Trendspotting

After recent conversations with public relations professionals, journalists and others in the business world, I’ve identified the five trends that people say will help you get the ink you’ve been looking for – or that will help you better understand how the ground under public relations continues to shift. (Read more…)

Learning from a Century of Press Releases

On October 28, 1906, the Pennsylvania Railroad issued what is believed to be the first press release. The release was the idea of the company’s outside public relations counsel, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, and it revolutionized how companies and organizations delivered information to the public. And modern-day public relations professionals can still learn plenty from the story of that very first press release. (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…)

A Day Without PR People

Did you hear the news? Friday is Public Relations Appreciation Day — in Tucson, Arizona.

Mayor Bob Walkup made the declaration earlier this week to help celebrate a conference being held in The Old Pueblo by The Public Relations Society of America’s Western District. (Read more…)

Cast a Positive Spell with Your PR Magic

Twenty teachers in Hoboken, New Jersey could be out of jobs if the city’s Board of Education doesn’t find a way to pay their salaries out of a $56.3 million annual budget. At least one of those teachers could be spared the unemployment line if the Board wised up, took the $75,000 allocated for public relations spending and put it back into the general budget. (Read more…)

Bracing for a PR Season of Discontent

The summer is coming to a sad end as the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina is felt across the Gulf Coast. The headlines will, no doubt, be dominated by Katrina-related news for the next few weeks. (Read more…)