading laws. According to the SEC complaints, Matthew Devlin had spent the last several years tipping off friends and colleagues about mergers and acquisitions, and trading on this information. The details of the charges relate the sickening way that Matthew Devlin got his inside information. And the Devlin case highlights dangers faced by those in the public relations industry. (Read more…)

The Long, Hot Summer

The only thing hotter than the weather is the water that Mel Gibson is in.

I’ll get to Gibson shortly, but I’d first like to bask in the glow of my recent vacation, part of which was spent reading, “Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story,” a book about the implosion of Enron by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald. (Read more…)