Maintaining a Healthy Balance in the Public Relations/Journalist Relationship

It took me a few months to figure out her modus operandi. For four years, she called me once a month. It was always on the last Friday of the month, and always before lunch. We would chat for a few minutes I would ask a few questions; she would skirt around the answers. She would pitch me a story or two; I would sigh and act disinterested. Maintaining relationships with journalists is critical to long-term success in public relations. The journalist/public relations relationship must be fostered with trust and then fueled with consistent communication. Here’s a case in point. (Read more…)

Show Me the Money – Funding Alternatives in a Down Economy

Despite the fact that the government has thrown hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars at banks, many businesses are finding that credit markets are tight and in some cases virtually non-existent. Home-based, small and medium-sized businesses are being hurt most because they don’t have the currency – common or preferred stock, or debt – to raise cash. (Read more…)

Giving Up on Wal-Mart

Dumbstruck. That’s how I felt after reading Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the April 2nd edition of The New Yorker entitled “Selling Wal-Mart.”

“The Edelman team assigned to Wal-Mart, I learned, is divided into three groups: ‘promote,’ ‘response,’ and ‘pressure.’ The Jobs and Opportunity Zones notion came from the promotions team. The response-team members – veterans of political campaigns – are supposed to quickly counter criticism in the press or on the Web. The pressure group works on opposition research, focussing on the unions and the press,” Goldberg wrote. (Read more…)